Cassandra 10/4/06

Hi, I just joined the group. I found the link to the website in the Wikipedia article about hoarding. (I do a lot of work on Wikipedia.) Brindle invited me to chat and recommended I join the Yahoo group as well and here I am! Wow, I am so glad you're here.

I just watched the "My Mother's Garden" movie trailer and am still in shock, especially seeing a rotting fridge just like my mom's and reading the director's statement about having "a deep need for a stabilizing center for our family, a permanent place to call home." That made me cry. That cuts to the heart of what I have been longing for all these years. So I will try to summarize my experience with my hoarder, but I'm sure you know how hard it is to do. I'm 39 and my brother is 41. Mom is 71. After my parents divorced when I was five, our house went from cluttered to habitrails to can't see the floor. None of my friends could come over and they wondered about this. "But our house is messy. How bad can it be?" Bad. The hot water heater broke and the house was too "messy" to let a repair person in (nor did my mother budget properly for repairs). We couldn't use the baseboard heaters (fire hazard). And there was some problem with a leaking supply pipe under the lawn or somewhere which meant we had to keep the water turned off a lot of the time to save on the water bill.

After we moved out the house just got worse and worse. The fridge broke and the clutter is as high as the stove. Mom feeds herself using a microwave, takeout and a small fridge out in the garage. The house and garage (about 1400 sf, total) are at least waist high throughout, mostly papers, books, and magazines but everything else under the sun too. The front door hasn't been able to be opened in years, and the back door, which she has to climb in the window to get in the house, is broken and garbage is spilling out of the house and down the steps. Someone has complained to the city two times now and she has managed to make everything look OK from the outside. I feel it is only a matter of time before it gets more serious. Like freakshow local news story serious. The only maintenace she has done on the house in 35 years is to keep the roof repaired.

She saw the Oprah show about hoarding and recognized herself. Except now she uses it to defend herself. In her favorite nasty, back-off or you're dead tone: "I know I have OCD, but..." She is talking about moving to a senior apartment in the spring and is trying to get rid of stuff. When I initiated a conversation about how to accomplish this, she would focus on really weird details ("Do you want that green bedspread that's in the linen closet"?) or stop listening to me. Later she accused me of "trying to get her thrown out of her house." She has also been feeding feral cats for several years and now has a colony of about 20, plus two of her own. So after years of searching high and low for some way to help this strong-willed, intelligent, functional in society, not hurting anyone, harmless kooky old cat lady and getting thwarted at every turn, I gave up. (Where were you when I needed you?! LOL) I also realized my efforts to help were partly so I could heal and reclaim what I see as my home too, plus try to get my mom to recognize how capable I am. I also developed a healthy fantasy of just burning the whole thing down. And Brindle said I'm not crazy, 'cos she does the same thing! :D OK, not such a short intro, but I'm sure you all understand.

I'm looking forward to being here! Oh, and when my house is clean, it's very very clean and when it's messy, it's horrid (especially my kitchen). But I'm ruthless about getting rid of stuff I don't use or no longer like, and only have certain areas of collecting. I watch the tendency to become my mother very carefully.
Thanks for listening! Cassandra

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From Catfluff: July 11 2006

Everything looks good on the outside. Hair done, nails done, makeup done, clothes pressed, jewelry on, squeaky clean white tennis shoes. In fact, my mother doesn't come out until everything looks perfect which is usually on Tuesday when she gets her hair done. She's always been a perfectionist and is never on time anywhere. But the package you see with her is not the package you get. When I was growing up our house was clean, neat and tidy. Later in life, she and my dad moved and lived an hour and a half away in a small town. I used to visit, spending weekends sipping iced tea on their porch. In fact, I held a surprise 50th birthday party for her . . . in her house!

She's 66 now. She's always been an antique collector and lover of nostalgia, but the 100 yr. old house looked good in 1990. After I married in 1988(I'm an only child), I noticed things changing. At first she would say, "Don't come this weekend, maybe next weekend." Then the "don't come this weekend" changed to "don't come this month" to "maybe you can come after the Fall", etc., etc. During this time period which spanned for years, she would visit from time-to-time, always looking perfect and taking an hour to unload her "weekend" necessities out of her car. She would say she's coming for the weekend, and end up staying a week. She would lie on my couch all day and not shower the whole week. Okay . . . . fast forward 13 years . . . . . I had not been in my mother's house in that amount of time.

We had huge fights over the phone over this. Her response was always the same, "What's so important about coming to my house?" I would ask my dad about it and one day he told me there are paths to walk through the house. After 30 yrs. of marriage, my dad divorced her and this man who had never been sick was stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease and died. In the dead of winter, the plumbing in her house went out (house was on well and septic). She actually let someone in from another town to fix it. He charged her with a big bill and didn't fix anything. My husband and I got involved, talked to the contractor and my mother didn't pay the ridiculous bill. Anyway, I guess her depression in the winter got worse, she didn't know who to call to fix the water, and she went without any running water from eight months. I offered to pay and send a plumber, but we ended up fighting on the phone and hanging up on each other. She kept telling me I was over reacting.

It was about this time that I truly felt that I was going to discontinue any communication with my mother. I was fed up with constantly fighting with her about everything. I was 43, my children had never been to their Nana's house, she was without running water and wouldn't get someone in to make repairs and I was DONE. Then came DIVINE INTERVENTION. An old friend of my mother's called me out of the blue and said she had been trying to reach my mom. She wanted to know if everything was okay. I told her what was going on, that I hadn't been in the house in over 13 years, that there was no running water, and that I was DONE. Well, she called me back, and said that with my blessing, she and their other two friends were going to pay a visit. Oh my! What would my mother do? This was huge! So they did. They surprised my mother and from what they told me, my mother broke down.

They told me, "You can't imagine how your mother is living." Then, they gave her a deadline to clean things up enough to let a contractor in to repair the well/plumbing. They made a few phones calls to her asking how she's coming along and of course they got the same feedback that I've gotten for years, that she's "working on it".

Then came THE INTERVENTION: After three months and the deadline passed, we (me and her friends), showed up at her door at 9:00 a.m. to "help" clear a path. After a few hours of "trying" to sort through things and make some sort of order out of it, my mother, who has violent tendencies, snapped. She was becoming more and more hostile and made a gesture as if she was going to throw a heavy bowl at me. That's when we contacted the authorities. She was escorted to a hospital, we sat there with her for many, many hours and after we left at about 1:00 a.m. because they were "taking care of her", the hospital released her to her house at 3:00 a.m. It was ridiculous and the worst day of my life. My mother, who had threatened suicide when I was in my teens, just experienced the worst day in her life and I thought for sure this would do her in.

