in a way it's soothing to see people with way worse cleaning problems...

[ratcreature]

I've been watching some episodes of that Hoarders reality tv show after I came across clips from it somewhere that piqued my curiosity, and I'm really baffled. Not so much by the mindsets that lead to keeping all kinds of stuff including junk, and letting your living space deteriorate, as that I don't understand how many of them could have had the money and time to acquire all these things in the first place.

Because of this I keep finding the cases with people who really just have junk (like things they collected from dumpsters or even empty boxes or plastic bottles or such) far more comprehensible than the people with piles and piles of clothes, stuffed animals, or other things they paid for. Even if you buy second hand on some flea market, with those massive volumes that has to add up significantly, doesn't it?

I'm fairly sure that the main reason my own place doesn't look worse is that I have neither money nor inclination for the process to acquire things to begin with. I like having things well enough, but shopping is awful, and comparing prices or looking for bargains or searching for things is worse. (You see, I'm not fond of flea markets or such.) I don't even like looking for comics all that much. Actually one of the reasons why I hang onto semi-broken things myself is to avoid buying new ones, and not just because of the money. Like for example I have this immersion blender, and parts of the plastic have broken off, so it is rather less usable, because the part that properly keeps the distance between the blades and the bottom is not working as intended anymore. However you can still blend things with it of you take care. I use this tool fairly often, so I'm annoyed quite a often too, and immersion blenders aren't *that* expensive, and yet. It's been broken for many months now. Or how I've been living with some bare light bulbs for over 15 years to avoid having to buy ceiling lamps or lampshades or the like, when just having the bulb is adequate for having light.

I also have some truly broken things for which I had to get replacements yet still haven't thrown away the old ones, but that is mostly old electronics, like my broken digital camera, because I am too lazy to bring them to the recycling collection place for specialized waste, but feel bad about putting them in the trash against the rules.

IMO the only shopping that is remotely tolerable is restocking things that I know where to buy at an acceptable price, so that no choices or comparisons or other tedious (or even anxiety inducing) efforts need to be made. So I'm baffled that all these people get a kick out of acquiring things, when it takes so much effort, time and financial resources, whereas I understand the inertia, vague or aborted ideas and sentimental attachments that lead to keeping stuff that is already there quite well. I suppose my own hoarding tendencies are kept in check sufficiently on the acquisition side so problems on the disposal side just can't escalate too badly.

Comments

[elf]

I don't watch Hoarders. It's painful. I have some of those tendencies (maybe more than some), and I don't like seeing it displayed as "let's show how pathetic these losers are; don't they realize how stupid it is to keep all this stuff." (That's the impression I got from the brief flashes I've seen of it. If they instead focus on "aww, let's get some help for these poor, damaged, mentally-ill people," I'm not sure I'd find that any better.)

A lot of it comes out of poverty, or limited resources growing up: the person remembers the time when they needed, or a friend needed, an extra coffeepot or a golf club or a stack of magazines for a school project or a bookshelf exactly 37" tall to fit in a wall niche, and eight years later, they see one! Exactly the right kind! At a yard sale or flea market, and it's only $2/$7/$20, which fits their discretionary budget right now, so they pick it up. So they've got it for later, you see. In case.

There's a lot of "just in case" in the collect-and-keep mindset. There's also a lot of fear, possibly paranoia, of disaster--in a place with at-will employment where you can get fired for literally nothing on no notice ("Sorry; we sold this department yesterday; please clear out your desk by noon"), living in a month-to-month rental with no lease where the landlord can say, "you have 30 days to get out," in addition to whatever medical issues or family problems a person might have--there's a tendency to say, "collect EVERYTHING so that, if I have to leave here on a moment's notice, I'll be able to grab one truckload's worth of stuff that'll be actually useful." Which stuff would go in the one truckload depends on the reason for having to move. "Lost job," involving a move across three states to distant relatives, is a different overhaul from "lost apartment," is different from "other breadwinner hospitalized."

