The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [70]
Some hoarders I know use a “chore” chart, just like the one parents sometimes make for their kids, with gold stars for a job well done. This may sound a little juvenile, but if rewarding a fifty-five-year-old woman with gold stars (or even a big red check mark) encourages her to keep her home clean and gives her confidence and self-worth for the first time in twenty years, so be it. Hoarding is not normal; sometimes it takes unusual tools to help people.
Reminders and rewards are forever being debated in education and parenting circles, with some experts saying that parents should not reward a child for something that the child simply is supposed to do for the greater good of the family. I like that theory, but when you are dealing with a hoarder, the circumstances are quite different. For one thing, a hoarder often has had decades of repeated bad behavior, while a child is starting off fresh. Reminders and rewards should always be personalized to each hoarder’s needs. We brought one hoarder her coffee each time we came to visit. If the house was clean, she got the latte; if the chores weren’t done, I enjoyed a really nice coffee in front of a very sad woman. I only drank the coffee once because the chores were completed on every follow-up visit after that.
▶ Personal Space
The challenge for Jackson was that he had moved in with Mike, and both of them were concerned that Jackson’s clutter might expand and take over the house they shared. Jackson was tidy; he just kept too many things. For him, the rule of “personal space” became his anti-hoarding mantra.
To establish hoarding boundaries, each family member should get a defined space in the house. For Jackson it was his closet and his own vanity and sink in the bathroom. Brad and Ellen implemented the same rule—Brad got his desk, and Ellen got the basement bookshelf. Their three children each got a large toy bin. Each family member’s personal space—where it is and how big it is—needs to be agreed upon by everyone in the household. Nobody should ever “loan” personal space to another family member, because once that happens, that space is lost forever and becomes potential cause for fighting.
Everyone should agree that there won’t be any arguments about what actually goes in a person’s designated space (unless it’s unsanitary). It doesn’t matter what is being collected, just as long as it stays in its space.
The rest of the house is shared space. For anything to stay in the shared space, the family (or maybe just the adults) must agree on the item. If they can’t agree, it either goes into someone’s personal space, or it goes out. This rule is all about respect and boundaries.
Setting boundaries forces hoarders to live in the here and now and take responsibility for their stuff. It also prevents other household members from blaming the hoarder for all family dysfunction. Following the rules of both shared space and personal space forces the hoarder and other family members to communicate and to work together as a team to keep the home clean.
▶ A Place for Everything
Wendy had a lifetime of hoarding to overcome when Sam moved in with her. Once the house was cleaned, and their prescription drug bottle collection had been cleared out, the main problem was still that Wendy had never really learned how to organize a house. She just put things down wherever there was space, or wherever she happened to be standing. She didn’t see problems with food being in the living room or dirty clothes in the kitchen.
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