It Has To Change Now!
By Ann LeFlore
@poehere (15123)
French Polynesia
April 27, 2016 9:42pm CST
Yesterday morning I went in the backyard to feed the rabbits. I was hit with a horrendous order coming from my boyfriend’s tool room. Normally I don’t go in this room because it is always a mess and things are thrown everywhere.
However, yesterday I was forced to go in the room to find out what the smell was. The room was piled high with dirty, wet clothes, trash, old beds and a variety of other junk. In the mist of all this mess I found a few rats nests, lots of pee and poop from the rats. The order was nauseating and made you want to pass out.
Unfortunately, I had no choice but to start dragging out the mountains of trash, dirty clothes, and junk that littered the room. I had my backyard filled or piled high with junk that was stored in this room.
In the end, I ended up filling 8 large 30 gallon trash bags and 2 large recycled trash cans with the junk I threw away from this room. Furthermore, I had to wash 5 machines of wet, stinky clothes that were thrown in various places around the room. Recently he has been complaining that he had no clothes. I wonder why he had no clothes. They were all piled in the tool room and left there to rot in the smell of rat pee and poop.
This little project took me most of the day to complete. When I was done, I had the room back in order and arranged nicely. However, today he was home from work and decided to go treasure hunting in his tool room. He walked away, leaving stuff strung out on the floor and in the yard. I came unglued to say the least on this one.
I politely informed him that things have to change. He is a slob and junk collector. Anything and everything that a person throws away, he seems to haul it home and store it someplace in our yard. In the last few years he had improved and no longer brought home junk to the yard. However, in the past six months he has started again. I can’t stand to see my garden piled high with trash from other people. I am always throwing this away or in some cases finding a good use for a few of the items.
Do you live with a pack rat or junk collector? How do you keep your house, yard, and tool room clean? The only way I have found is to wait till he is working away from home for a week at a time and go out and start throwing away. I am not a collector of junk from other people. Currently in my backyard, I have 7 kitchen sinks, 5 bathroom sinks, and 4 toilets just sitting around. Soon I will be moving the toilets around and making them into decorative planters if he doesn’t get rid of them soon.
Something has got to change now!
9 people like this
11 responses
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
28 Apr 16
I normally let it go and let it go until one day I can't take anymore. Then it is a tornado here when I start throwing and hauling stuff out of here. What is funny is the fact that most of the time he doesn't miss a single thing I have thrown away from here.
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
28 Apr 16
@sol_cee Yes there should be a deal on this one. I think what he needs is a storage area like we had before when we had our garden. Nothing came home then and it was all stored there. Now the garden is closed and a lot of the stuff came home then. We cleaned all this out and gave away or sold what we could of this.
@silvermist (19702)
• India
29 Apr 16
@poehere I do not think this should go on.Hopefully he comes to his senses soon.It is good to hear he is planning to build another house.
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
29 Apr 16
He isn't planning on building another house. What he does with all of this is resell them to other people who are building a home. Some people don't have all the cash needed to make a nice home. So he discounts stuff like sinks and other things so they can build their home.
1 person likes this
@silvermist (19702)
• India
1 May 16
@poehere And thus making some money on the side?
1 person likes this
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
2 May 16
@silvermist Yes hopefully making some money off a few of these items.
1 person likes this
@AbbyGreenhill (45494)
• United States
28 Apr 16
You won't find junk in our home, in the workshop or on our property. I think people who do it have no respect for their own property.
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
28 Apr 16
@AbbyGreenhill Hopefully, not for long. He is looking into another place to make an organic garden at and then all or a lot of this stuff will leave out of here. Unfortunately, this won't be for a few months because he is leaving for 2 months to Easter Island to build a house there. At this time a lot of the crap will be gone and sorted through. When he gets back there will be many things changed and arranged in order. The stuff that is good and we can sell off or use in the new garden will be kept. Other stuff will be thrown away and some of the old wood can be burned.
1 person likes this
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
28 Apr 16
I get why he does this from time to time. I know a few of his client's that throw away a new stove they have used for a year. I can see why he brings this home. With a little bit of work we resell the stove and make money from it. I also know that he recovered some beautiful bamboo and wooden window blinds that we put up in our home. They were never used. Some things he brings in is so useful and so wasteful that a person got rid of them. We have made money on a lot of the stuff he hauled home. But lately, some of the old sinks and wash bowls can be left behind if you ask me on this one. I know he has clients trying to make a small room addition or bathroom on their home. Here building material is expensive. He has sold them some of the sinks and wash bowls in the past. I just hate all the trash that comes with the good stuff that he can clean up and resell.
@DaddyEvil (137636)
• United States
4 May 16
OMG! That is terrible, Ann
! 
How can you stand to live like that?
I sure couldn't!
IDK what you are going to do, but I hope you can get him some help. It may seem like he can control it now, but you wait. If he can't get a handle on this problem, he may become like my brother. (Yes, I know the cause are probably different, but you never know!
One of my older brothers used to be like that, too. He kept everything he found and dragged it home. He even kept the wrappings from packaging off frozen dinners!
I only entered his home once when mom insisted we needed to go visit my brother. 
We walked in the back door ... Well, sort of, at any rate... We opened the back door and a mound of trash came tumbling out at us! I grabbed mom's hand and dragged he back away from the mound before it reached her! 
We stood there for a good two or three minutes watching more trash come tumbling out the door before it finally stopped!