Then, the Divine Intervention part of it continued. She got scared because the Board of Health became involved, and contacted a few of her close friends. Her secret was out. No one had been in the house. As for her other friends, the ones that went in with me, she hasn't spoken to them since. That was two years ago. She wants nothing to do with them and we don't ever talk about it. I call those friends angels on earth.

Anyway, her close friends organized a flea market in her home and ended up selling $8,000 worth of stuff. Lots of antiques. Can you imagine, the whole town came through her house! The big, old house she was living in had gaping holes in the roof, buckets to catch the water and water damaged plaster. Part of the electricity was out and her refrigerator wasn't working so she used a cooler. The toilet was sitting on a sloped floor that looked as if it was about to collapse. When her close friends came in, a few minor adjustments were made and viola! There was running water. Then, someone in the town wanted to buy the house as is. The deal was $40,000 cash and no inspections.

So my mother, who never had any money (well except for what she spent at garage sales and Goodwill), was handed $40 grand plus the $8,000 for the sale of her items. She moved to the town I'm living in. It's a much smaller place. It's an old house, she rents the lower half and a guy rents upstairs. But, as we all know, the behavior doesn't change. I've only been inside a few times and now, she won't allow me and the kids in. To be honest, the last time I was in I really wanted to leave but pretended that nothing was wrong. Our conversations are always the same, she's "on a roll" cleaning out the basement. She says she's "really getting rid of things" and making trips to Goodwill.

She has never had any concept of time so she comes to my home, unannounced, always at night. We never see her during the day. I suspect she sleeps during the day. The good part is, she has a wonderful relationship with my kids. They love their Nana! She knows every scheduled thing on television but can't remember my husband's birthday. Now I'm trying to work on ME. I need to let go of the resentment that I have. I need to accept her behavior and accept that we will not be going to Nana's house for nice visits. It's just not going to happen. I also have a tendency to be messy and hold on to things which drives my husband crazy. Not only is it hard for me to get rid of things, but I'm afraid of my mother's reaction when I do get rid of something. It's like I need her permission to throw things out. I'm 45 fricken years old and I think I need my mother's permission to throw something away.

I want to teach my kids that throwing things out is just a part of life and it's okay. I also want to get myself to the point where I'm not thinking about it ALL THE TIME! It's like a big, dark cloud that looms over me all the time. I would like to learn healthy behaviors and pass them on to my kids. Thank you for giving me a place to vent. It's nice to finally relate to others and hopefully this is a new beginning for ME.

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Cynthia

by: cynthia
Posted on: 08-15-2006 @ 03:37 am

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this site and I'm not really sure how it all works but I just wanted you to check out my website and trailer at
www.seethrough-films.com/mmg.

I have posted below a little about my film and my story. I am very excited that this site exists and welcome your comments. My Mother’s Garden explores one woman’s extreme attachment to material objects and her emotional struggle to let go of them. The film documents my family’s journey as my three brothers and I come together to help our mother, Eugenia Lester, with her acute case of Compulsive Hoarding Disorder, a disorder that affects over one million people in this country alone. When her disorder reaches a crisis point my family is forced to intervene and clean the house, despite her resistance.

The film documents this process, as well as its painful, but ultimately healing aftermath. Project Summary: In the suburban setting of a quiet tree-lined street in Granada Hills, California we see a 61 year old woman pushing a grocery cart to her front door. We watch her climb through a window covered in ivy and cob webs into her house, stepping on top of stacks of newspapers, piles of debris, rotting material, clothing, and toys; a living mass of waste that has literally pushed her out of the house and into her garden. My Mother’s Garden is the story of Eugenia Lester whose hoarding disorder has entered a dangerous and life threatening stage.

Directed by her daughter Cynthia, it documents how one family comes together to cope with their mother’s disorder and rebuild a lost sense of family. Through tracing Eugenia’s history we learn how the past has shaped her current situation. Born in Poland during the Polish uprising of 1944 and raised by a Holocaust survivor in communist Poland, where hoarding material items was a way of life, she is overwhelmed by the excess of our consumer driven society. At its heart, My Mother’s Garden is the story of a strong, intelligent woman who must undergo a deep metamorphosis to save herself from the depths of mental illness.

Artistic statement: My personal journey through this documentary was necessary to heal the wounds of abandonment, isolation, and dependency that are often present when raised by a parent with a persistent mental illness. Though my brothers and I are now adults, we all feel a deep need for a stabilizing center for our family, a permanent place to call home. This longing for stability has caused disorder in our lives both, socially and emotionally.

Through this documentary, I am applying my experience in social work, art therapy, and filmmaking to my own family. I hope that the film can be therapeutic as well as a creative work of art that will help bring awareness to the issue of mental illness and also reach others who are sympathetic to this subject matter.

Cynthia Lester – Director

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updates on "My Mother's garden"
by: cynthia
Posted on: 10-21-2006 @ 11:46 pm

I spoke to elizabeth the other day and she said a lot of viewers are wondering how my mother is doing i will repost this as im not really sure where it belongs on this site. also you can find it on my myspace page.

Hello, I hope to keep everyone updated about the progress of the film and also the status of my mother as we navigate the health care system in California. We just finished a whirlwind five days at the IFP Market in New York where we screened the trailer for lot's of potential distributors and received a lot of positive feedback and support. We were also nominated for the Fledgling Fund's Socially Conscious Documentary Award. We also finished a rough cut of the film and have begun submitting it to festivals.

I am in Los Angeles now to see my mom and try and ensure that she is getting the best treatment we can afford. Just to give you some background, less than a year ago my mother was living in complete squalor and had been forced to live in her own back yard to the amount of stuff she had accumulated as a result of her struggles with Obsessive Compulsive Hoarding Disorder. Since then, my family and I, have put her in a boarding care facility, supported by medi-cal and SSI for disability, we have also retained a therapist who sees her weekly.

