More hoarder thoughts
Jan. 23rd, 2026 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI'm definitely a hoarder sort of person, left to my own devices. The siren song of I should save this for later needs to be firmly tamped down lest I wind up crushed under the weight of the useless things that I could not bear to throw away. Happily, clearing out hoarder apartments does a really good job of reminding me in a definite, cat corpse and dog hair and reeking essential oils sort of way that I need to be tied to the mast... or else. Constant Vigilance!
A certain amount of clutter is indicative of a busy life, small children, etc. But there is a point where the clutter becomes more than just... clutter and starts to crush people with its inertia.
Where is that point? I've known a number of reasonably functional people who have kept houses that teetered into hoarder territory, people who have great difficulty divorcing themselves from their belongings, even belongings of relatively little utility. But they hold jobs and go out in public and pay their bills and have never been institutionalized. They're not... completely failing at the Activities of Daily Living, but their home environment is... kinda sketchy.
I think there are a couple of red flags that shift things from disorganized, cluttered, and messy to hoarder.
First off, having mountains or piles of ... things that are as tall as a person in the ordinary living space is kind of a hoarder thing. That's beyond mess.
Second, if areas of the living space are abandoned due to one's inability to access the area due to piles-of-stuff, that's a hoarder thing. If you have rooms you don't use or go into because you literally cannot, you might be a hoarder.
If your house has geologic layers of things, including obviously useless stuff (eg. mail from six years ago, just regular mail) on all the flat surfaces, you might be a hoarder.
If you have... collections of specific things (eg: several storage bins full of nail polishes, easily two hundred bottles of nail polish) that appear to be had... just for the having, you might be a hoarder. I don't understand why anyone would need endless gym bag totes jammed full of cosmentic products or more than twenty pairs of shoes or more than fifty handbags, but I suspect that either the buying of these things or the having of these things has somehow become the reward point rather than the more typical using or enjoying of the things.
An inability to handle mail is a hoarder hallmark. The inability to handle mail results in the mail being shoved into drawers and purses and backpacks and stacked until falling off on every flat surface. This is all mail, not just keepsake love letters or something. All mail. Junk mail, old utility bills, health insurance notices, etc. are all stored as if they have the same level of utility and this is constant across all hoarder apartments I've cleaned out. There's something about mail that hoarders can't really throw it out. A "mail problem" makes the living space look like how the Ankh-Morpork post office must have appeared when Moist von Lipwig became postmaster.
If there are visible walkways through the things in your house so that you can navigate the still-usable areas, you probably need to deal with your shit.
At some point, it all becomes too much to deal with for the person living there. Like, they just... can 't. It seems insurmountable and they kind of shut down regarding the stuff. I think hoarding has comorbidities (I am not a doctor but it turns out you don't need an MD to be throwing around fancy doctor words. Lookit me acting like I know what the fuck I'm talking about.) with other mental issues like depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, manic-depressive styles of things.
I do not know, with specificity, what particularly was dogging (sorry) the heels of my tenant, but among the books in the unit was "Living with Bipolar Disorder" and there were a fair number of mailings that appeared to be coming from mental health professionals.
Tenant's adult child, the one who signed off on the contents of the apartment, claimed that he was the sole child and heir. This was not true, which I determined by looking at tenant's keychain fob. It had an aged picture of two children, one of whom grew up to be the adult child I met.
Tenant's other adult child is serving time for arson and cemetery vandalism. I know this because, in the endless mail, there was a regular supply of Smart Communications mail. (Smart Communications is Mail From Prisons, part of our for-profit system of prisons. Smart Communications filed for bankruptcy protection in 2024 and is not faring well as a company at the current time due to some failed patent claims and new competitors flooding the space.) And of course, I'm curious so I paw through the mail. The mail is from 'your loving son' and addressed to 'mom'. This is not the person who signed off on the apartment, it's a different name.
So yeah, adult child who signed off on the apartment, you aren't the ONLY adult child. You TOLD me you were, but... that was not a true statement. For what it's worth, I met Tenant's adult child at the address he gave me, which I googled later. It's a mental health services place. Adult child was driving decent machinery and was on time and dressed in clothing that suggest personal hygiene is functional. (You judge people on that stuff? Sure do. Vehicle is an indicator of financial stability, personal cleanliness helps me predict how much of a shithole the people will turn my apartment into.)