I used a snow shovel to clear a path up to the side of the door. We still couldn't see into the room!
We walked around to the front door, opened it very cautiously and we were met by a swarm of roaches rushing out the door... It seemed obvious that they were the refugees fleeing from the disturbance we caused at the back door!
Neither one of us wanted to step through the door, but we had to see if my brother was okay in there... We found him asleep laying on what should have been his bed, but was actually a kind of leveled spot in the mound of trash in his living room. The rest of the house was packed full of trash. There was a narrow path into the house from the front door, a small cleared space where his television sat, a sort of path into the bathroom and another sort of path to the refrigerator.
My brother has Diogenes Syndrome. He was diagnosed with a tumor that was pressing on his brain. He refused help. Finally, the court declared him incompetent and awarded guardianship to my oldest brother. My oldest brother placed our sick brother in an assisted living facility.
The owner of the rental house where my brother lived had the house torn down. There was no way to clean it up and make it habitable again. (This took place twenty some years ago.)
The thought of that house can still turn my stomach...
! How can you stand to live like that?
I sure couldn't!
IDK what you are going to do, but I hope you can get him some help. It may seem like he can control it now, but you wait. If he can't get a handle on this problem, he may become like my brother. (Yes, I know the cause are probably different, but you never know!
One of my older brothers used to be like that, too. He kept everything he found and dragged it home. He even kept the wrappings from packaging off frozen dinners!
I only entered his home once when mom insisted we needed to go visit my brother. We walked in the back door ... Well, sort of, at any rate... We opened the back door and a mound of trash came tumbling out at us! I grabbed mom's hand and dragged he back away from the mound before it reached her! We stood there for a good two or three minutes watching more trash come tumbling out the door before it finally stopped!
I used a snow shovel to clear a path up to the side of the door. We still couldn't see into the room!
We walked around to the front door, opened it very cautiously and we were met by a swarm of roaches rushing out the door... It seemed obvious that they were the refugees fleeing from the disturbance we caused at the back door!
Neither one of us wanted to step through the door, but we had to see if my brother was okay in there... We found him asleep laying on what should have been his bed, but was actually a kind of leveled spot in the mound of trash in his living room. The rest of the house was packed full of trash. There was a narrow path into the house from the front door, a small cleared space where his television sat, a sort of path into the bathroom and another sort of path to the refrigerator.
My brother has Diogenes Syndrome. He was diagnosed with a tumor that was pressing on his brain. He refused help. Finally, the court declared him incompetent and awarded guardianship to my oldest brother. My oldest brother placed our sick brother in an assisted living facility.
The owner of the rental house where my brother lived had the house torn down. There was no way to clean it up and make it habitable again. (This took place twenty some years ago.)
The thought of that house can still turn my stomach...@DaddyEvil (137636)
• United States
7 May 16
@poehere OH! Gotcha!
My dad used to bring home things he could sell after he did a bit of work on them. He never brought home beds, though.
I am like you, I wouldn't want used beds in my house, whether they have an odor or not! It is just the thought of them having bugs that would drive me crazy!
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
7 May 16
@DaddyEvil That is why I don't allow them in the house. I hate bugs and it would make me angry if they were filled with bugs.
1 person likes this
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
7 May 16
Well my BF isn't that bad. I know he hauls home some stuff, but most of it can be used or resold. Thee is some of it that I consider trash and throw it out when he isn't home. But to bring home a good stove and sell it again is fine. However, we don't have the place to store all of this while he is in the processes of selling it again. I know the sinks that he has stacked around the backyard are expensive and they can be sold again. Now if he would do this one it would be wonderful and the sinks could bring in money instead of taking up space in the yard. He doesn't collect trash like your brother does, but a few things he does bring home makes me wonder what he was thinking when he did this one. The other day he came in with some brand new bamboo floor matts that cost a lot of money here. If we can use it or resell it I don't mind so much. But to bring home beds is annoying to me because nobody wants a bed from another person and I don't want them in the house. I think they have bugs and they stink.
1 person likes this
Maybe I will just buy a new faucet and pay someone to put it in. They have sinks in Tahiti? 
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
28 Apr 16
You are right on this one. I hope he will change soon because this is out of control. It was like this a while back and he changed. However, he is back to old habits now.
@GardenGerty (160940)
• United States
28 Apr 16
I have more than I need and I am still not satisfied with how I am arranging things, I have nothing wet, nor stinky, no mouse or rat pee or poop. No rotting mattressess. I have an old sink that is a planter for herbs. I would not keep an old toilet for anything. I think he would be leaving if he did not improve. I do have to pick up after hubby a lot, but we are working on getting things improved.
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
28 Apr 16
This one is good to know. I had no issues with this mess for a long time. Now all of a sudden it has started again. The wet clothes are from his work. Lately we have been having a lot of rain and his clothes are wet. Instead of putting them up to dry he throws them in a pile in the tool room.
Rats are common here on the islands. However, if you keep the place clean and don't have anything around for them to make their nest in this one is perfect. I am not a collector of stuff and if I don't use it in a certain amount of time I get rid of it and give it to a person who needs it and can use it.
@JudyEv (342042)
• Rockingham, Australia
28 Apr 16
I would find this very hard to cope with. We have small amounts of things that might come in handy and we are always using bits and pieces from these piles but we don't have huge amounts of junk.
