The Vine: September 2, 2009
Dear Sars,
I have what I consider to be rather sticky situation. My policy up to this point has been to keep my big mouth shut, but I’m not sure that I shouldn’t say something, so here goes.
I have a long-distance friend who, despite the distance, has been a good friend for several years. She’s in her early twenties and is honestly usually quite lovely, but recently there have been some changes in her family and she is not handling them well.
I’m sympathetic to her situation, which is kind of sucky, but nothing that would make the local papers or anything. Her mother died many years ago, and her father has recently remarried. My friend, who we can call “O,” has stubbornly refused to make a place for this woman in their family. She’s done this to a really extreme degree, in various ways that make me physically cringe when she relates the stories. She refuses to even call the woman by her name, and instead refers to her as “the troll.” She has assured me she does not do this to the woman’s face, thank the Lord.
To be fair, her father didn’t necessarily handle the situation all that well either. He got wrapped up in courting this new woman and spent the bare minimum of time with O, which O found very hurtful. O claims that her siblings also strongly dislike the new woman, but I don’t know them, so I can’t testify to this myself. She has said things that lead me to believe that she resents this woman for “replacing” her as well as the memory of her mother.
I can’t even imagine how painful it is to lose your mother at a young age, so I understand how it must hurt to have a new woman in the picture. However. However, O is taking her response to a really extreme, unkind, petty place. For example, she refused to attend her father’s wedding because the new wife (“the troll”) had decided that she wanted a wedding ring. I was confused by the relevance at first, but O explained to me that her mother had not had a wedding ring, though she had apparently wanted one in later years. The fact that the new wife would have a wedding ring when O’s mother had not was declared to be unforgivably insensitive and offensive to her mother’s memory. She said she knew her mother “would have been upset” about this.
Their compromise involved O’s father buying her a new dress and shoes and paying for her to have her hair and nails done so that she could sit in a coffee shop during the ceremony and read a book. She attended the reception, but flat-out refused to watch her father and the new woman exchange rings. The rest of her siblings, as I understand it, were present at the ceremony.
O had been living in her family’s secondary residence while construction was completed on her father’s primary residence, but she has recently moved in with her father and his new wife, since she managed to find a job in the city where they live. Since she moved in, the problems have become worse and more extreme. She complains that the new wife sounds stupid and speaks poorly and walks around too loudly and slams doors.
This morning she presented me with two new issues: the first, that “the troll” has appropriated a briefcase for her own use that once belonged to O’s mother; and the second, that the troll insists on putting the toilet paper on the roll incorrectly. Since O obviously feels powerless to change the first situation, she has resorted to an unpleasant passive-aggressive battle over the second. She changed the toilet paper to face “the correct way” and then, when “the troll” changed it back, O elected to remove the toilet paper from the roll entirely and take it with her to her room.
I have tried since the beginning to be out-and-out supportive, and not to call her on any of her shitty behavior, but I find myself completely incapable of acting like feuding over toilet paper placement is in any way rational or mature behavior. I tried to very gently remind her that regardless of the greater issues, this issue was about toilet paper, and perhaps she should not stoop to a level where she is actually fighting over which way to hang something you wipe your ass with, but she just said she knows I “think it’s stupid” but that she is “just rebelling.”
Honestly, I think that she is making herself unnecessarily miserable and taking everyone else with her. Her mother is dead; I understand that it hurts and that she’s not embracing the change in her family, but the fact remains that her mother is dead and that her father has the right to have a relationship and to conduct himself in it as he sees fit. O is the youngest of all of her siblings, and as she is in her early twenties, it’s not like her father remarried while any of them were still children and thus were forced to accept a new “parent” into the situation. The new wife is simply that: O’s father’s new wife.
She’s so miserable that I am heartbroken for her, but…come on. I obviously don’t think she’s being fair to anyone, and am kind of appalled that she’s conducting herself in this manner. Up to this point, I’ve been maintaining a strict policy of listening and sympathetic noises and offers of long-distance hugs and making sad-faces at her over messaging services when she’s upset. I agree that her father did not handle the situation particularly well, but she has carried “not handling the situation particularly well” to new extremes.
My question is…should I even say anything? Should I start trying to gently present another point of view when she gets freaked out? (Example: maybe her father regretted not agreeing to rings with O’s mother and now is trying to make up for it by agreeing with the new wife’s desire for them?) Should I just keep making sympathetic noises and encouraging her to become financially independent and move out?
Mum’s The Word
Dear Mum,
Yes, you should say something.O’s behavior is childish and obnoxious, but leaving that aside, it’s also inappropriate in a way that suggests arrested development — I mean, “rebelling”?She’s in her twenties; the time for that is over, particularly if she’s still living at home at her father’s expense.
But that isn’t why you should say something; the immature reaction is not that of a happy or well-adjusted person, or one who’s even conscious that she’s behaving like a furious toddler.And part of the job of a friend, alas, is to take one for the team sometimes by pointing out jackassery like O’s.Do unto others, in other words — if you had started behaving like this, in a way you’d cringe at later, wouldn’t you want someone to tell you, so that you could stop before you alienate everyone in your life with it, and try to deal with what’s really bothering you?
Yeah, you would.You’d resent it at the time, but you’d want someone to save you from yourself.
What you say, and how, is another story, but telling her — gently — what you just told me is a good start, I think.”Look, it’s obvious that you’re in a lot of emotional pain, and I’m on your side, but I don’t think you realize how over the line you’re going with all of this, and for your own happiness, maybe you should either start cutting the wife a break, or talking some things out with a counselor, because you deserve better than to devote this much mental energy to this stuff.”
She does need to see a therapist; the territory issues with her father need sorting out, on both sides (that he’s tolerating her bratty nonsense when she’s living with him, presumably rent-free, is no more appropriate to her age than her behavior is), because something in the past is not getting dealt with productively.And whether she sees a professional or not, she does need to stop with the petty lines in the sand.The trick is in phrasing it so that it’s about her emotional well-being, versus her acting a fool — but if some “you’re acting a fool” sneaks into what you say, well, so be it; it’s true.And sometimes this is what friends are for — to tell you that, so that you can get a timely grip.
Hey Sars,
I’m sort of at the end of my rope here, and am really grasping at straws to try and deal with this situation.
