Anybody have any advice on how to deal with a hoarder?

Ted DuPuis said:
I'm still all for the viking funeral
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Funny... I said the same thing to my kids a few years ago.

I've seen a really cool 'burial' while scuba diving.
We were in Cozumel, and out where the wall drops of to like 3000 ft. I saw 3 divers placing an urn and placard into the reef wall.
Kept our distance till they were done, but then just had to swim by and read it. He was an avid diver, wonderful father, etc.
Made me think about it for years as an option.
 
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azblackbird said:
Difference between my Mom and little brother is that little brother buys stuff to sell. Whether he sits on his stuff for a few years is of no concern as it always has value and is easily salable.

Mom buys stuff to keep. Most of the stuff she accumulates has no value... only to her.
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Nope. Difference is you don’t value her stuff. But she does.
 
One of the owners in our condo is a hoarder. He hoards books. He's also an absentee owner who lives in Japan. He hasn't been back here in a couple years. Now he wants to sell the place. He and his RE agent gave some of us permission to go in and take any books we want. He has thousands, on all different subjects. Here is one that my neighbor picked out for me. :eek:

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Ted DuPuis said:
You and your brother might fight about some things, so you have to ask which fight is going to be easier or harder. If the fight with your brother will be harder, then the fight with your mother might also make more sense now.
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Little brother wants nothing to do with our Mom's stuff. He's been helping me convince her to unload as much as we can so she can get her a nice 5th wheel and enjoy herself. He's even offered to set her up with an E-bay business and split all proceeds 50/50 with her. Little does she know in a few months time of helping my brother unload his stuff, she'd have enough cash to pay for a nice 5th wheel and new P/U to boot. She's just stubborn and set in her ways and don't want to learn anything new. Oh well... we'll keep trying as best as we can. :dunno:
 
azblackbird said:
Little brother wants nothing to do with our Mom's stuff. He's been helping me convince her to unload as much as we can so she can get her a nice 5th wheel and enjoy herself. He's even offered to set her up with an E-bay business and split all proceeds 50/50 with her. Little does she know in a few months time of helping my brother unload his stuff, she'd have enough cash to pay for a nice 5th wheel and new P/U to boot. She's just stubborn and set in her ways and don't want to learn anything new. Oh well... we'll keep trying as best as we can. :dunno:
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That ultimately sounds similar to the arguments I've had with my mom over the past 5 years or so, and finally gave up on. Mom's got some health issues, been having mini-strokes (and denying it). Passes out at least semi-regularly. I tried to get her to let me help her with getting the right doctors, diagnosis, and treatment so that she can live independently longer. My fear is that she'll have something happen that won't kill her, but will leave her in a state where she can't live on her own anymore. Then I have to stick her somewhere, which will just leave everyone miserable.

Ultimately I'm trying to help her so that she can live independently longer and have a longer, happier life, just like you're trying to help your mom get a nice 5th wheel so she can enjoy her life more. After a few years of this, I figured out that trying to help my mom when she didn't want help was only going to leave both of us more frustrated, and have since stopped trying to help her.

It sounds like you're having better luck, and if so, more power to you. But I've just given up. Eventually mom won't have a choice but to accept my help.
 
Pretty much where my mom was (not the hoarder issue) but insisted that nobody was going to get her house. She was going to die there. Unfortunately, she nearly did, and now is in a nursing home. The positive part of Alzheimer's is that she no longer remembers the house and her insistence that she would not leave it. The down side to her mindset is that had she accepted medical assistance a couple of years ago, she probably would not be in a nursing home right now.
 
gkainz said:
Pretty much where my mom was (not the hoarder issue) but insisted that nobody was going to get her house. She was going to die there. Unfortunately, she nearly did, and now is in a nursing home. The positive part of Alzheimer's is that she no longer remembers the house and her insistence that she would not leave it. The down side to her mindset is that had she accepted medical assistance a couple of years ago, she probably would not be in a nursing home right now.
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That's pretty much what I figure is going to happen to my mom.

Now if she actually dies there, then fine. It's what she wants. But if she ends up in nursing...
 
azblackbird said:
Thanks for the response. As a professional what would you recommend as a treatment?
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I unfortunately can’t offer simple suggestions in a forum post. The reason the profession exists is because it is a process which is typically non-trivial.

Alas, an opportunity for an aviation analogy to illustrate (no intention of being cheeky here):
OP: I got an airplane. Can anyone give me advice on how to fly it?
Reply: I am a professional CFI and advise you hire and work with a CFI.
OP: But as a professional CFI, can you recommend some things to try?
Reply: While I could, teaching flying through forum posts would not be very professional of me.
 
I think my dog is a hoarder.

We go to bed and her toys are scattered around the kitchen and laundry room. In the morning she will have her toys on her bed along with anyone's shoes that happened to get left in her reach. She doesn't chew on the shoes, she just wants then next to her when she sleeps.
 
You can leave well enough alone, likely not bothering anyone.

A technique I like is to throw stuff out or give it away when the ‘hoarder’ is away. They usually never miss it.
 
A friend had more stuff than you could shake a stick at - stuff going back to at least the 1950's. His kids convinced him it was time to get rid of some of it. What they did was fill a garbage can or two each trash day and put a couple "good things" near the top because they knew that dad was going to go out and dig and find something to retrieve. So once he rescued the "good things" he was happy and would let the rest go.
 
I had the problem in reverse. My daughter had **** all over her place.

Fortunately, one day she decided enough is enough and started with the garage after her teenage daughter asked if she could start parking in the garage rather than on the street during the forecast blizzard.

I dropped off my small open trailer once a month to haul **** to the dump. Now she can actually walk in her walk in closet.

These things seem to solve themselves one way or another.

Cheers
 
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