3473 Hoarders?

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

When you're overwhelmed and know not what to do,
you often do nothing.
-- Roi, on "Hoarders" --

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The green quotes come from a file I maintain, and they're random. I set up draft posts ten at a time with the number in the title space and a quote at the top, and then fill in text later. So I'm amused that THAT quote came up for this post.

I've heard a lot over the past year about the A&E show "Hoarders" (Monday, A&E, 9PM, with reruns of earlier shows at 8PM and midnight) but I'd never seen it. So last week I found the website for it, and I watched all the full episodes they had online.

I was interested because when I tell people that part of my problem getting moved is that I have so much stuff that I have to sort through and decide what to do with, people get that sympathetic look with furrowed brow, figuratively pat my hand, and ask, "Are you a hoarder?"

I say no, I just have a lot of stuff. But I figured I ought to find out what they're thinking.

See, in my mind, a hoarder is someone who keeps "good" stuff because they think either there will be a shortage in that item some day, that it will become more valuable, or that they will be able to use it someday.

Jay was one of the third type. He saved all those dead computers on the theory that he could raid them for parts. I hoard books. I can't throw out a book I enjoyed. I hoard lipstick when I find the perfect color, because they will stop making it someday.

Well, "hoarder" is the correct term for some of those folks on A&E, but not all. Most of those folks are something else. I don't know what noun to call them, but they're just plain lazy and filthy. There's a difference between a carefully boxed 10,000 beer can collection taking over the basement and most of the house, and a mountain of dirty diapers and rotted food taking over the house for no other reason than laziness. One is an out-of-control collector, what I would call a hoarder, and the other is a slob, NOT a hoarder.

Jay was also a bit of the latter. When I moved in with him, I found a basement half full of boxes that hadn't been open since he'd moved from up Texas fifteen years before. I volunteered to go through them for him, and was horrified. Among the usual college textbooks and notebooks and high school science fair entries, unused ugly wedding gifts (first wife), and ratty stained rugs and cheap old comforters (that mice had raided for nesting materials), there was at least 500 cubic feet (that's 8'x8'x8')of junk mail, 90% of which had never been opened. Apparently he never threw any paper out, and when he moved he had actually packed it and moved it!

I've seen some royal slobs. There were some guys in college who never took the garbage out. They put garbage in paper grocery bags, and then just stacked them in a corner of the kitchen. When the corner got full, they expanded to the other rooms. The place stank of rotted food, and I hate to think what's happening to the floor at the bottom of the piles!

I know several Mensans who never throw anything but kitchen garbage out. Everything else that comes into the house stays. Every flat surface eventually gets covered with piles of stuff, and when it becomes difficult to open cabinets or drawers because of the stuff stacked in front of them, nothing ever gets put "away", and when they need something that gets buried, they just buy another --- which goes on top of a pile. You have to turn sideways to move around between the piles.

The first time I visited Jay's father's house, I found out where Jay'd got his tendencies. Piles and stacks of paper, magazines, catalogs, everywhere.

What amazes me is that nobody seems at all ashamed of it. They happily host meetings --- they just shift piles so people can sit. "My house isn't dirty, just cluttered." Are they hoarders, or slobs?

Roman's house is cluttered, too. I've seen him bring in the mail, open envelopes, and drop the junk mail and discarded envelopes on the floor. I do that, too, but then I gather up the paper and put it in the recycle bag, and take it out when the bag fills. Roman never picks it up. The discarded paper on his floor will get literally two feet deep before he notices, and then instead of discarding it, he neatly piles it against a wall. When he goes grocery shopping, he puts the bags on the kitchen floor and puts only the cold stuff away. The rest is left in the bags until he wants it. One time there was an awful smell in his kitchen. I thought a mouse had died, and picked up one of the bags to look behind it, and the bottom of the bag broke, dumping ten pounds of rotted potatoes on the floor. He's not a hoarder. Just a slob.