Concurrently we have tried to fix up the house and rent it out to provide for her. Yesterday I met with her therapist and looked at some better housing options. Today I am going to meet with my mother and a specialist who deals with Hoarding Disorder to try and establish some guidelines so my mother does not evicted from the boarding care facility she is in now. Thank you all for your interest and support. It means a lot to me, my family, and my team. Love, Cynthia

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another day...
by: cynthia
Posted on: 10-21-2006 @ 11:48 pm

so making this films has been a lot harder than expected. have to go back to LA and make sure my mom follows up with her dental care, registering for computer classes, and gets her passport renewed. i want to make sure she has a full life and completes the things that have been making her feel bad about herself. its hard when you have to be the parent when your not yet able to even take care of yourself. don't get me wrong this project has also brought on a wealth of wonderful experiences. from going back to the root of a lot of my problems, where they started in the home, i have been able to fix a lot of things that effect my current life. i had no idea they were connected but have realised how dealing with the core issues i have resolved other issues surfacing.

i have know learned how to confront people who have been bitter, passive-aggressive, and rude to me. i used to lie awake letting these things affect me and then wonder why that person wasnt calling so they can do it to me again. now i have finally said i dont need that in my life and moved forward. of course it took me another sleepless night to figure out whether i made the right decision. i kept thinking, what if i needed that perosn in my life for some reason? maybe it was my fate to be tortured by these things and these kind of people. i think it stems
from growing up in a home where i had to accept my circumstance and live with it. now ive learned i dont, i can change it for the better and i have. thank you to this experience for making me realise that.

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Elizabeth

Posted: 27 May 2006 08:03 pm Post subject:
My Intervention Story--

Here is my story:

I have three older siblings, I am the 'baby'. In my family, I play the role of 'troublemaker' and I have ALWAYS made a much bigger fuss about the hoarding than anyone else. Outside of the hoarding, my relationship with Mom was always much worse, because I was more rebellious and less willing to go along with her control issues. We were in an awful cycle during my childhood where I would disappoint my mother, she would say absolutely vicious and hurtful things to make me understand how 'wrong' I was, which made me even more resentful of her control and MORE frustrated by her expectations, then she would become more vicious, etc. etc. My worst crime was getting a D grade in U.S. History, but when I look back on it, I wonder why I wasn't out getting pregnant and doing drugs. It was *bad*, she was MEAN and I experienced something different in my childhood, different from my older siblings.

Flash forward to our adult lives, and I have been screaming and complaining to my siblings for the past TEN YEARS that we need to deal with Mom and Dad's house. My initial motive was probably anger, a wish for 'revenge', though I had it rationalized well enough that I was simply being 'rational'. Five years ago, my dad started having health problems, serious mobility issues that defined the house as a very real hazard to him. The house was spinning out of control just as my dad was struggling more and more.

I was living abroad when my parents planned a trip to visit my mother's family-- a few weeks ahead of the trip,my mother demanded a last minute change to her flight, so that she could stay on an extra week and my dad would fly home alone, to manage in the house on his OWN, for a week.

I heard about that and I immediately got my own ticket to make the eight hour flight home, surprise Dad at the airport, and spend the week helping him while Mom was gone. That trip was SHOCKING. Mom didn't know I was coming, but she DID know that Dad would be forced to manage in that house by himself. I saw the house in an appalling state and I spent that whole week hauling out newspapers and trash, fuming at the cruelty of my mother, thinking he would have been able to live that way without help. Mom came home to the newly tidied house (or,rather ONE room of it) described her feelings as similar to 'being raped'. It went down in history as Proof that Elizabeth is, if not quite the anti-Christ, very close to it.

But that's not the REAL 'intervention'... not by a long shot!

Last november, I discovered hoarding as a disorder. I must have sent my siblings fifty internet links that first week I discovered that Mom's problem had a NAME! What a relief. The news totally transformed my brother's attitude-- once he could give our family problem a NAME, he was as eager as me to figure out a solution and tackle it. My other brother (who hoards himself) had a lot of trouble agreeing to any real ACTION, he was eager enough to say, "Well, there isn't a cure so that's a shame." My sister was supportive, so it was three against one. I spent the next few months finding out all the information I could and piecing together my OWN intervention plan...

Here was my plan (in a nutshell):

When my parents were away on a week-long visit to see our sister, my brothers and I would clean out the main common area of the house. Just the one floor, leaving the upstairs and basement as 'free hoarding' space for my mother. The goal: set new boundaries, contain the hoard, even if we couldn't stop the HOARDING, if it had to continue, at least it must stay OUT of my father's way. In terms of 'maintenance' and 'after-care', I contacted a home health aide agencies (specializing in the elderly) that do light housekeeping, and I found a counselor for Mom (a 'Christian' counselor, to satisfy Mom's religious fixation) who, while not an expert exactly, at least had EXPERIENCE with hoarding generally.

While they were away, my sister showed Mom videos of news stories about hoarding, to see how she would react. She paid close attention but was unable to 'connect the dots', didn't recognize a bit of herself in them. During our cleanup, my reluctant hoarding brother barely lifted a finger, but it was difficult for him to be completely unsupportive while Good Brother and I were killing ourselves for that week.

When Mom came home, she was given the impression that we ALL worked together on it, which was true of course, but not all of us worked as 'hard'... Seeing all three of us sitting there in the newly cleaned house shocked my mother-- she is used to blaming ME for everything under the sun, but she didn't know how to react to seeing my brothers were a part of it, too. The fact that my brothers were involved made her want to be grateful, instead of angry.

We talked to her that very first night she got home,when she was still in shock and hadn't had time to really think through what we had done and notice all that we had thrown away. She was embarrassed and made a lot of excuses about how she really WAS on the verge of 'taking care of' the mess we had cleaned. We got her to admit a lot, just general things about an inability to make decisions and a tendency to get overwhelmed. That conversation went much better than any of us expected it would, though she did make a big deal of how she SHOULD have been there to supervise our work and it should NOT have been done in her absence.

We asked her about the hoarding videos she had seen a few days before and she didn't see the similarities (geez). We gave her a copy of the Overcoming Compulsive Hoarding book, which my siblings and I had all signed for her. I told her that I had made her an appointment with a counselor who had experience with people who 'had trouble making decisions about the things in their house' and she agreed to see her (whew).

It was important to talk to her RIGHT AWAY after her arrival home, because twelve hours later, she had compiled her list of 'grievances', all the things she couldn't find, all the things she 'needed' desperately. Those first few hours back, she was in shock, but by the next day she was FURIOUS. On that day (her most furious day) we had a BIG crowd of family over to the house-- the grandkids were running around and playing, we were all socializing in a way that hasn't been possible in thirty years or more... it was just the most wonderful happy family-all-together time, and my mother was walking around in a daze, trying to pick fights with us but not ever getting very far because there was too much POSITIVE energy in the house with all of us enjoying each others' company. It was surreal.

A couple days later, I approached my dad with the brochures for home health aide agencies. None of us were sure how well he would take this suggestion, because they haven't had hired help in the house...
ever.

He was enthusiastic, picked an agency he liked and while I was there, they had an appointment and Dad signed a contract for service, twice a week for three hours each visit. Mom had trouble with this, but couldn't protest. It would be irrational-- all these years she has been complaining that the house is a mess becasue she has no help. There you go.