On Inauguration Day, I was let go from my job, along with a good chunk of the employees at the company I worked for. This led to a whole slew of problems with my previous apartment complex, but that’s really left for another Vine. The main result of my dismissal was that my husband and I ended up moving in with his family, my brother-in-law, mother-in-law (M), and grandmother-in-law (G), to make ends meet.
Now, this has been an amazing help, and I’m unbelievably grateful for the roof over my head. There’s just one problem: the house they live in is completely overflowing with useless crap, they want to move when M finds a new job, and I don’t know how to help anymore.
I’m incredibly grateful for my in-laws opening their home to us. But just to illustrate how cluttered this house was, my husband’s and my rather meager possessions (we couldn’t fill a one-bedroom apartment with our stuff) got shoved into a library already so packed you couldn’t reach the back shelves, and the bedroom we claimed had maybe six square feet of walking room in it when we got done putting our belongings in there. The one large piece of furniture we had aside from our bed was my grandmother’s couch, which is currently residing at my parents’ place.
What clutters my in-laws’ house is basically arts and crafts odds ‘n’ ends, as well as four households’ worth of furniture. Over the course of her life, G has done everything from knitting, sewing, woodworking, crocheting, beadwork, and finally, the current hobby of making lampwork beads with M. Her habit whenever she starts a new hobby? Buy up as much as she can supply-wise, and keep it after the hobby has lost her interest, “just in case” she wants to start it up again.
Sars, the driveway is filled with warped and useless wood that isn’t even worth burning, it’s so waterlogged. The upstairs closets were full to bursting with buckets upon buckets of yarn and wool (at last count, there were 30 huge Tupperware tubs full of yarn scattered throughout the house and in the storage unit), the back room is so full of glass rods for lampworking you can hardly walk, and there is just no room in this house, there’s so much junk.
The outlying buildings are just as packed full of crap, mostly furniture odds ‘n’ ends that aren’t worth the effort it would take to clean the mouse poo and spiderwebs off them to make them useable again. The greenhouse is useless, the garage has had so much stuff just thrown in there that my husband can’t even access the woodworking tools, and I’m at my wit’s end figuring out how to deal with it.
While I was looking for work, my husband and I worked hard getting things to a point where we could actually breathe upstairs. At this point, a closet’s been cleaned out of yarn and other crap (The yarn alone took up seven eighths of the closet. There was over 15 separate tubs of it in there, which stopped us from using it until we took them out), the library has an actual usable couch now, and we have a hallway. However, the upstairs office is still full of yarn and an unused knitting machine, you have to hop over crap to get to the computer, and while the bedroom is the cleanest place in the upstairs save the bathroom, it gets boring staying in there every evening.
Sars, I just really don’t know how to help them and keep my own sanity. I’ve now got a part-time job that has me working the afternoon hours, which is when I’m most productive. I no longer have the energy to come home and clean, but if I don’t, I get incredibly claustrophobic and twitchy because the clutter is just too much for me. I barely earn enough to afford our bills and help out with finances, but my husband and I are doing our damnedest to set aside some savings so we can move out.
Neither G nor M are physically capable of helping clean for long periods of time; they are both in the morbidly-obese area on the overweight spectrum, and M suffers from fibromyalgia on top of it. What time they have that can be used productively tends to go to their lampworking business, as that’s putting food on the table (out of the five of us living there, I’m the only one working a “traditional job”).
Of the other two physically-fit members of the house, my husband is doing the best he can when he has no help and a fused spine. As for his brother, it’s like pulling teeth to get him off the computer long enough to get the garbage taken out, let alone help with major cleaning projects.
The best we’ve been able to do so far is get G to sell off some of her yarn, and start cleaning out some knick-knacks via eBay. A friend of mine also came over and got part of the overgrown yard cleaned up and organized. But it’s still not enough to get this place in shape if they plan on moving in the next year. And as it stands, I can’t even do laundry for my husband and me because the machines are covered in crap, the room they’re in has floors filthy enough to shame dirt floors, and I can’t see the controls enough to even work them properly.
Right now, the only solution I can see is finding a full-time position somewhere, anywhere that will hire me, and moving out ASAP. However, that still leaves G, M, and the brother-in-law in a house that’s falling apart around their ears, and no relief from the clutter in sight. Is that the best course of action? Is there anything else I can do to help them? Am I being crazy and should just suck it up and deal? I’d really appreciate another viewpoint.
Desperate For A Change
Dear Change,
The good news is, it sounds like your in-laws understand that there’s a problem, and are willing to address it, or to let you address it more or less as you see fit.If this isn’t the case, and you have to battle G and M for the right to list each item on eBay, then the problem is bigger than you, and you have to call the producers of Hoarders and then move out ASAP.
(On a side note: Do any other Hoarders-watchers find themselves gripped, during the show, with the urge to hit pause, rush into the bedroom, and begin weeding their possessions down to two books, two pairs of undies, and a single pair of earrings?”Fuck shirts!I’ll sleep on the sheets and wear them as a toga!”Is it just me?)
But if they want to straighten up, and just can’t, it’s time to budget some money and call in professionals.At the very least, call 1-800-Got-Junk or your local equivalent and get an estimate for hauling away the crap in the driveway and the busted furniture.Another option: I Sold It On eBay (or QuikDrop, or a similar service), which offers in-house assessments.Arrange for one of their employees to visit the house, price various objects, and handle their disposal; I Sold It On eBay should do most of the heavy lifting, literal and figurative, for you.
Concurrently, set up a schedule for going through portions of the house with M and G, one portion per day.Make the portions small and manageable, i.e. one closet, one quadrant of the laundry room, et cetera.Make it clear that nobody has to move anything or do anything; they just have to decide what stays and what gets thrown out, given away, or sold, and put the appropriately colored Post-It on each item or pile.Remind them during this process that, the more they can part with, the more money they can make on eBay — and save when it’s time to move house.I would start with parts of your current living area, which will show an immediate positive result for you and thus motivate you to continue dealing with this.I would also strongly suggest to someone in a position to enforce it that either your BIL helps with clean-up, or he pays into a dumpster fund and finances a few hours’ work from some local college students to haul shit outside and chuck it.