In my opinion, some people are 1.) pathological hoarders, saving anything and everything that they perceive as having some value. Some are 2.) accumulators, like those who build collections of particular things (like my 50-some teapots) and it gets out of hand. And some are simply 3.) slobs - like the folks with mountains of pure garbage rotting in the kitchen, mountains of dirty diapers in the bathroom, stuff that gets shoveled into garbage bags with no sorting even considered. The A&E Hoarders show doesn't differentiate. They treat them all the same, and I don't think they are the same at all.

The professionals on the show have this rule, that the "hoarder" has to make the decision whether something goes or stays. I got angry at last night's show. They kept waving junk in front of the old man for his decision, but if he said "Keep it", he got an argument, and they'd keep pushing and arguing until they got the response they wanted. It was clear that the only acceptable decision was "Toss it", and it was no damn wonder that he got angry and gave up and just said "Toss it" without even looking or thinking. I don't see that he "learned" anything at all. The producers talk a good line about the hoarder learning to make good decisions so they don't revert, but that's not how it is.

So, am I a hoarder?

Maybe. Probably of the accumulator/collector variety.

But absolutely not like what you see on the show.

After Jay died, I felt so alone in that house. I got a lot of money from his insurance. I used about 1/3 to pay off the mortgage, I invested 1/3, and then I sat and stared at the remaining 1/3. I was depressed. I'd rather have the him than the money. I didn't really want the money. So I spread it around. I bought stuff I wanted or liked. Maybe I was trying to fill the empty house, my empty life. Comforting myself with pretty things, things I liked to touch, wear, look at. Unusual or exotic objects with history, stories.

I wanted a real "Brown Betty" teapot. (Photo from http://www.brownbettyteapot.com/brown-betty-teapots.htm, where you can purchase them.) They make the best tea because the rounded shape makes convection patterns that brew tea best, and the thick walls hold the heat. I shopped Ebay. I bought one the right shape, but it wasn't brown. Then I found a brown one, but it wasn't real terra cotta. Then I found a bigger one. Then I found a real antique one. Then I found a Cardigan pot (no hole in the top, you fill it from the bottom). Then there were Japanese iron pots. Then --- things got out of hand. I kept buying teapots because I liked them.

I discovered haoris (kimono jackets, photo from http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list/004/, my favorite haori shop - if the photo has disappeared, go to the link and look around). They are beautiful, mostly silk, beautifully made by hand, useful, and versatile. I bought one, and loved it. Then I found a prettier one. Then --- things got out of hand. I have a closet full of the damn things now, each one unique, and each one prettier than the previous purchase.

My great-grandmother had a pair of antique Staffordshire dogs. (I got the picture from http://www.figurines-sculpture.com/pottery-mark-query-2-gold-dots-on-bottom-staffordshire-style-dog.html, because most places with pictures are selling the dogs, so the photos may not be around for long. This dog doesn't look exactly like Great-gramma's dog, but close enough.)

Gramma got one dog, Great-aunt Ethel got the other (hard to believe they broke up the pair!). I loved Gramma's dog, which went to Mom, then to my brother Duke. One day I went to an antiques fair, and found a pair of Staffordshire dogs similar to Gramma's for sale. I bought them. At another antiques fair a year or two later I found another pair that looked more like Gramma's, including the tiny hole in the back that my mother had told me she had put a gold chain in for safekeeping when she was a child and hadn't been able to get it back out. Of course, I had to buy that pair. Then I found some smaller antique Chinese knockoffs, which, being "fakes" weren't kept, and are now less common and therefore almost as valuable, but eBay sellers don't seem to know that, so they sell them cheap. I now own two pairs of Staffordshire dogs and three pairs of "Staffordshire" dogs.

Sigh.

And on and on. All kinds of pretty crap, and I love it all.

It's all packed up neatly in containers, or displayed on shelves, but I can't keep/move it all, and containers are taking up so much room that my house does, in fact, look like a hoarder house. Very little of it is junk. I'd like to sell or donate a large portion of duplicates or the stuff that I simply will never actually wear or use, but that takes effort and energy that I hadn't had. So, yeah, I've got a problem.

At least watching the hoarders show has energized me a bit. And living here with next to nothing in the house, and family across the street, has taught me that I don't need all that stuff to fill my life.

So, it'll happen. I guess. But not without a lot of angst.
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