I made a photo album for my mother, with before and after pictures of the whole house (the after pictures were only on the few pages of rooms we were able to clean that week) and included lots of inspirational quotes about 'new beginnings' and finding motivation for big tasks, that sort of thing. Mom studied the photos closely because she was looking for things that were missing, looking for excuses to complain. I think it was good for her to look real closely at these photos, because they tell the truth about how bad the house really was (and still IS, in parts).

A couple little details in the plan: Dad was kept 'innocent' (didn't even know we were doing it), because he has to LIVE with her and she would make his life hell if she thought he was to blame. We didn't tell anyone else, either, because we really didn't want to humiliate her unnecessarily. I had an opportunity to point this out to her at one point, and I think she did grasp the concept that we were as compassionate as possible-- I told her that we had contemplated bringing her pastor into the house to see the problem and that made her very quiet. Her church (all the people who have never seen the house and never will) are the only people whose opinions she claims to respect. If her secret was revealed to them, I cannot imagine how she would cope. I think it might have scared her to realize that this almost happened.

It is now one month later and I had an opportunity to see the house. It is being maintained. My father says that in the few days between visits from the cleaning person, Mom trashes parts of the house as much as she possibly can, but then she has to scramble to clean it up again before 'cleaning day.' It is stressful and she complains about it. But the agency in informed about the hoarding problem and knows to phone ME if Mom tries to cancel appointments. Mom tried to cancel during the second week and between my sister and I we made it clear that this tactic was not going to work. Mom now seems to understand that there is a contract for services and cancellations aren't acceptable (of course, with normal clients, the odd cancellation is acceptable, but we can't pretend that Mom is 'normal').

When Mom complains now, I don't waste time arguing with her, I just encourage her to talk to her counselor about it. Who knows how far she will get with the counselor, but any hour scheduled into my mother's week is one less hour she can be out doing compulsive shopping. She has voiced that specific complaint,too: with the six hours she must be home to supervise the cleaner, she doesn't have time to go out and SHOP. Hallelujah.

It all feels like a house of cards ready to tumble but it is still standing for NOW. It's like bailing water out of a leaky boat and as soon as you feel like you're keeping up and have it under control, you just cross your fingers and hope that the leak doesn't get BIGGER.

I know that all the experts advise against this approach of cleaning behind someone's back, but I have to say that we tried to do it as compassionately as possible, anticipating what might happen AFTERWARDS, and for my family, at least, it was NOT a horribly traumatic event. Mom was pissed, sure, and the cleanup was no CURE for anything, but she did not have breakdown and she did not cut us all off. She admitted to my aunt recently, "I don't think Elizabeth is angry with me anymore.

She thinks I have an illness." For all I know, her tone of voice indicated the added meaning, "Isn't elizabeth confused and misguided to think that *I* have an illness!" but I'll be grateful for small miracles. Mom UNDERSTANDS that we weren't trying to punish her and we weren't just trying to be mean to her. She seems to understand that we think she is ill. That is progress.

Elizabeth

See Elizabeth's agenda/timeline for her intervention/clean-out and maybe some other things from her....

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Gravity's Story
A Son of a Hoarder

Within a year of leaving the house at 17, it was filled with stuff and trash and my mother and stepfather were basically living across town in an apartment. One of my sisters lived in the trashed and filled house, my brother had pretty much unofficially moved in with a cousin. My other sister was on public assistance and housing, unmarried with a child.

Within a couple of years, my mother and stepfather started taking vacations to South Carolina. Soon enough, they rented a house down there. Now they have a trash house, a junk-filled apartment, and a 3-bedroom house down there that mom has filled with various finds from the thrift stores and flea markets that she frequents there. A large part of the stuff is, from what she tells me, things that she would like to use to fix up the trashed house, like pocket doors and lighting fixtures.

This past February, I was able to convince my mom to let me try to clean up her house. No one had been living there for… Oh, probably 8 years or so. On top of the actual trash that had been crammed into it, local youths had broken in and spray-painted graffiti and left drug paraphernalia around. They had broken out windows and the house had been exposed to the damp coming in, damaging the plaster walls.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done, obviously.

I had offered to try to deal with it in the past and been turned down. This time she took me up on it. She actually signed the house over to me, so I own it now. The amount of work that this is going to be is already crippling. My wife and I are doing all of the labor in the fix-up. The deal is that we will take care of the mess, do all the work and hey – free house.

My mother and stepfather will also be spending a week or two a month there, when they come up from SC, after its livable. My stepfather has said point-blank that he was willing to put up some cash (…but that, only if we promised to re-pay him) but that he wouldn’t lift a finger to help. My mother has been to the house 2 times since February. Both times only resulted in her picking out some more things in there that she wanted to keep.

I go over after work daily when the weather permits, but this summer has been alternating between raining-like-heck and invitation-to-heat-exhaustion. I have bought $300 worth of home improvement books and taught myself loads of stuff – I can now re-wire a light switch, install a dishwasher, frame a wall or level a porch on demand.

We’re hoping to be able to move in by fall, but that's looking less and less likely as my wife has broken her hand, and I work full time. We're also running into all sorts of roadblocks as my mother (the hoarder) finds the oddest excuses to stonewall. I'm absolutely sure that she doesn't even know that she's doing it.

Paying both rent and property taxes (which are very high in our area - about equal to my rent) is slowly breaking us. My wife is out of work to recover from a repetitive stress injury that she got from work - forearm tendonitis in both arms - and then has a broken hand on top of it.

We have enough to get by and pay the bills, but the sooner we can move in, the better.

The house recently came to the attention of the Assistant City Building Inspector, who wants it cleaned up ASAP as he feels that it is a fire hazard and possible invitation to arson.

I'm currently 33, my wife is 29. We have no kids, two cats and three ferrets.

I have hoarding tendencies myself, but I'm having good luck with dealing with it myself by keeping my eyes open and not accepting excuses. I still get tired, and it still gets messy, but I'm already much better than a year ago. Unfortunately, it's getting messier and I'm getting tireder as I try to deal with a job, house clean up and cleaning and cooking in my own home.

Other people with hoarding tendancies in my family include my grandmother, my maternal aunt, my female cousin, and both of my sisters and my only brother.

3-9-07

Oh, yes, April. My mom and stepdad moved out of a junked house into an apartment that they junked as well, and now they rent a house in South Carolina (I live in Vermont) that I'm sure is just as bad.