There does come a point with certain tasks where you have to call in professionals and consider it an investment in your sanity; this is one of those times.Someone has to take charge of the situation, so if your husband’s family is okay with it being you, get everyone to put together a few hundred bucks and get it done; if they’re not, use that money on an apartment deposit.
Okay, here’s a short-ish description of the situation:
Coworker has always been odd (like many who work in my department).In the last year she went from a “bit annoying but harmless odd” to “annoying and a bit creepy odd” to, in the last couple months, “creepy and kinda scary odd.”
I never knew her well, never saw her outside of work, never would have called her a friend or even a close acquaintance, and never particularly liked her, even in the BABHO stage.
Two weeks ago Coworker did something (I won’t go into details, it was creepy bad) that got her asked to leave work and not come back without a note from a doctor.The following Monday we were told she was found dead in her home.I don’t know that we will ever be told more details but I would be surprised if it was anything but suicide. I heard some details of her last few months and it wasn’t pretty.In my completely untrained and unprofessional opinion it sounds like paranoid schizophrenia.
I feel bad that Coworker’s life turned out the way it did and that she didn’t get the help she needed.And I definitely have some guilt over not seeing how bad it was in time, but I’m not sure I was ever in a position to be able to help her.I don’t think Coworker was particularly close to anyone here at work but I know of a couple times someone had tried to approach her about getting some medical/psychological help and it did not go well.I have to admit that I think that a lot of the “grief” showing in the department (and actually there isn’t a lot) is more guilt.
The family isn’t holding any service here (no family close by) so next week our employer is holding a Coworker Memorial Service for employees. My problem is that I don’t know if I should go or not.
The thing is, my reasons for going wouldn’t really be the reasons I think you should go to a memorial. Basically: I would feel bad for my coworkers who have organized it if no one but them shows up for it (a bit of a possibility); a memorial where no one comes is a really sad thing; and I don’t know that I want to deal with the aftermath at work if I don’t go.(I don’t think it would be too bad, but some coworkers would make it awkward and annoying for a while.)
But it seems hypocritical to go to a memorial for someone you didn’t like just to make your coworkers happy. (Although I have to admit if the family was going to be there, I would go just to make them feel better.)
So my question is, which is worse — going to the memorial for the wrong reasons or not going at all?
There’s a fine line between being well-mannered and being a hypocrite
Dear Sometimes There’s No Line At All,
Not going at all is worse.My father once told me, about a somewhat similar situation, “When in doubt, show up.”Like much of my father’s advice, it sounded too abstract to mean anything at the time and then I found myself applying it to dozens of different situations, but the gist (I think) is that we usually regret not attending things more than we regret attending them.
It’s a memorial; it doesn’t require you to sign an affidavit stating that you liked or disliked Coworker, and you don’t have to speak warmly in remembrance of her.All you have to do is go, so, not least because it will make your work life easier: go.Sit, listen, sign the book, and leave.Life is full of events like this, events we attend for courtesy’s sake, compulsory weddings of spouse’s tacky bosses; going when you don’t want to isn’t hypocritical.It’s life.
Tags: etiquette friendships the fam workplace
Sarah, I am completely with you. I watch Hoarders and I feel compelled to clean my apartment at each commercial break.
Sars, I’ve never seen “Hoarders,” but “Clean House” has prompted me to donate 5 bags of clothes to charity and toss out numerous other bags of crap.
Dude, that first episode of Hoarders made me scrub my fridge practically down to the bare metal and then rinse it with bleach water.
Yet I can’t look away. . .
Oh, Change. I am SO SORRY. My dad is a hoarder, and has ruined every house my parents (and my siblings and I) have ever lived in. Truck tires in the bathroom. Planks of splintered wood propped in a corner of the formal dining room. Waterlogged and moldy back issues of “Mother Earth” on the stairs. Empty toothpaste tubes and water-filled mouthwash bottles crowding the bathroom cabinets. You totally have my sympathy.
FWIW, and I hate to sound discouraging, but I have never personally known of a case in which a hoarder became a non-hoarder. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen–just that I’ve never seen or heard of such a conversion. I’d do whatever I had to do to get out ASAP, if I were you. The other parties involved are all adults, they presumably all either directly contributed to the hoarding or allowed it to happen, and they will do it again. And again.
I don’t think she’s trying to change them into non-hoarders; what happens in the new house will presumably have nothing to do with her. She needs to clean the current house, and her in-laws don’t seem unamenable to that, so she really only has to deal with it this once…if she doesn’t land a full-time gig and move out.
In other words, I don’t think she’s looking for a long-term fix. I think she wants THIS done.
I had a situation very similar to O’s. My mom died when I was 13, and my dad remarried 13 months later. My stepmother is my mother’s complete opposite, and I went through the same frustrations over the same symbolic small things – he didn’t get angry at her the way he did at my mom, my mom had always wanted to hire some help with cleaning, but my stepmother actually did, etc. And we had some rather rocky years, but civility reigned most of the time, mostly because I was still a teenager, still living at home, and my dad would have flattened me.
Maybe these things take some time/perspective that O just doesn’t have yet. My stepmother is a relief to me now, especially since Dad’s getting older and I live hours away. I don’t have to worry that he’s eating frozen chicken patties six nights a week or not changing the sheets. I don’t have to worry when he’s sick that he’s not going to the doctor, not taking medicine, not getting a hot meal and some rest. They take care of each other, and regardless of the rough start and everything else, I’m grateful.
Anyway, O needs to realize that her mom might not be happy with the new situation, but she would definitely not be happy about her child making herself and her father miserable. (My mother would have also be horrified to think that anyone would believe she’d raised me to be so ungracious.) If what she’s after is a way to preserve and honor her mother’s memory, this isn’t it.
When I watch Hoarders, I have the urge to run over to THEIR house and clean up. I feel so bad for those people, but I absolutely LOVE that show.
Mum,
if you give any advice to your friend at all, suggest that she saves up for a deposit and first/last month of rent, and she move out ASAP. I suspect that her behavior is growing worse and worse because moving back in with dad has led to some regression in her.