So I think there are some mental health challenges running through the family, probably some affecting my tenant and probably some affecting her kids to one degree or another. That kinda sucks because it's hellishly difficult to get reasonable mental health services out here in bumfucklandia
Some observations:
Nobody needs more than three complete first-aid kids.
Having more than twenty Bibles does not give you peace or help you to lead a righteous life. I think they only work if you read them, and then only sometimes.
There is no amount of albuterol that can compete with hand rolled cigarettes smoked in an unventilated efficiency apartment.
Canned potato slices are a thing. Today I learned...
Buying endless packages of clarifying and cleansing and rejuvenating skin lotions (never opened, never used, many still in the original packaging) does nothing for you besides empty your bank account.
The number of dead computers, dead laptops, dead chromebooks, dead cell phones, dead flat screens... I feel like I singlehandedly destroyed the environment yesterday. *sigh* No, we do not have electronics recycling here except like once a year in the spring. I am not storing this shit until spring. I did save an adorable chromebook to see if I could flash it and make a baby laptop, but nothing else was worth my time.
In an efficiency apartment, twelve power strips is too many power strips. (These are things you plug into an outlet to make more outlets than you started with.)
After a time, milk becomes solids and liquids instead of just being a liquid. This is gross.
I hate Fabuloso, it reeks. Also, cleaners only work if you open the bottle and use them. Unopened cleaners do not make your living space cleaner.
The more brooms, mops, vacuum cleaners, floor scrubbers, etc. that an apartment contains, the dirtier the floors will be.
If the tenant uses enough perfume or essential oils or whatever, absolutely everything in the apartment will taste like fake lavender even if you take it out of the apartment. (This, btw, is why the pigs are eating well this week. None of the food is human-usable so the pigs might as well get it.) It will make your house smell like fake lavender.
I'm almost done, got some more pig food to get out of there before The Big Snowstorm, a dresser to haul home and burn, but it's definitely an apartment where I can walk around now. Next week it's time for PAINTING AND CLEANING. Very exciting.
In other news, tenant in 202 is not in apartment (upstairs tenant called in a wellness check because she hasn't heard him around or seen him around) because is in mental health facility, his caseworker says he will probably not renew lease in April due to his inability to pursue Independent Living at this juncture. But heat's on, windows and doors are secured, rent is auto-paid, and he's got some stuff in there. S'all good, man.
Tenant upstairs at 136 is not going to get his things that he asked me to store following his January 2 eviction because it's going to be 1 degrees (F) over the weekend with a massive snowstorm. There is one more weekend after this one (with projected brutally cold temperatures on the long-term forecast) before the items can be removed and thrown away on February 3. I mean, it's technically possible that he will get here and clean his shit out but my money is on "not gonna get his things" and also "I will not get paid for storing those things" and also "I will have to clear out the apartment and get rid of the things on my own dime". #winning. Tenant at 136 has also been in and out of mental health facilities and not able to manage independent living but does not have a 3rd party service paying his checks because he's not on disability yet, so the rent went unpaid and we evicted him. From our perspective, he literally ghosted us. The cops were here twice doing wellness checks, the postal carrier asked if he'd moved, etc. I've gotten no money for the unit since October. Very annoying. I did get the heat on in the company's name and I've secured the place until I am allowed to throw away his shit.
Three tenants really struggling with living their lives independently in one winter is... a lot. Like, I think that some folks need more support than they're getting, but the problems of providing that support are nontrivial.
I feel like the government is supposed to help its citizens, but some citizens are difficult to help. Either they don't want help (and probably should have some agency about whether or not they want help) or they aren't consistent about showing up for the help or there is not the sort of help that they feel OK about taking or whatever. Some people are just... not easy to help and they do not want the government's assorted agencies up in their business like that even if a selection of random folks would look at them and be "Yeah, bro, you really do need some help to get through life".
It's probably a bell curve and at the far ends of the bell curve are the people who are very resistant to being helped (on the one end) and the people who do not even remotely need to be helped (on the other end). But is these people are difficult to help a sufficient reason for not trying? Dunno.
Also, I gotta go cook up more pig food.
A certain amount of clutter is indicative of a busy life, small children, etc. But there is a point where the clutter becomes more than just... clutter and starts to crush people with its inertia.