I had my childhood house signed over to me, took out a mortgage on it, and cleaned it out to live in. I am not EVER going to do another cleanout. I'd helped with two failed cleanout attempts before, but seeing what I had to do to actually get it done... well, it's not my responsibility, and I'm not going to let it be pushed onto me. Especially since I now know that the effort doesn't get so much as a thank you. I darn near killed myself clearing the whole house in two days (all the time I could get off of work). My wife and I worked from sunup to sundown and had the help of two guys for 10-12 hours of those two days to haul out almost a whole small house. The basement and attic weren't included. The basement is now done, and I still haven't been into the attic yet.

The house is still in its post-cleanout state, but we're looking at moving into it next month or the month after, because we can't afford to do any more work on it while paying property taxes, mortgage AND rent.

k.

"K" has mentioned she will be happy to speak to anyone privately off the board if that is more comfortable for you. -Donna

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Holly

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:47 pm

I have been researching hoarding (in an attempt to help my parents - mother is the hoarder, dad is in poor health and is an enabler of her problem) since I found a name for it on Randy Frost's website in December 2001. Our immediate family (mother, father, and one sister) struggled under the "weight" of clutter and possessions for as long I can remember. The clutter progressed from 2 or 3 "junk rooms" to the house I grew up in becoming totally uninhabitable ( full to the ceiling, no heat, no water), several storage lockers, and 60% of the house my parents currently live in full to the ceiling.

Every holiday with them is spent first cleaning an area where I will sleep, and usually cleaning the area where my dad sleeps, too.

I flew to Massachusetts in 2002 to interview Dr. Frost on video about hoarding, and showed the tape to my parents. Later I made another video and sent it to the Oprah show, but after receiving emails from an Oprah producer my parents vetoed going on the show and opted to go to to therapy, together. This was a major accomplishment and progress for them, but I think my mother would benefit more from a therapist who is familiar with hoarding. She is currently unwilling to get this kind of help, even though there is a hoarding expert about 30 minutes away, who offered to do a free consultation and include her in a research study.

Oh, one more thing. My mom (who is 69 yr old) is a trained social worker who specialized in psychiatric/eldercare. She actually used to even have elderly hoarders in her caseload! Now she is one, and she thinks she can heal herself and won't accept help!

I LOVE humor! My quick humorous story: When I was 15, I was helping clean out the front "junk room" to get the house ready for company. I found a grocery bag FULL of plastic contact-lens cases. The kind you put in a travel bag. I looked at mom, and asked, "What are these for!? (can't I throw them away!?) Nobody in the family wears contact lenses!!" To this she replied, "I thought I'd carry vitamins in them, in my purse." I looked at her, aghast, and said, "Oh, okay. Uh, but you can only carry TWO vitamins at a time, one in the place for the left contact and one for the right." We both actually laughed at this.
"Put them back," she said.

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Infinitehope

Oct 12, 2006

I'm Emily, 36, married, no kids and no plans to have any (I see the trend here too), 1 dog, 3 cats, living on the West Coast, remodeling an old farm house in the sticks,working too much but loving it...that's about it in a nutshell!

I'm here because I grew up in a cluttered house in the Midwest. That became a packratted house, garage and yard. That became a hoard house, garage, and yard, that spread like wildfire to another property my parents own in the country. Where the house is now filled to the brim and boarded up. There are only 4 broken riding mowers and 16 broken push mowers behind the boarded up house though, so I guess it's no big deal - ha!!!!

The hoard is my Dad's. He was born in the Depression in a dirt poor farm community. My sister and I think that his hoarding stems from that, combined with raising 3 daughters and no sons, which led to some emotional/mental shut down and redirect from recycling and conserving into packratting, then hoarding.

I am really here because my Mom, who admits to being an enabler, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in August. She read my Dad the riot act while recovering from unsuccessful surgery (NOT the first riot act by any stretch of the imagination). He had promised my Mom that when he retired, he would clean up his mess. It's been 10 years since he retired...and zero progress or effort in that time. So basically it is my Mom's dying wish that my Dad clean up the *%^#%&&* piles of useless crap so she can have visitors in HER home during her last days? Weeks? Months? Years? We don't really have a good handle on the prognosis, so time is of the essence.

Anyway, I haven't been in the house in probably 15 years, so I don't know how bad it is. My other sister stopped taking her kids there several years ago because it was unsafe for small children. And she's almost as bad as my Dad, so that's saying something!

When I went home to see my folks after the diagnosis, my sisters and I agreed that Dad must honor Mom's wish. We priced dumpsters and offered to help. Of course this was all funneled through my Mom because heaven forbid we tell Dad directly!

Long story short, and my interpretation entirely, my Dad has been sniveling ever since, and has made a couple weak efforts to clean, but is really in avoiding mode. Mom is making more and more creative excuses to prevent visitors.

In light of this, my oldest sister and I have meticulously arranged a surprise intervention in early November. We are putting my parents up in a hotel while we purge the house and yard before winter hits. Because if we don't do it, it won't happen, and that is unacceptable
to me.

I am willing to be the target of the anger, frustration, tears and rage that my Dad is liable to put out there. I know my Mom will, unfortunately, take the brunt of his irrational behavior. That kills me, but we have to do this. I don't see an alternative.

I'll be back with more details. Thank you for being here because it makes this difficult situation a little more manageable.

(Lots more to Emily's story as she used to make journal entries on the website, when we had that feature active.

Go to infinitehope's journal leading up to, during, and after her intervention.

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jcsgreenthumb
Posted on: 07-30-2006

I am the youngest daughter of a hoarding mother. My father is a classic enabler. I have an older sister as well.

When I was very young, our house we basically OK. By the time I was in early gradeschool, the hoarding was escalating. Now, 30 years later, there are only paths leading through the house. My parents also have a small cottage, which I am guessing looks the same. About 2 years ago it became infested with packrats (gotta love the irony here). Now they seldom return. It must be a terrible eyesore for their neighbors, but it is in a rural area and there probably isn't much they can do.

While I knew the hoarding had affected me, I never really understood this until I started learning more about alcoholism due to my husband's (then boyfriend) alcoholism. I happened upon a list of the traits of Adult Children (of alcoholics) and found I fit almost all of them. It was my lighbulb moment.

While I had a lot of anger about the hoarding as a child/teenager, now I see it with sadness. What could have been and what will never be.

Because of my father's attitude toward the situation ("guess it will be your problem when I'm gone"), I don't feel any real responsibility toward it. Probably a defense mechanism on my part. He to this day protects her feelings and does everything in his power not to upset her, as we were instructed to do as
children.