Even grown children who get along with their parents on occasion can regress into their teenage or childhood self staying home for more than a week’s vacation (I speak from experience). Add issues with one surviving parent, and I guarantee you that O is in a sense regressing to the time where her dad “ignored” her, and is now waging war on this woman she is blaming for it.
I’m all for therapy, for maybe even working therapy up to a point where she can have her dad attend one of the sessions and work out their issues. But therapy alone will not make up for the fact that she is now living with a dad she felt neglected her and having her step-mom be a daily reminder of perceived/actual past neglect. Moving will do wonders in allowing her to be civil when she does have more limited contact with the woman. And once she can be civil with her step-mom, she could probably go from there.
You don’t have to tell her as much yet, however. When she mentions “rebelling” just bring up the aforementioned tendency in most grown children to regress into their past, and add an “I know your teenage years were very painful for you, and if I were in your place, I would not want to repeat them at all! I would want to move out so I can have my own space, and feel like myself again, rather than a teenage version of me. I sense that just not being on your own is causing a lot of frustration.” Take the conversation from there, and deflect the excuses gently (don’t have enough money yet, etc). Focus on constructive ways of solving the exacerbating problem (living at home) first, and depending on how amenable she is to it, add advice on how she really should see a therapist to sort the underlying problem too (her resentment of step-mom, which is really her resenting her dad and redirecting it to a “safe” target).
And if “moving out” hints and attempts to focus on that problem first just lead you nowhere, I would add a tough love approach and point out that she is in the driver’s seat, and has chosen to remain in a home where someone openly frustrates her, and it must be for a reason. “So what are your reasons to live with someone you hate and make yourself miserable in the process?”. That said, after getting her to recognize that, offer to help her find a good therapist in her area. Do not assume the role of sounding board/therapist for her (although it’s possible you are already embroiled in it, unfortunately). She really does need to explore her issues with a trained therapist in the long run.
Ohhh, Hoarders. So addictive. I felt so bad for the woman who was really trying to clean up and change her life, and her husband/boyfriend/life partner was being a petulant child about them throwing out his UMPTEEN NON-FUNCTIONAL FISH TANKS. Fish tanks. Crimeny. Like, I’m sure he has mental issues, but he was coming across as just a lazy f@#$. And they had KIDS!
I’ve been recently helping my parents clean out their house.
I won’t go into the details, because some of it is just too gross to type.
Momentum goes a long way. I started by helping my mother clean out a closet every time I went to visit.
After we got started on that, my mom found new homes for an out of tune piano, and a non-functional organ.
After that, we picked a weekend, and started hauling stuff out of their very full basement.
For Labor Day, my brother is joining the fun, and we’re hoping to get the rest of the basement taken care of.
Start small. Keep trying. Don’t give up!
Any time I watch Hoarders/Clean House/Clean Sweep or the Oprah episodes about cluttered homes I always end up with at least one bag for Goodwill. I love it though, it feels great to get rid of stuff I don’t need, especially since my mom is a saver and we always had a cluttered house growing up.
@Change There’s unloved yarn? Just kidding (sortof). As a crafter, I know how hard it is to destash your supplies (Yummy, yummy supplies), but I do it. For craft and hobby supplies that they’re willing to part with and are still in decent shape, she should be able to get either real money or a donation slip. Encourage them to reduce if they can’t purge the entire hobby. Get them down to a bin of essential basic tools, a couple supplies so they could crank out a small project at 11PM if the bug bites them, but they don’t need to have 10 bins of supplies. Remind them they can always bulk up with the rest of the stuff if they want to take up the same hobby (and the second time, they’ll know the best most useful things to buy). In the meantime, they can have the cash in their pocket or the tax break.
Other active knitters/crochets love to add to their yarn stashes (quilters too). Or if its cheap acrylic that you’d not getting hits on, kids programs, nursing homes, women’s shelters, assorted other programs running knitting/crochet programs or even goodwill would love donations. I’m sure the same goes for beaders and other hobbyiests. If the soft stuff (yarn or fabric) is smelling a little off (but isn’t actually moldy or gross), you’ll want to freshen it up before you try to sell it. Sometimes setting stuff in the sun for a bit will naturally freshen it up or setting it in a ziploc bag with a bowl of baking soda or a dryer sheet. I think sometimes people put stuff in the freezer.
On a side note, are you paying rent? Are you supposed to pay rent? In exchange for rent or a lowered rent, could you offer super elbow grease? Like a serious plan–not “Your house is a mess, I’m cleaning it and not paying you.” More of a, “I noticed that some of the house needs some extra cleaning and I was wondering if in addition to the regular chores, you’d like us to exchange some of our rent for some deep house cleaning/declutter. Not that we would throw away important stuff, but help clean the 1… 2… 3… What do you think? ” Then maybe write something up so you could check things off and they would know that you’re not throwing away their knick knacks while they sleep. And you’re not their slave labor.
And yes, watching Hoarders or Clean Sweep also makes me start cleaning, sorting, etc.
Shows like “Clean House” or “Life Laundry” (old British show, sometimes seen in reruns here) fascinate me too. I never heard of “Hoarders” but I bet it’s a hoot. I usually sympathize with the hoarding slobby people more than the frustrated wants-to-clear-it-all family member or the show staff who do the work. I especially HATE when they chuck out someone’s beloved collection of (name whatever tchochkes) and then fill up the space with a dumb ugly potted plant. At least on Life Laundry, one of the staff guys was an expert on the local antiques markets and could get some really good money for some of the disposessed posessions. On Clean House, even quite valuable musical instruments, motorbikes, furniture, etc. all go at yard sale prices. That is just wrong, to me.
I do like the idea of clearing out the true rubbish, though. Good luck with that. And maybe some of that yarn could go to one of the classroom projects over at Donors Choose? or some similar organization in your own neighborhood.
I could totally be that mother and that grandmother, lots of arts’n’crafts stuff at my place. But I’ve got a house all to myself, so it’s not annoying anyone else.
Oh damn. I didn’t even know there was a TV show about Hoarders. I don’t know if I could watch it; just reading this Vine made me want to go home and do a deep clean even though I just finished one last week!