Where is that point? I've known a number of reasonably functional people who have kept houses that teetered into hoarder territory, people who have great difficulty divorcing themselves from their belongings, even belongings of relatively little utility. But they hold jobs and go out in public and pay their bills and have never been institutionalized. They're not... completely failing at the Activities of Daily Living, but their home environment is... kinda sketchy.
I think there are a couple of red flags that shift things from disorganized, cluttered, and messy to hoarder.
First off, having mountains or piles of ... things that are as tall as a person in the ordinary living space is kind of a hoarder thing. That's beyond mess.
Second, if areas of the living space are abandoned due to one's inability to access the area due to piles-of-stuff, that's a hoarder thing. If you have rooms you don't use or go into because you literally cannot, you might be a hoarder.
If your house has geologic layers of things, including obviously useless stuff (eg. mail from six years ago, just regular mail) on all the flat surfaces, you might be a hoarder.
If you have... collections of specific things (eg: several storage bins full of nail polishes, easily two hundred bottles of nail polish) that appear to be had... just for the having, you might be a hoarder. I don't understand why anyone would need endless gym bag totes jammed full of cosmentic products or more than twenty pairs of shoes or more than fifty handbags, but I suspect that either the buying of these things or the having of these things has somehow become the reward point rather than the more typical using or enjoying of the things.
An inability to handle mail is a hoarder hallmark. The inability to handle mail results in the mail being shoved into drawers and purses and backpacks and stacked until falling off on every flat surface. This is all mail, not just keepsake love letters or something. All mail. Junk mail, old utility bills, health insurance notices, etc. are all stored as if they have the same level of utility and this is constant across all hoarder apartments I've cleaned out. There's something about mail that hoarders can't really throw it out. A "mail problem" makes the living space look like how the Ankh-Morpork post office must have appeared when Moist von Lipwig became postmaster.
If there are visible walkways through the things in your house so that you can navigate the still-usable areas, you probably need to deal with your shit.
At some point, it all becomes too much to deal with for the person living there. Like, they just... can 't. It seems insurmountable and they kind of shut down regarding the stuff. I think hoarding has comorbidities (I am not a doctor but it turns out you don't need an MD to be throwing around fancy doctor words. Lookit me acting like I know what the fuck I'm talking about.) with other mental issues like depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, manic-depressive styles of things.
I do not know, with specificity, what particularly was dogging (sorry) the heels of my tenant, but among the books in the unit was "Living with Bipolar Disorder" and there were a fair number of mailings that appeared to be coming from mental health professionals.
Tenant's adult child, the one who signed off on the contents of the apartment, claimed that he was the sole child and heir. This was not true, which I determined by looking at tenant's keychain fob. It had an aged picture of two children, one of whom grew up to be the adult child I met.
Tenant's other adult child is serving time for arson and cemetery vandalism. I know this because, in the endless mail, there was a regular supply of Smart Communications mail. (Smart Communications is Mail From Prisons, part of our for-profit system of prisons. Smart Communications filed for bankruptcy protection in 2024 and is not faring well as a company at the current time due to some failed patent claims and new competitors flooding the space.) And of course, I'm curious so I paw through the mail. The mail is from 'your loving son' and addressed to 'mom'. This is not the person who signed off on the apartment, it's a different name.
So yeah, adult child who signed off on the apartment, you aren't the ONLY adult child. You TOLD me you were, but... that was not a true statement. For what it's worth, I met Tenant's adult child at the address he gave me, which I googled later. It's a mental health services place. Adult child was driving decent machinery and was on time and dressed in clothing that suggest personal hygiene is functional. (You judge people on that stuff? Sure do. Vehicle is an indicator of financial stability, personal cleanliness helps me predict how much of a shithole the people will turn my apartment into.)
So I think there are some mental health challenges running through the family, probably some affecting my tenant and probably some affecting her kids to one degree or another. That kinda sucks because it's hellishly difficult to get reasonable mental health services out here in bumfucklandia
Some observations:
Nobody needs more than three complete first-aid kids.
Having more than twenty Bibles does not give you peace or help you to lead a righteous life. I think they only work if you read them, and then only sometimes.
There is no amount of albuterol that can compete with hand rolled cigarettes smoked in an unventilated efficiency apartment.