Hubs and I recently decided to relocate out of state from suburban Chicago to the mountains of North Carolina, and she freaked. Neither will discuss the upcoming move and neither has seen or even asked to see pictures of our new house and property. It is something we've always wanted to do, and they
can't/won't put their feelings aside to be happy for us.

This is what outsiders seldom understand. Hoarding is a mere symptom of the underlying pathology. Hoarders aren't just messy, or packrats, although I understand real packrats do hoard. You can't just clean up their house and make it better.

Well, I have rambled enough for now.

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JerseyGirl

I am 47 and for many years have lived in a different state from my family. The family home has gotten progressively more overcrowded, to the point of squalor in recent years. In July of this year I called Adult Protective Services to investigate, and they in turn called the police, who called the board of health. The house was condemned as unfit for human habitation. My mother and brother were removed; my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease; I petitioned the court to become her temporary legal guardian and am awaiting permanent guardianship.

My brother is contesting this petition. He is unstable and has chronic fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia, as well as perhaps Diogenes Syndrome. Informally he is my concern as well. In addition, I am handling the cleanout of my mom's house, which is being done by Disaster Masters, in preparation for its sale 'as is.' I'm overwhelmed and reeling from the shock of all this, and my own family (husband and daughter) is bearing the brunt of this. I could use support and commiseration, desperately!

When I was 10, my family's apartment burned down and we lost everything. The hoarding began, I believe, after that. It was not extreme at first-it began as collecting "minerals, antiques, etc., but eventually any sense of discretion was lost and the house was full but the acquiring continued.
Mostly it happened after I moved out.

4. Do you feel like you would do anything you could to help your parent live in a healthier environment, free of the hoard?

Sadly, it's too late for that. All I can do is attempt to salvage whatever items of value can be salvaged from her home, to liquidate them to pay for her care, and to sell her home for whatever limited value it will bring, again to help finance her care in her remaining years. (Mom lived without heat and hot water
for approx. 4 years; there is extensive flood damage from broken pipes, etc.) My challenge is double-edged, because I have to attempt to help my 50-year-old brother as well, who is both requesting and refusing help. I am less optimistic about my chances for success at helping my brother.

Jerseygirl has mentioned that she is glad to talk to anyone privately about guardianship or her experience with the cleaning company-Donna

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nashbabe
Posted on: 08-07-2006

Hi, I'm nashbabe. My reason for being at this board is that I am the spouse of a COH. The fabulous norse701 and I were married back in 1983, long before most of you were born. ;-)

So far as hoarding goes, my MIL has been doing it for eons. She has been cleaned out by nearly every family member multiple times. Evidently it has always been a fairly dirty hoard...what I mean by that is that all cleaners have had to deal with decomposing food and its ramifications. The cleanouts have happened over and over again and been quite extensive. This last hoard cleanout was particularly awful. We're talkin' goggles, organic fumes respirator masks, rubber gloves, you name it. Ugh. What I do for love..... *sigh*

My MIL can only be categorized as a pathological liar. There's no other explanation. She often told us her house was fine, she was working on it, and she was seeing a psychiatrist (she lives hundreds of miles away and we generally did not see her at her house, but met her in other locations). Let's just say that she lies through her teeth pretty consistently about nearly everything. That's a harsh statement and I don't come to it lightly, but rather over a long history of dealing with her situation.

Our most recent cleanout was precipitated by someone (probably a home health care worker) reporting her to the authorities. Believe me, she deserved to be reported. Three construction dumpsters (100+ cubic feet of crap including fifty bags of used adult diapers) and plenty of other stuff that didn't go in those dumpsters later, she lives in a two room senior apartment which she is busily trashing save for the efforts of a once-a-week housekeeper, thank God.

Her finances are in equal levels of squalor. She just didn't open her bills. Hundreds of them. I guess it was like a little kid who thinks if they close their eyes that you aren't there. I have six of those file boxes worth of bills at my house right now (fifty pounds plus!!!) and that's after I threw all the fillers/
unnecessaries away.

We have spent thousands of our own dollars digging her out of her mess. As a classic narcissist she does not appear to appreciate our efforts at all. She seemingly constantly wants to know where her stuff is. She has been reported by others to be quite down about the loss of her stuff. She doesn't ask about us or how we are doing or thank us, she just bemoans the loss of her precious stuff.

She is physically and mentally not well. Her most recent hospitalization went from early April to late June and included eleven days in cardiac intensive care, an antibiotic-resistant infection and four weeks in the psychiatric hospital after she threatened suicide.

norse has POA and so does all he can to help dig her out of her financial mess. She spends too much and doesn't seem to care that she is doing so. She still doesn't think she has a financial problem.
Uh, scuze me, ya never opened yer bills, how wouldja know?

Her house recently sold and she has commented to her sister (who is very supportive of us and helpful, praise God) that she can't wait to get ahold of her money. I expect "drunken sailor" spending.

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(norse is the son of a hoarder who has performed many clean-outs for him mom, with his wife, nashbabe). He is one of the moderators here at the group and has lots of crisis clean-out advice from his experiences too, that he is always willing to share. )-Donna

From Norse:
Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006
Post subject: Why am I still here?

It has occured to me that the reasons I showed up here aren't really in affect any more. My mom is in a retirement home with a "forced" cleaning lady once a week. She seems much happier, and healthier.

She hasn't been in the hospital in quite a while, although she did have her pacemaker replaced last week in an out patient procedure that seems to have left her more alert. Increased blood flow???? Who knows.

So why am I still here. Well, the short answer is "I am and always will be a COH." I may learn to deal with the damage the hoarding has done to me, but I will always have that background.

So what can I get here? More importantly, what can I provide to others?
Why am I still here?

This site has major sections devoted to pre-cleanup preparation (both logistical and emotional) and through my own experience I have seen that most COH's experience a post de-hoarding bout of something akin to PTSD that can range from mild to severe. We are only beginning to understand, as this group grows and we see more of the post-de-hoarding effects, the horrible toll that cleanups exact from us.

De-hoarding is dangerous, both emotionally and medically. Respiratory ailments from the funky air, that only a ripe hoard can produce, is incredibly dangerous especially to those of us with asthma, allergies, and any other pulmonary ailments. Sharp objects hidden in the hoard are another common hazard. Sprained ankles, pulled muscles, back injuries, and getting caught in a crap-alanche are all very real dangers.

I used to be excited to hear about an up-coming de-hoarding. As one of the old timers now, I am more often deeply concerned for the safety of the team, and about how to help them recover on the other side.