I heartily agree with the advice to Change to tackle the issue one small area at a time. A big project like this [especially one that requires the participation of more than one person] can be a logistical nightmare, and if it was mine to deal with I would probably just throw up my hands and go, “It’s too much to do, so I’m not going to do anything.” Which may be what Change’s in-laws have done… yes, there’s definitely a hoarder aspect to it, but given their apparent willingness to fix things or have Change fix things, I wonder if part of the reason they haven’t addressed it themselves is that they feel they can’t with whatever physical or financial limitations they have. Breaking it down into manageable little bits not only gets things done but can make the bigger stuff seem possible, and a change of attitude can make a big difference.
As for Mum: Yes, say something. Also — and I speak from personal experience here — in conjunction with that, dialing back the sympathetic listening is also a good idea. The more of an audience O has for her complaints and accounts of her behavior, and the more receptive that audience appears to be, the more she’s going to do it, and the more she’s going to think it’s okay. That in itself could be enough of a shock to her system that it might help her realize that, yeah, this is screwed up. Also, playing therapist for someone when you are not, in fact, a trained professional does not actually help them nine times out of ten, and definitely does not help you.
Ohhhhhhhh the hoarding. My husband thinks I’m a bit of a slob (and I am, that’s true, but I was raised by hippies and that’s my excuse), so I make him watch Hoarders and he realizes that he’s got it pretty damn good.
If M and G are totally okay with items being sold, then I second Sars’ advice to get the I Sold It on Ebay peeps in there, like yesterday. M and G will make some much-needed cash (so it sounds) and Change will get some much-needed space.
That’s not to say that the piles won’t come back (because they will), but at least Change will get some respite while she and her hubs are getting back on their feet and getting those feet pointed toward the door.
Also, if the yarn is wool, cotton, or similar (i.e., not acrylic), I would be more than happy to acquire some for a reasonable price.
Mum…I asked a 14-y-o in a similar sitch “Is this how your mother raised you to behave?” Yeah, I said it. It’s a low blow, and I hated doing it…and for a sec I thought the skinny little pipsqueak was going to hit me (we cried instead.) It made a difference though. She opened up in therapy & it got a LOT better. Good luck.
OMG, Hoarders. It’s not just you, Sars. I watched some clips online – seen the food hoarder? I paused her & checked every expiration date on everything in the house, gagging a little the whole time! *shiver*
To well-mannered or hypocrite:
Just to add on to Sars excellent advice – this memorial service, like all memorial services, are for the living, not the dead. Even if your only compelling reason for going is to show support for the co-workers who organized it, that is reason enough.
“(S)he refused to attend her father’s wedding because the new wife (“the troll”) had decided that she wanted a wedding ring.”
The woman wanted a wedding ring when she got married? How dare she!
I’ll bet the new wife didn’t even know the first wife didn’t have a ring until they started making wedding plans. Sars’ advice is sound; talk to your friend. Good luck!
@Change – I feel you – my mom’s not quite to the neurotic stage with the hoarding, but it’s still pretty bad. And unfortunately for our inheritance, her favorite place to buy things is the dollar store, so no hidden treasures when that dreaded day comes for us!
But in the meantime, you might look into a housecleaning “system” like the FlyLady’s (www.flylady.net). She’s a little neurotic when it comes to certain things (shining the sink; dressing to the shoes; using her feather duster; sending thousands of emails a day, most of which are testimonials about how great her system is – seriously, get the emails in digest form and send them to an account that you make up just for that), but the premise is sound. She’s helped a lot of folks get rid of a lot of stuff, bit-by-bit. It won’t happen all at once, but one “27-fling boogy” at a time will eventually make dents. And little dents encourage bigger dents. And (hopefully), bigger dents help form better habits.
Best of all, it’s free, so there’s no loss to you or your in-laws even if it drives you a little crazy like it did me. Just mentally trash all the annoying stuff and cling to the basic principles.
@Change: I’m getting this vibe from your letter that you feel it’s your responsibility to rescue your in-laws from their house, that the clutter problem is yours to fix. I’m also curious as to why your in-laws want to move (as opposed to repairing the house they have), though that much may be irrelevant. Does G understand how her consumption habits created this situation? What did it take to convince her to sell some of her stuff? Do M and G appreciate that they will need to relieve themselves of a lot of stuff while they move, or do they intend to bring all that junk with them?
If they understand how their living situation ended up like this, and they get that the house will need to lose a lot of weight before they can move out of it, and they’re prepared to begin the proprietary carnage, then it may very well be the case that they’ll need your help in changing the situation. But if G insists on continuing to keep the supplies for 15 different crafts around, and M is okay with that, and your BIL doesn’t have the energy to a) try to get through to his mother and grandmother or b) dig himself out of there and move out, then there is not very much you can do for them. These are adults, living their own lives, and you are not responsible for them. You can lend moral support and guidance and a strong back, but you cannot save them from themselves.
If getting yourself a full-time job and moving yourself and your husband out of there is all you’re able to do, then do it, and don’t beat yourself up about it.
Change:
I think I’m going to go a bit against the tide, here, and say to just get a dumpster and fill it. Trying to sell anything will be more hassle than it’s worth, and it will just add another excuse for not getting rid of the junk.
I know that it seems extremely un-thrifty to do this, but:
1) If they have the money to fill their house to bursting with crap, then they don’t need to recover any of their investments in crap.
2) A high-resolution, well-lit photograph of a painting is almost invariably just as good as the actual painting (unless it’s a work of fine art, and I think it’s vanishingly improbable that the situation described has produced any fine art.)
3) The chief cost of raw materials is the time to go and get it from the store, and buying from the internet just bumps that cost up further. Nobody’s going to be interested in yarn unless you’re selling something like a shipping container for fifty bucks delivered. (Of course, there’s an exception for materials of exceptional quality–but, really, the best way to judge is to go to a craft store and see what’s on the shelf. If it’s on the shelf at the craft store, then throw it away.)
Be deaf to the cries of “someone might want that!” or “that’s a memento!” For the former: see #3. For the latter: See #2. As a compromise, allow them to keep one memento of each trip taken or significant life event. Craft projects should only be kept if they won a prize or have some importance beyond “I made this”.
Obviously, if something has actual value–an expensive power tool, a piece of high-end sporting equipment, rare materials–you can try to sell it. But if it’s just generic stuff, well, I can go to the store and have exactly the same thing this afternoon; if I buy it off ebay then God only knows when it’ll show up, by which point my creative juices might well have spurted in a different direction (…er, well, you understand what I mean.)
