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[initial topic motivation via Metafilter]

Meandering around the net, as I sometimes do, I came across this post which lead me to another thread, which naturally lead me to wasting an hour reading and clicking around…actually to be honest about a week or so ago I came across this site Squalor Survivors - anyway both pertain to people who hoard stuff. Compulsively.

I’ll admit to being a bit of a voyeur about this but my curiosity stems from believing I have a little of the hoarding tendency myself. For me it’s letters and Birthday cards. I have at least two boxes worth of them. I can’t bring myself to throw them out. It’s almost like my last connection to home, to the people and life I used to lead. They are not forgotten - like photographs (something else I can’t part with) - I can’t bear the thought of not having them.

The Boy is very strict about getting rid of stuff. Although even his power did not prevent us from having two truckloads of stuff to move. I will admit though that what we did move we use, and we have gotten rid of the things we didn’t.

In Japan - perhaps more than other places - you are more aware of the stuff you have because there is so much less space. Most of the time you have just enough places to keep the things you use all of the time - let alone momentos. Some people though do manage to hoard - and thanks to the joy that is Japanese TV - many programs feature spots where talento go in, are revolted and then have a crew of suckers come in and make-over the place. One segment on V6’s “Groovy After School” they went into one girl’s 6-tatami apartment, got all of the stuff and laid it all out in a large warehouse. It took a crew of several people 5 hours to do this. With 2 of the V6 boys the girl went around and chose what she wanted to keep. The rest they sold to a recycling shop. They put the stuff back into the apartment - and voila she once again had a place to sleep.

I guess people hoard for all sorts of reasons. J-Mum is very much one of the “thrifty” types - saves everything - you know just in case…My Grandfather was one of these as well - he had a shed full of rusty nails - just in case anyone needed 1,000 rusty nails to do something with.

While I may hoard letters and photos - I am fanatic about dust. I would happily vacuum the floor everyday if I was at home more often. And this is where the Boy and I differ - he can’t stand clutter (although an actual grotty surface doesn’t show up on his radar) and I freak if I see a dust kitty gambolling around the floor. I guess between us we manage to avoid living in a squalor.

I know though that he is dying to un-hoard his Mum. He’s already attacked the living room in the pretense of redecorating - that was one major purge. Slowly but surely he is working his way thru the rooms…

How do you help a hoarder? In J-Mum’s case we just help her slowly bit by bit by transforming the rooms. When we are in makeover mode she catches the bug and before you know it things are being chucked out left, right and center. One pain in the bum thing here though is getting rid of stuff with the regimented system of rubbish disposal. A good and bad thing really. No renting of dumpters and loading them up - you need to calculate on what days you can chuck what, and anything larger than 150 cms then it’s a trip to the combini to purchase tickets for large garbage disposal.

My hoarding tendencies though really have been curbed less through strong-arm tactics and rather more through the fact that the high rate of earthquakes here makes me not want to have too much around to fall on my head or block my route of escape…

• I don’t watch much tv, but I end up having seen every show you talk about.  Our strange psychic connection is neat and all but it has to stop!

  UltraBob
  04/02/09 06:04 PM

• Im doing a big throw at the moment, should i let you check the photos before i chuck them, or are you better off not knowing what im ruthlessly chucking out?

  j-ster
  04/02/10 04:19 AM

• I NEED TO SEE THEM FIRST

  MJ
  04/02/10 06:21 PM

• My mum always hoards brown paper bags..  she reuses them over and over for lunch bags etc.  I am a big hoarder as well, but hate the dust bunnies too..  it is scarey how similar we are.

  GG
  04/02/11 09:00 PM