Canned potato slices are a thing. Today I learned...
Buying endless packages of clarifying and cleansing and rejuvenating skin lotions (never opened, never used, many still in the original packaging) does nothing for you besides empty your bank account.
The number of dead computers, dead laptops, dead chromebooks, dead cell phones, dead flat screens... I feel like I singlehandedly destroyed the environment yesterday. *sigh* No, we do not have electronics recycling here except like once a year in the spring. I am not storing this shit until spring. I did save an adorable chromebook to see if I could flash it and make a baby laptop, but nothing else was worth my time.
In an efficiency apartment, twelve power strips is too many power strips. (These are things you plug into an outlet to make more outlets than you started with.)
After a time, milk becomes solids and liquids instead of just being a liquid. This is gross.
I hate Fabuloso, it reeks. Also, cleaners only work if you open the bottle and use them. Unopened cleaners do not make your living space cleaner.
The more brooms, mops, vacuum cleaners, floor scrubbers, etc. that an apartment contains, the dirtier the floors will be.
If the tenant uses enough perfume or essential oils or whatever, absolutely everything in the apartment will taste like fake lavender even if you take it out of the apartment. (This, btw, is why the pigs are eating well this week. None of the food is human-usable so the pigs might as well get it.) It will make your house smell like fake lavender.
I'm almost done, got some more pig food to get out of there before The Big Snowstorm, a dresser to haul home and burn, but it's definitely an apartment where I can walk around now. Next week it's time for PAINTING AND CLEANING. Very exciting.
In other news, tenant in 202 is not in apartment (upstairs tenant called in a wellness check because she hasn't heard him around or seen him around) because is in mental health facility, his caseworker says he will probably not renew lease in April due to his inability to pursue Independent Living at this juncture. But heat's on, windows and doors are secured, rent is auto-paid, and he's got some stuff in there. S'all good, man.
Tenant upstairs at 136 is not going to get his things that he asked me to store following his January 2 eviction because it's going to be 1 degrees (F) over the weekend with a massive snowstorm. There is one more weekend after this one (with projected brutally cold temperatures on the long-term forecast) before the items can be removed and thrown away on February 3. I mean, it's technically possible that he will get here and clean his shit out but my money is on "not gonna get his things" and also "I will not get paid for storing those things" and also "I will have to clear out the apartment and get rid of the things on my own dime". #winning. Tenant at 136 has also been in and out of mental health facilities and not able to manage independent living but does not have a 3rd party service paying his checks because he's not on disability yet, so the rent went unpaid and we evicted him. From our perspective, he literally ghosted us. The cops were here twice doing wellness checks, the postal carrier asked if he'd moved, etc. I've gotten no money for the unit since October. Very annoying. I did get the heat on in the company's name and I've secured the place until I am allowed to throw away his shit.
Three tenants really struggling with living their lives independently in one winter is... a lot. Like, I think that some folks need more support than they're getting, but the problems of providing that support are nontrivial.
I feel like the government is supposed to help its citizens, but some citizens are difficult to help. Either they don't want help (and probably should have some agency about whether or not they want help) or they aren't consistent about showing up for the help or there is not the sort of help that they feel OK about taking or whatever. Some people are just... not easy to help and they do not want the government's assorted agencies up in their business like that even if a selection of random folks would look at them and be "Yeah, bro, you really do need some help to get through life".
It's probably a bell curve and at the far ends of the bell curve are the people who are very resistant to being helped (on the one end) and the people who do not even remotely need to be helped (on the other end). But is these people are difficult to help a sufficient reason for not trying? Dunno.
Also, I gotta go cook up more pig food.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-23 06:29 pm (UTC)Ok, now I'm really going to throw away that 6" stack of old magazines!
I remember one guy who was living on the streets of San Francisco. He was a big guy with grossly swollen feet (probably drugs +). I'm pretty sure I saw him on the streets for about 4 years. He was functional enough to go to take care of himself in a rudimentary way. Someone, not me, asked if he wouldn't be more comfortable indoors. His answer was a considered and quiet, but very firm NO. As you say, some people you just can't help.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-24 02:07 am (UTC)I think I see now why my friend and landlord was so keen for *me* to get this place. Yes, I needed it, but she wanted somebody who would actually take care of it.