The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [76]
Unfortunately, Margaret is letting herself head right down the same path. Her house is filling up again. The good news is that it won’t get as bad as it did before, because county inspectors visit about every six months, which is standard follow-up for condemned properties. If the house starts to be unsafe again, or if Margaret collects too many stray dogs, the county will serve her with another warning, and her cleanup process will begin all over again.
Margaret has family support, but not much else going for her. Most important, however, she doesn’t have the true desire to change. She will probably continue to swing back and forth between hoarding and cleaning up for inspections, possibly for the rest of her life. It will definitely continue until Margaret decides that she wants something better.
BRAD AND ELLEN
After Brad and Ellen cleaned their house and put a few rules into practice, they eliminated almost all of their hoarding behavior. I’m not saying the urge isn’t still there—they both realize that they have a tendency to hang on to things and to put off cleaning and de-cluttering. But they are dedicated to their rules and follow their nightly ten-minute sweep and personal space guidelines. Now the whole family is pitching in to keep the house tidy, and the kids are learning how to clean up and how to make decisions about their possessions. If a family can learn to clean together, they stay clean. If only one person does the cleaning, eventually the house gets dirty again.
Obviously what Brad and Ellen had in their favor was that they were really early-stage hoarders, so early that an outsider wouldn’t even have called them hoarders. They didn’t have a lot of clutter in the house, but they were developing hoarder mind-sets. Either one of them could easily slip more deeply into hoarding, but because they were able to change their thinking early on, it’s probably not going to be an issue for them moving forward.
LI
Li’s cleanup of her large house and barn went really smoothly because her children had laid the groundwork in advance. The family had already agreed on the few items they wanted to uncover and keep, and Li said that the rest could go, which meant Li wasn’t agonizing over every little thing. With her daughter, Sunny, overseeing the work and calling Li whenever we found something on her “fire list,” the crew whisked through the house and barn in a few days.
At first, Li was delighted with her newly empty house. But after making a few minor repairs during the following months, she started feeling a little lost and alone in her big house, even though her children and grandchildren were visiting. Eventually, she decided to put the place on the market and move into an assisted living facility nearby.
Li moved into her new apartment and jumped right into activities and making friends. I’ve seen many hoarders go to assisted living and hide in their rooms and continue to hoard, but Li busied herself playing bridge, mah-jongg, and going to lunch with friends. Once Li filled her life with people and events, she found that she didn’t have time or a need for hoarding anymore. Li is exceptional, if not unique, for a late-stage hoarder. Today, Li is living happily in her apartment, clutter-free. And she still looks fabulous.
RICK
Even with his advancing dementia, Rick had a successful cleanup aided by his sister. An early-stage hoarder, Rick was willing to let his house go, which motivated him to clean it up for the sale. Although he was sometimes confused during the cleanup, by the end he had only about a dozen boxes to go into storage in his