A lot of people either don't come back or take a long break from being here after the big event. I hope that everything worked out great for them, and they no longer feel the need to get support here. If that is true, then I am so happy for them. They have come through and survived. But I have a feeling that more often than not, they feel so frustrated about how it went, that being around those COH's that had a successful clean-out is just more than they can take. I hurt for those people. I hurt for them because I have lost count of the number of de-hoardings where it didn't make a difference than the one that actually did.

I know that pain of sacrificing yourself, and members of your family for the sake of the hoarder, and the hoarder seems to work that much harder to get the piles back to where they were. It feels like you threw yourself in front of a bus to save someones life, and when you wake up in the hospital, the person is there screaming at you about how you injured their shoulder when you pushed them out of the way of the bus.

I think it is wonderful that many of us are focused on helping the world understand that hoarding is a disease. My focus, at least for now, is to help understand the nature of the emotional damage that hoarders intentionally or unintentionally inflict on us. I am not the only one who was taught that there was a "special way" to package old newspapers to be "recycled". As that understanding grows I have a dream that our experiences would help the psychiatric, and psychological world be able to provide more than "You can't force someone to change, so stop trying."

Hopefully, the answer will be something like, "First off, before we do anything else, you need to understand that growing up with a hoarder is child abuse. Can you at least accept the fact that you may have been abused? Did you have to lie or believed that you had to lie to your friends because you knew that telling them about how you lived would get you in trouble at home? Did you grow up learning to run to the door to meet people when they drove in the driveway so they wouldn't see how bad the house was? Children of alcoholics are taught to lie like that for their parents and we all recognize it as child abuse."

"Let's start with helping you to understand what effects hoarding behavior has on children (adults or youngsters). These behaviors are common in people who have been through this. It's normal for you to doubt your own value, because your hoarders behavior indicates that stuff is more important than your safety. Have you ever been screamed at because you tried to throw something away? How did that affect you at the time? Did you decide that you weren't even competent to throw out garbage? Did you decide that the garbage must be more important that I am because they never get that upset about anything that happens to me?"

"Now that you understand why you feel the way you do about yourself, let's talk about some ways that you can begin to give yourself some of the love and understanding that every child "ought" to receive from their parents. How can you stop the parental message tapes that are playing in your head? You intellectually know they are wrong, how can you replace those lies with the truth?"

At some point there would be a discussion of breaking innappropriate attachments to the hoarding parent. Later maybe a discussion of whether or not the cost of the entire relationship was too high a price to pay, and if the price was too high, how to work through the process of walking away without feeling like you are the most evil person on the planet.

I may change my mind on some of these points, and I certainly don't plan on coming up with all this on my own, but I really believe that learning about how the hoarders behavior affects us will have a huge impact on the answers to questions like, "When should I call DHS?","I think I need to do something, but I don't know what to do." If the greater issues of how sick the parent/child relationship is, can be dealt with, then the questions about what to do often have more obvious answers.

Maybe one day.........

norse
C.R.A.P.P.Y.

Note from Donna: Norse is the creator of the phrase "COHUGET"" Post-Intervention Stress Syndrome, aka "PISS", the creator of the humorous titles some members have from back when we were a smaller group.

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ER/Cmiryl
Excerpt from, “ Work in Progress”
Copyright 2006 Elizabeth Reynolds
*This information priviledged and is not to be redistributed in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author*

“SECRETS”
I’m 10 years old, an only child, and I’ve never invited anyone over to play at my house. Never.

It was 1980, and I’d just started at a new school in suburban Thousand Oaks. The school was just up the street from where our corner house was.

You know the corner house- The show house? The house that is supposed to represent all the other well manicured and pristine houses on the block? Well, that wasn’t my house.

I remember going over to other kids homes but having to come up with excuses when it came time to invite them over to mine. Simply saying,“My mother wont let me have anyone over” was always awkward.

I didn’t know how to tell my friends I had no where for them to sit if they did come over, or how it was they would have to maneuver around an obstacle course of TV trays and an abundance of clothes in order to get to my room or the bathroom. I simply didn’t live in the same home environment they did, and this, coupled with the fact that no one could see in our windows when they walked home after school, didn’t make it any easier.

One day after school, Kimberly Glastonbury and Allison Carr, the MOST popular girls, decided it was time to find out my secret.
As I turned up the path to my door, Kimberly and Allison ran up behind me shouting out, “Wait for us!”
I turned around confused, “wait for them?”
Kimberly had never spoken to me so her sudden desire to have me do something for her took me off guard“So, this is your house…” Kimberly stated as she came up the lawn to where I was standing.
“I wanted to ask you…Why are there big giant boards and boxes blocking all your windows? It looks like a haunted house from the outside… are you hiding ghosts?”

Allison laughed at Kimberly’s comment while she shifted her shiny fuchsia spandex leg , flipped her stringy brown hair and adjusted the fluorescent banana clip in it.
“I don’t know what you mean” I told Kimberly.
I thought if I played dumb, then they might leave, and the interrogation would stop. No such luck.
Kimberly grabbed my wrist and pulled me in front of one of the
giant 10 foot windows and pointed at it with an irritated index finger.

As I looked at the hundreds newspapers, boxes, and various magazines pressed tightly against the windows, it did actually look like the house might be haunted.
Kimberly turned and marched towards the front door,
“What are you hiding in there? I’m going in!”

I was mortified--I’d managed to keep my friends away, and Kimberly was quickly becoming my arch enemy. There was no way I was letting anyone, particularly her, inside my house. My mother would go ballistic if she saw Kimberly walk in, plus I had no idea how I would explain that the only visible furniture in the house were two giant La Z Boy chairs.
I ran past Kimberly and blocked the entrance.
I was shaking nervously knowing it would be OVER for me at school if I let Miss Popular Big mouth into my house.

“My mom’s not home and she doesn’t like anyone to come in when she isn’t here”
I said this as I ducked in the front door and was starting to close it when I felt both Kimberly and Allison run up and push it back open from the other side.

“LET US IN!” Kimberly demanded. And both girls threw themselves against the door right as I was trying to get a better foothold – but instead lost my side of the battle completely. They tumbled in on top of each other into the entry way. As their laughing and “high five” ceased, I watched as they suddenly became conscious of the strange new world they’d fallen into. Kimberly’s mouth fell open and her eyes grew big as she looked intensely at the mayhem before us. Allison stood up and backed out the door stating she’d wait outside.

As I watched Kimberly take everything in, I was forced to see it for the first time through someone else’s eyes.

The ceiling high clutter that lined the entry way- the dozens of Avon boxes that were placed in a kind of labyrinth in what was “Once Upon A Time” a living room. Clear containers filled with hundreds of plastic utensils that were individually wrapped in cellophane, known as sporks (the hybrid fork and spoon combination), 40 to 50 cans of recycled Yuban coffee grinds, and of course… the burnt out light bulbs which had been resealed in their original cartons and the date they burned out written meticulously on the outside.

