But as someone else wrote on this website, she is not just a hoarder.
She is my mother.
I love her, and I grieve that she has
suffered with this condition for years.

A daughter and only child of a hoarder.

This story was sent in anonymously to our website on 11/30/06:

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Now that I've quit crying, maybe I can tell my story. I am an only child, the daughter of a hoarding mother who is now over ninety years of age and living in a nursing home. Because my husband and I had to purchase her home of over fifty years while getting her on Medicaid, we now own her decades' old collection of stuff. The house is several hundred miles from our home, so working on it to prepare it for sale isn't easy.

During the last year or so, I've made several trips there with either a friend or my husband to sift and sort through the piles. It's like an archeological dig; the top stuff is most recent, and the deeper you go the older it gets. If it came into the house, it never went out--whether it was a plastic butter tub, a brand new set of towels, or a worn out
girdle. The only thing that did go out, thankfully, was most actual garbage. But the canning jars full of things she canned in the 1950s and 1960s were still there in the basement. So were the commercially canned products so old that the bottoms had rusted out or the contents had evaporated. So were the packages of cake mix, pudding mix, pancake
mix, and who knows what else so old they didn't even have expiration dates!

As I work in the dingy, musty, mildewy atmosphere, my sense of entrapment returns. I remember as a child feeling trapped. I couldn't invite my friends inside to play with me. That wasn't so bad in the summer when we could play outside, but the winters were long and lonely. I vaguely remember when most of the living room was usable, when most of the
dining room was fit for use, but I also remember as little by little, bag after bag and box after box consumed the floor space, the unused chairs at the table, the kitchen couter, the upstairs hallway, the bedroom floors, the basement . . . Although the mess was embarrassing, I accepted it as normal--for us--though no one else I knew had a house quite
like that. And, after all, you didn't talk about it with anyone. It was our secret.

Now, as the only child cleaner-upper, I pick up a plastic bag and untie it. Inside is another and maybe a third. Finally, I find the bundle of envelopes held together by a rotting rubber band. Each envelope contains a stub from a bill paid in 1992 or 1985 or 1961 or 1951 or earlier. Between the envelopes are several expired cents-off coupons. Ah, what's this! A bank envelope containing six pennies, two dimes, a nickel, and a five dollar bill. And, invariably, on the back of one of those envelopes is a list of every item my mother had purchased on a
particular shopping trip--complete with exactly what each thing had cost.

If you've been there, you don't need me to go on describing the piles of clothes, the stacks of magazines, the yard sale finds complete with their masking tape price tags. You don't need me to tell you about the clothing in the closets, clothing two, three, four or more decades old in closets that weren't opened for two or more decades, because you couldn't open the door because of the piles.

If you've been there, you understand the emotions as you uncover family pictures stuck in old magazines you almost threw our without opening. You understand the boxes of greeting cards your mother purchased with every intention of sending, but that sat for so long that they are yellowed beyond use. You understand the mouse-nibbled packages of flower seeds from the 1960s. You understand. And if you are an only child, you understand the sens of weariness that washes over you as you try to undo in a few days' time what was hoarded for over half a century.

And, you understand the sense of triumph when you can actually vacuum a portion of carpet that hasn't been vacuumed for at least twenty years. You understand the satisfaction of watching the trash men take away the long line of trash bags you put out on the curb.

Speaking of trash bags . . . we've been using the contractor grade bags that hold forty or so gallons. To date, from this one small house, we've put out at least 190 bags, plus boxes, baskets, and bundles. A conservative estimate is that we've discarded over three tons of trash.

The emotions hit again, when Mom, whose mind is still sharp, asks what I'm doing with her stuff. She doen't object to my bringing things I want to my own home--some good dishes, new towels, and such. I don't think she minds my giving other useful items to friends or charity. But she simply struggles to comprehend how we can label any of her things as
junk.

And in the nursing home the hoarding continues. Drawers are stuffed with packages of creamer (she doesn't even drink coffee), sugar, sweetener, salt, papper--off her tray. Newspapers cover her bedside tray. If someone brings or sends her flowers, the dead blossoms remain on the window sill until a friend, nurse, or I get the nerve to toss them.
And on and on it goes.

But as someone else wrote on this website, she is not just a hoarder. She is my mother. I love her, and I grieve that she has suffered with this condition for years. I'm learning not to try to change her, not now, for it's too late. The lesson here is compassion for her and vigilance for me, lest I become a hoarder as I age.

A daughter and only child of a hoarder.