Are you, or do you know, a hoarder?
By breepeace
@breepeace (3014)
Canada
November 18, 2007 5:28pm CST
I think my roommate may honestly be a hoarder. She says she's a really big bookworm, but I don't often see her read, I just see the piles and piles of books everywhere.
I've tried telling her I think she might have a problem, and that I don't like
having boxes of books in every corner of the house, but she continues buying and picking up books wherever she can: the thrift store, used book stores, bookmooch, etc.
She actually seems proud of the fact that she has over 500 books at least, and they are everywhere. She has 2 dressers full of them in her room, a small bookshelf, 2 bookshelves in the living room and boxes of books in the office closet, the living room and the basement.
I know she has attachment issues with possessions. She has a lot of knick-knacks and things that serve no purpose all over her room and the rest of the house, and it's been a gradual process trying to wean her of them over the past year. I may even have her talked into selling her entire porcelain doll collection (minus the one she really loves) instead of them taking up space in the storage room. It was a week-long battle trying to get her to donate her old cassette tape player that she wasn't even sure worked (she couldn't find her tapes to find out).
My landlord is just as bad. If I put something in my alley for garbage pickup, and he thinks he might be remotely usable, it goes into his backyard. Therefore my broken floor lamp, an old bedside table that I spray painted brown before I could afford to buy one and several mismatched kitchen chairs of mine now take place in his yard. He's got 5 broken lawnmowers, a pile of broken bikes, dozens of plant pots, 6 bales of peat moss and at least 10 rusted out barbeques. It's gross.
I pack boxes for people who are moving for a living and it drives me nuts to see clutter. The last house I packed had over 30 totes full of craft supplies jammed into a closet. I never want to live like that, but this is beginning to be a bit much.
Do you know a hoarder? Or are you one yourself?
4 people like this
6 responses
@LightninStrike (5915)
• Saint Vincent And The Grenadines
20 Nov 07
I don't think I am a hoarder at all. If i am, it's only in a few things, and never to the point of being too weird, i believe. In fact, I've learned from my mother that what is no longer useful must go, and even though I don't take it as far as her, I do it sometimes.
@SViswan (12051)
• India
19 Nov 07
Well, I'm a hoarder too...but it doesn't clutter my place. Once in a while, I check and throw out stuff which hasn't been used in a couple of months. I have a lot of books (whcih we actually read) and they are all in book shelves and don't have any lying around (beside a magazine which is being read). I also hoard recyclble stuff that can be used for craft or as containers. I have a shelf for containers in the kitchen and when that gets full, what I haven't used is then thrown out. I have a cupboard for the craft material where I hoard all the junk that I THINK can be used for craft work. We do use it for school stuff once in a while and the cupboard is cleaned out once or twice a year.
I sometimes give stuff to my maid that are in working condition and I don't use anymore (like an old tape recorder).
1 person likes this
@maddysmommy (16230)
• United States
19 Nov 07
Yes I know of one that lives in our apartment building. She loves the thrift store up the road and buys anything she thinks she can use for maybe one week then stores it away LOL. She is forever buying new things to put in her house and replacing the ones she bought just the week before. She has tons of clothes and has already run out of room in her closet and the the spare room closet and now has hangers with clothes on them hanging from the doors LOL
I just spent this afternoon de-cluttering my apartment and got rid of several bags of clothes, junk, boxes, old toys and puzzles and a few books LOL
1 person likes this
@whittby (3072)
• United States
11 Feb 08
Yesterday, the newspaper had an article about hoarding. The estimate is over 2 million people in this country are compulsive hoarders. That's a lot of folks. I used to save a lot of stuff, but this move across country ended all that. The cost to move all my collected treasures (and I use that term loosely) was astronomical. I couldn't do it and away a lot of my stuff went. I can tell you that that it's very hard to let go and I still miss some of my stuff. On the other hand, getting rid of stuff is a physical feeling somewhat like losing weight. Amazing...Whit
1 person likes this
@sturner03 (326)
• United States
17 May 08
I use to be a horder, not with food or anything nasty like that, but old pictures and letters and such. Now I have moved alot and realized that its not work keeping.