I was suddenly seeing the lack of normality I was being brought up in. Allison’s voice pulled me out of this realization as she knocked at the door frame and said “I have to go Kimberly”.

Then something happened I’d never experienced before, a rage took hold of me and I charged Kimberly furiously pushing her outside and straight into Allison slamming the front door in their faces. I turned the lock and leaned against it almost fearing that they would find some way to come back inside.

But the real damage was already done.

I listened for them to leave, and after about a minute, cautiously unlocked the door to see them standing on the sidewalk laughing. Seeing me, they ran off down the street with Kimberly yelling back the name I would go by for the rest of that school year.
“Byyyyeeeeee scary CARRIE! ”
Oh great, Now I’m Sissy fucking Spacek living in a house
with a pack rat.
As I walked to school the next morning, I noticed how some of the girls that were my friends crossed the street to the other side in order to avoid me, stares and snickers ensued, and I couldn’t believe how quickly Kimberly had spread the news about my house. As I walked into the classroom, instead of a bucket of pig’s blood, there was a firing squad of dry erasers, and on my seat, a cracked egg they all waited for me to sit on.

At recess… everyone started asking what it was like to live with my “crazy mother?” And when I tried to explain to my mother what had happened, she really did go crazy, flipping out that anyone had come inside at all.
I was confused how this was my fault and again felt the rage grow,
not at the kids this time, but at my mother.

I started to wish I really was Carrie, I wanted to see all the clutter go up in flames and even started to practice telekinetically pelting my mother with the sporks that sat like some rare treasure in the living room.
The adolescent pranks extended to midnight toilet paperings, eggs periodically thrown at our windows, and spray paint on our mail box
Politely letting the mailman know that it was “Carrie’s corner”.

Eight months later, around the last week of school, my mother woke me up in the middle of the night frantically telling me there was a fire and that she couldn’t get through to the fire department.
Half awake I thought she meant our house was on fire I even started to believe all of the telekinesis I’d practiced had actually worked. It was a dream come true for the 2000 unopened pieces of junk mail in the living room.
I got up to see where this fire was in our mess, but instead only saw flashing red, yellow and blue lights glaring in through the tops of the windows.
My mother had gone outside and was standing in the street with the rest of the neighborhood observing the house down the block that actually WAS on fire. It was the Glastonberry’s house--- the only thing better would have been if it had been ours.

I never heard or saw Kimberly again after that. But when I think back and remember how those flames danced around. As they engulfed her house…

I like to think I had something to do with it.

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Snipe
message #962

Hi people,

I'm the twenty-year old daughter of a hoarder and a doormat. My mom's the hoarder; my dad's the doormat. "What do you want me to do about it?" I'm a junior in college (haven't lived with my parents in three years) and I have an 18-year old sister who is completing her last year of high school and still lives with them. My parents live in Portland, OR, in a nice neighborhood. My mom is 51, my dad 50. Not your typical elderly hoarders, I guess. Pretty much their only friends are through their church, but it's not like they have them over for dinner..

The last time I was home for Christmas, my freshman year, my mom threw an enormous fit because my father gave her a paperback book instead of a hardback book. She stomped around the house for three days straight, screaming and generally acting like a two-year old. She even threatened to divorce my dad "he doesn't love me!" My dad even went out later to buy her more presents, but she screamed "Christmas was YESTERDAY!"

She does this a lot, on almost every holiday. My dad is a nice guy, and he tries to remember to bring her flowers to "keep her happy" but I wish he would stop putting up with this shit instead of playing her
games. For instance if she demands loudly enough to go to Disneyland for her birthday, she gets to go.

She buys a lot of Disney stuff and fancy dishes off of eBay, which she never uses.

My mom hasn't worked since I was born, and now all she does is watch TV all day and post messages to Christian yahoo groups and pretend to be a good housewife.

I could never be a housewife.

I have got to work.

Sophomore year, I came home from the dorms for winter break and curled up into what basically amounted to an incapacitated ball in my room until my boyfriend's mom came and rescued me. As I left my dad said to me, "I don't understand why you're leaving. We've lived here for 18 years and never gotten cholera!" I went with his family to Idaho for Christmas, and had a lovely time.

This Christmas, I had my own apartment (may I add, ***king spotless) in my college town (about an hour and a half away from my parents) and didn't bother going anywhere.

I was so damn proud of myself in that apartment, cleaning it every week. I had to teach myself how to cook and how to clean. One time my mother visited and told me that I needed to wipe out the microwave.
Hah.

You can see some pictures of their kitchen here:

My mom got a brand new kitchen-aid mixer for Christmas last year. It's still in the box. Can you imagine baking in that kitchen?

The downstairs bathroom is disgusting; there is mold absolutely covering the ceiling and they have not cleaned the toilet in years. Their bedroom is so full of clothes and shit on the floor that they can't even close their bedroom door. A few months ago, I filled up five trash bags in the dining room, and when I came back, all of that area was filled in again. They say that they can't throw things out because throwing trash out costs money, and since most of the crap is newspapers, they should recycle them.

Recycling is for people that have their shit together.

The basement smells of cat piss and at one time had a room full of cat feces. It is filled with boxes of crap and piles and piles of dirty clothes.

I don't bother talking to my parents a whole lot, and they don't bother talking to me. Every time I'm in town, I try to find someone else's house to stay at if at all possible.

I'm slowly trying to let go of my anger.. It's no longer my house, and it's not my responsibility. but I was never able to have friends over until I went off to college. I had to teach myself how to organize, how to clean, how to cook and how to manage my money. Even when I trash-bagged the landfill that was my own room until I started high school, my mom picked through every bag and "rescued" a clipboard.

I was this close to calling CPS when I was younger, but I was afraid of the system, and didn't know how I would end up paying for college.

The house is no longer my problem, but I'm most likely going to be the one that has to deal with it some day, since it's not like my parents are moving any time soon.

Right now I'm in Ecuador on a study-abroad (and have been since January. YAY ECUADOR IT IS THE COOLEST COUNTRY EVER. Anyway..) I'm having a lot of fun here, but it's weird being in such a family-centered culture when I feel like I have very little of a family...

Anyway...

Hi.

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Veronika/dollhouse

I am a single child. My mother is a hoarder. I believe the worst of it started when she and my dad separated when I was six. She stopped sleeping in their room and started sleeping in my twin bed with me (didn’t last too long) or on the couch. Their room became a depository for her things. Once when I was pro