Getting a decent job, so one can afford new things? Reasonably easy. More-or-less. Convincing self that decent job is going to stick around for the forseeable future? Harder, and possible a bad conclusion to make.

Convincing self to throw away stuff that I know damn well would be precious to someone, in the right circumstances? Much harder. (Selling off stuff? Complicated. Involves decision-making and business-like coordination.)

[ratcreature]

Hm, I've watched a couple of episodes, and while as in much reality tv there is some gawking at other humans aspect, but the angle is fairly understanding, but not too condescending, IMO. There is quite a bit of pushiness from the professionals because they tend to press people to clean in a couple of days for drama, but they do provide aftercare and therapy funds if the participants agree, and had some followup episode of a year later also (which I watched and found interesting, because some were still helped, some backslid, and also the initial cleanup sometimes gets done, sometimes not, sometimes in part).

And the people are all really different. One episode had someone with a huge house and a pool and it was all expensive stuff, some others are really small trailer homes, or was some formerly homeless on disability payments in a some one room apartment, the whole range. Some work, some are disabled, or retired, and the mental reasons are also fairly diverse, from what you say with a history of poverty, and family generational hoarding, to people starting to hoard after they lost a relative or after they had a house fire and lost all their possessions, or recover from drug addictions, to people who have other mental illnesses, like depression or schizophrenia, to people who are physically ill or disabled.

I agree that there are some inherent problems in the format of doing this kind of thing as tv show, but I think considering that I think they do fairly well.

[marag.livejournal.com]

::nods:: I've also wondered how they can afford things. I definitely understand hoarding tendencies, as I find having my books around me very comforting.

[ratcreature]

Yeah. The hoarding I get. Even what seems a bit weird at first like keeping something broken. For example I took a big coffee cup as memento from my grandparents after they were both dead, because I didn't have any large cups, and I liked its bright orange. So that was still reasonable enough, even though objectively it was somewhat worse for wear, with slight cracks in the glazing. But then some years later the saucer broke. Okay, so I still had the usable cup, but no saucer, only I felt it really hard to throw the even broken saucer away, and tried to find some rationalization to keep that broken saucer for something, or maybe try to glue it later, even though the break wasn't promising for glue, etc. I think I threw it away eventually when I cleaned out some drawers where I stashed it for a while, so at some point rationality still mostly prevails, but the pattern, that is crossing the line into bizarro land, is definitely there, and would lead to problems if it wasn't one broken saucer, but a whole pile of broken crockery on top of some home shopping spree for new dishes.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

From the ones I've seen, some of them can't really afford it, and that's part of the problem. Plus....it's been going on for years if not decades, and that's how it piles up.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, sometimes they mention financial problems, like that life savings are gone, or a couple they showed who paid mortgages for two houses, because they tried to move to escape the clutter, but in the process ended up with two houses filled with things instead.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I'm not a hoarder, but I think you're looking at it from the perspective of "tendency to hoard" not "severe mental illness that prioritises hoarding over everything else". One hoarder in my town lived on a pension (which is not very much here), but constantly bought things at the op shop (maximum price $5) or took things from people's rubbish bins and eventually had to be rescued from her house when she fell over in the dark and was trapped by her hoarding. She hoarded rather than pay her power bill or eat or get her medication. She also hoarded cats and didn't feed them, but they seemed to do okay on the mice, as she lived behind a dairy.

[ratcreature]

I think in spectrum of people they show, I'm actually less baffled by the really extreme cases, where like in your example much came from rubbish bins, but by the ones who on the outside are still functional, have a family and a job, but not one which I imagine would pay for constant shopping. I suppose some just have really bad financial problem, like one had a couple who actually paid mortgages for two houses, because they tried to move to escape the clutter, but in the process ended up with two houses filled with things.

[akktri.livejournal.com]

Four words. Massive credit card debt.

[ratcreature]

I always forget that from everything I hear it's easier to get people to lend you money in the US than here.