******
Line: ergh. That’s a toughie. It’s a bit awkward that the co-workers set up a memorial service.
That said, the company should really have stepped in here and offered grief-counseling services, because that sounds like exactly what you need.
My favorite cautionary tale about hoarding-
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/27/BAJ116NG5C.DTL
Yeesh, Hoarders. Mrs. Bundren watches that, and she watches it ALONE, because just five minutes of it makes me positively twitchy. Ten minutes, and I’m wondering why the non-hoarders in the household haven’t considered arson as a reasonable option.
@Line, with funerals/memorials the thing to remember is that they are not about the deceased, not really. When my MIL died, I had friends who had met her once if that turn up and after all we had gone through it was so great to unexpectedly see their faces there.
I know that yours is a completely different situation, but the support of your colleagues should be a huge motivating factor.
I have a little perspective on No Line’s problem. I used to work with a woman who also had some emotional health problems; she ended up dying as a result of complications several years after I started working with her. Many of us felt an enormous amount of guilt — Could we have helped more? Did we reach out often enough? Should we have called for more substantial help?
We held a small memorial for her and planted a tree. Not very many people came, but I think it helped us a lot. We talked about how helpless we felt and that we were all glad we had reached out in some way or another, no matter how small it may have been. And we also knew who else cared about her, or felt guilty or sad. It was nice to know that we were thinking about her. And when things popped up with her name on it, we knew were to take it and how to address it in ways that felt healthy.
So go. You’ll be glad that you recognized a challenging situation. You’ll be able to support and be supported by your colleagues. And you will feel healthier for taking the time to remember someone that was in your life, even if it was in a difficult way. These types of situations are challenging and I hope that you find a healthy way to reflect. Good luck!
The Hoarders website on A&E.com has a list of resources for helping those who hoard. And one of those resources there gets you to a list of medical professionals in your geographical area who specialize in hoarding issues.
I am about to contact some of the resources listed about friends of mine who are hoarders and have a 4 month old baby in their one bedroom apartment. You can’t even open up the door to the baby’s room all the way because of all that is jammed into that room – that’s not the baby’s stuff either. They have so much stuff there is a path that goes through the apartment. I don’t know what they are going to do when she starts to crawl. It’s heartbreaking.
Are there hoarders who aren’t slobs?
Oh, watching Clean Sweep definitely results in a bag or two to Goodwill.
And, Hoarders! Man, I love that show because while I’m watching it I can look at my vaguely messy living room and think, “it’s not so bad!”.
Strangely, both shows make me feel better about myself…
I recorded some episodes of Hoarders to watch while I was packing for our move. It made me so motivated (and prompted my semi-hoarder fiancee to agree to give a lot of stuff away!)
I also super-recommend giving things to the Salvation Army (assuming you don’t want to try to get cash for them by selling them on Ebay or whatever). They came to my apartment and took out bags and bags of clothes, boxes of housewares, and lots of furniture; I didn’t have to do a bit of heavy lifting, and they were very nice and professional about it. Plus, it’s tax-deductible.
Hoarders makes me INSANELY ANGRY. People who hoard need long-term cognitive-behavioral therapy AND to be committed to the process (“admit you have a problem”) in order to make any progress, but Hoarders just has an “organizer” turn up and start throwing stuff out. Sometimes there’s a psychologist there, but a few hours standing around poking at stuff doesn’t remotely count.
My dad hoards newspaper articles, books, magazines, old electronics, etc. Their house has not been clean in 30 years and I hate it, but I feel like Hoarders’ primary concept is “Look how insane THIS person is.” The show really fails at showing compassion and that sucks.
/soapbox
Anyway: A&E’s other show, Obsessed, used a much more sensitive handling of the issue. It triggered me to death but at least the people on *that* show commit to 12-week stints of CBT and make progress with ongoing support.
@Change – it’s not a quick fix, but maybe in addition to eBay you can also help G and M set up a craft supply shop on Etsy? It’d be another avenue for them to earn money for their de-stashing efforts. Sometimes it takes longer to move the stuff because instead of an auction with an end-date the items sit there until they sell (although sometimes it’s faster – I’ve had stuff sell the same day I listed them), but I enjoy selling on Etsy more than eBay — it’s more relaxed and the listing fees are way cheaper. There’s also a whole community aspect on Etsy (that I haven’t personally had time to get involved in) that they might enjoy and decide to make running their shop their new hobby.
@Grainger: from a purely environmental standpoint, I have to emphatically disagree. You’d really throw what sound like perfectly good craft supplies in the trash? There’s not just ebay, how about Craigslist? Or Craigslist “Free Stuff”? Or Goodwill, Amvets, Salvation Army, pick your favorite charity! Or schools? At least here in CA they’ve slashed the budgets, I’m sure you could find an elementary school teacher who would love some art supplies. And at my university there was a student group who crocheted hats etc for charity, find someone like that. These are all just off the top of my head.
There are about a dozen better options than sending it all to a landfill.
My own solution to my admittedly somewhat pack-rattish tendencies: I don’t buy stuff. Then I don’t feel bad about getting rid of it later (I know as soon as I throw it away, a week later I’ll find a use for it!!). Change’s best option if she’s doing this for her own sanity is probably to move out as soon as possible. You can clean and organize all you want, but I suspect that unless G and M’s habits change dramatically, the clutter will creep back, so depending on how far away this move is, you might end up doing this all over again in a year or two. My point is, unless there’s a behavioral change, I think the clutter will persist.
Re: Hoarders, oh my God, YES. The woman who hoarded food, most of which was rotten and stunk so bad one of the cleaning dudes had to go outside to retch, gave me nightmares and I cleaned the hell out of my fridge afterward – it’s spotless now. I live alone and don’t buy more than I can eat, and I was still like “Do I really need these baby carrots? I know I just bought them yesterday, but maybe they’re turning.â€
Mum: Seconding Sars’s suggestion that you say to O, “you deserve better than to devote this much mental energy to this stuff”
I created and perpetuated a similar psychodrama with a family member, essentially hurt feelings about a couple of situations in areas where I was very sensitive. Although, I knew that what I was doing was petty and hurtful, and that I could stop, it felt as if I was also in the grip of a kamikaze mindset: I don’t care if I hurt myself, as long as that person suffers. (And believe me, I used worse names than “the troll” and did worse things than the battle of the bumwad.)
Looking back, I really wanted someone to care about ME in the situation. What would have made a difference is to have a friend say “You’re bigger than this hurt.” or “You’re a better person than the way you’re behaving.” And say it more than once, if that’s what it took. No one ever said it to me. I wish I hadn’t taken so long to figure that out and to say it to myself. I sold out my dignity, self-respect, and essentially myself for several years in exchange for vindictiveness and imagined vengeance.
O is fortunate to have you in her life. Good luck.
OMG! OMG! OMG!!!!!! SARS!!! As I was reading this, I was just WAITING to finish so I could suggest “Hoarders”!!!!!! And YES, I feel the EXACT same way when I watch!! I am the most impatient person in the world and I am amazed at the counselors’ ability to allow these people to “choose”!!! I know it is right, (and quite an important lesson in humanity..) BUT, damnit if I don’t desperately want to put these people in some intensive therapy and trash there crap!!!!
Sorry, anyway…. I think the thing to do is to be patient and continue trying to assist in the removal/selling of unneccesary items. “Change” is actually doing the right stuff already, even if it feels hopeless…
BE compassionate and know that this will not always be your permanent residence…
Help when you can and be strong! I really feel for you!!!! BUT, if we can learn anything from insane TV, perhaps it is that patience and compassion are more inportant than comfort, at times……
“Sometimes”…, Sars is REALLY right on this…
My mother has always said the EXACT same thing to me, and althought it often makes me not want to return her phone calls, she has ALWAYS been right about this. Your feelings are completely valid, but this is someones life. You sound like a lovely person, so attend, for the sake of everyone including yourself. It will be over before you know it, but it will leave a lasting impression…….
Oh figs!! Earlier, I typed “trash there crap”, when I obviously meant “trash their crap”….. oh, how it changes the meaning…. sorry folks…
@Jaybird, it is possible to be a former hoarder. I did it. For many people it is just one symptom of depression, treat the depression and the hoarding can go. And of course, if you don’t treat the underlying problem, it won’t work.
When I finally decluttered I started with the storage unit I have down the hall so that there’d be a place to put things that needed to stay but didn’t need to be at hand (Christmas decorations, luggage, the other season’s clothing). Then I did the hall closet. Then the closet. Then started at one end and moved a few feet at a time.
Anything that is broken, stained, unusuable gets thrown away if it cannot immediately be repaired (by a pro) or cleaned.
Anything you have that you do not use or have not used in a year is given away to a charity or sold (or freecycled if there is freecycle in your area). The yarn may not be sellable, but there are sheltered workshops, I bet, that would use it or nursing homes/supported living where seniors can’t afford yarn but would make good use of it. Just be sure you aren’t giving your problem to be someone else’s problem.
Good luck to you. I know each bag of trash that goes out lifts a weight off the shoulders (yours and the hoarders, even if they aren’t participating actively, the fact that they aren’t fighting tooth and nail is a good sign for the potential for progress). If someone does start having trouble, the hoarder may need a therapist or counselor for some serious hand holding along the way. But it can be done.
I’m still not the neatest housekeeper in the world, but the furniture I have now is used for what it is meant for. You can sit on the seating, eat on the table, and sleep on the bed. (Now if I could just get my sisters to follow my lead. When I visited my one sister, there was one seat in the house that could be sat in and when I visited the other there was room for one person to sit and eat at the table.)
When I watch those clutter clearing shows I’m always amazed at the number of people out there who claim to be scrapbookers who are really just hoarders with a socially acceptable excuse to not throw crap away. Scrapbooking is the devil’s work!
My roommate is one of the rare neat hoarders. He has masses of doomsday/survival supplies organized in boxes and tucked away where the other two of us who live there can’t see them. It’s amusing to me in some respects, because I know that if I need anything off-the-wall like waterproof matches or an arm sling, I only have to walk across the apartment and ask him.
Funerals and memorial services are not for the person who has died. They are for the living. You go to show support for the people who cared enough to plan the service. It’s not necessary to have liked the deceased. If you like the people who are planning the event, you do it for them.
@Sars: I re-read my post, and it does look like I misunderstood. I guess what I was trying to get at was that these relatives may very well be recluttering while she’s trying to declutter, if that makes any sense. I’ve seen my mother sneaking off to the landfill or Goodwill with trunkloads of my dad’s useless junk, as he drove up with more. Literally. I can’t even watch “Hoarders”, for the same reason Michaela describes.
@Bo: I’m actually really glad you overcame that problem. Now I know of one cured hoarder. One. There are no doubt lots more out there, but I haven’t encountered them yet.
@RC: thank you. “Waste” just isn’t a valid option, and waste on a scale like that isn’t justified by its ease. Holy smokes. FREECYCLE can rid you of anything and everything, with the beautiful advantage that everyone does their own carting and carrying. All you have to do is agree on contact and pickup methods.
@Tashi: My mom’s a bit of a hoarder – my brother and I call it her “pathology of stuff” – but she is a very meticulous housekeeper, too. She also goes in fits and spurts with an inconsistent but persistent ability to clear out things. It ain’t perfect, but her husband is okay with it (this is me, keeping mum on Mum’s letter), and bro and I know how to respond to her stuffishness. It’s all about management.
It’s funny about people who hoard. I helped my mum excavate her basement this spring/summer (and then my own closets & storage locker), and the weirdest stuff emerged. It wasn’t extreme in any way, just the crap accumulated over the past 20 years, but there were some odd items. I have to echo those who have said that there’s usually an underlying cause to a hoarding impulse; in my parents’ cases, it’s that they both grew up the kids of poor immigrants and were taught never to dump something that might have a secondary use. Similarly, I understand that food hoarders are sometimes people who grew up poor & hungry, so they hoard against shortages, even if their economic situations have changed. It’s hard to overcome childhood conditioning, but a therapist should definitely be involved with extreme cases.
I also agree completely and fervently with RC that there is no reason to landfill the stuff that gets excavated. Our case wasn’t as extreme as Change’s, but there was a garageful of stuff that went up for a yard sale. We made about $600, and the leftovers got allocated to charities: home decor went to Habitat, books to the library for fundraising, old magazines to the local primary school for cut-and-paste materials, clothes & tchochkes to Goodwill, toys to the children’s hospital, kids’ skates & hockey gear to Children’s Aid, etc. Old electronics went to hazmat recycling. Very, very little got landfilled from what was probably a dumpster’s worth of crap. If there is that much stuff in Change’s family’s house, please, please, please try to find other options than junking the stuff outright. Someone will be able to make use of it, and the earth really can’t.
Thank you all so much for your suggestions! And confirming that it’s perfectly legitimate for me to be going completely bonkers in that house. **whew**
My husband and I are actually paying rent, around $200 a month, to take care of a truck payment and to help put food on the table. In addition, I help with groceries when I can.
Things have been getting better. My husband and I took a weekend awhile back and just completely ripped into the garage; now not only can he find his tools, he has room to work, and has been producing turned boxes and repairing things and working on finishing the kitchen and such. Just getting the garage done has been a godsend, though I still despair at the driveway at times.
One problem I’ve run into is that a lot of the crafting stuff that could potentially be sold on eBay has been destroyed by vermin; squirrels, mice, rats, what have you. Even stuff that’s been in tubs occasionally reeks of mouse pee, which is pretty damn horrible. Thankfully, my husband and I own a cat, so she’s been being a cheerful little mouser and catching the mice that get in the house, but there’s a lot present that was destroyed ages ago. I’ve been sneaking out trashbags of ruined crafting supplies for months, because I know G would want to try to salvage a lot of it.
I also know that a lot of my in-law’s sedentery approach to dealing with the house is the fact they’re overwhelmed by it. M gets downright close to tears after awhile, because it’s so frustrating to work until she hurts and see virtually no change in the house. They recently cleaned the house as best they could for some company; it took my husband getting the foyer spotless before my in-laws were motivated enough to keep going and get the entire front living area cleaned up.
G is starting to get into it, though; she cleared out a bead cabinet the other day, and is so proud of how organized it is and how she now knows exactly what she has and doesn’t have in there. She’s also more than willing to sell what she can. There’s some stuff that she wants to keep, like her husband’s service jacket and some geneaology work, but she’s quite cheerful with getting rid of a lot of crap.
As far as paying someone to come in and clean goes, there’s quite literally no funding for it. The beading business (which has taken over the kitchen table, Lord help us) is putting food in our mouths, and G’s retirement barely covers the rest of the bills. What I make goes towards my husband’s and my bills (we’re actually below the poverty line, and are trying desperately to climb far enough above it that moving out is feasible), and we try to help as best we can when we have some extra funds available.
Another former hoarder writing…
I underwent treatment for depression and interestingly, the hoarding never really came up as an issue. All that I ever said to my therapist was, “my apartment’s state has a direct correlation to my mental state.” As I got better, I became interested in learning the skills necessary to 1) throw things away, 2)have a place for the things that stay, 3) only buy what is necessary, or truly useful.
The skills came from a now off the air Canadian de-clutter show called, “Neat,” the Australian guy on “Clean Sweep,” and from flylady.net. When I see Hoarders, I also have the desire to purge everything. I also have the desire to call all of my friends from that scary time of my life and thank them for accepting me, despite the very unhealthy, damaged way I was living.
After I decluttered my home, I then took it upon myself to make me as healthy as my house and lost over 100 lbs. Body clutter… house clutter… all coming from the same depression.
Hmm… I now have a strong, burning desire to clean my office at work.
“they both grew up the kids of poor immigrants and were taught never to dump something that might have a secondary use”
Oh, man. This makes me think of a fascinating exhibit I recently saw at the MoMA called “Waste Not” (it’s still there for a couple more days). A Beijing artist installed his mother’s home in the museum, and surrounded it with the possessions that his mom had accumulated in the house during 50 years. I honestly have no idea how all of the stuff presented could possibly have fit in this tiny home. http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/961
Thankfully my parents don’t hoard, but then, my Depression- and WW2-era mother still hangs on to the oddest things… like the time her (ancient) iron started to malfunction. She couldn’t complete any ironing without repeatedly banging it on the ironing board to make it heat back up. She bought a new iron and this remained in a closet for six more months, because “the old one still works.” I think my Dad finally got fed up and tossed the old iron in the trash one day.
At least she doesn’t save 1-tablespoon amounts of leftovers in tiny little Tupperware in her fridge anymore. The good side is that she would make sure somebody ate those in a timely fashion– “We don’t WASTE FOOD in this house!”
Good times.
My dad saves–and reuses–dental floss, y’all. We’re looking into retirement homes. With attached storage units.
For those who like Hoarders, or who are interested in stories about people who have overcome hoarding, check out http:///www.squalorsurvivors.com. It’s alternately horrifying and inspirational, and gives you good tools. As someone who grew up with Depression-era parents and who never learned how to keep house (though I live in nothing near what Change describes), this site (along with FlyLady and the home shows mentioned) has helped me both to understand why my parents were the way they were, and to begin to get my life in order.
The thing is, you have to make a distinction between “I’m honestly trying to find a place for this” and “Oh someone might use this someday (throws it back in closet)”. If the hoarding is truly a compulsize mental-disorder activity, then you aren’t going to solve anything by enabling it; and suggesting that there’s a legitemate reason to keep the junk is the very definition of enabling.
That’s what I was getting it; I’m not saying “glorious waste”, I’m saying “pop the zit”.
@Change Wow, you and your husband sound like saints! Its too bad about the ruined supplies. Maybe you should show some of the most ruined stuff to G if/when you think she’s able to handle it (it won’t set her back on cleaning) so she can understand why it can’t get this bad in the future. Ruined hobby supplies do no one any good. Plus, the grossness of the mice haven!
I know you need cheerleading of your own, but it sounds like G and the rest of the family need a lot of positive encouragement for every small cleanout, because every drawer, every closet counts–especially when they’re stuffed to the gills. However the situation does sound encouraging. I wish you the best of luck. At the least the kitty is earning her keep!