This is my first ever Reddit post as going through this thread (is that what it’s called?) has helped me feel less alone in my experience! However, I’m still being driven to my limit everyday and I’m not sure what to do anymore

For context, I’ve lived in tiny apartments in NYC my whole life as an only child to parents who are much older (40 year age gap between me and them), who’s relationship hasn’t been the best, but without a doubt, have loved me so much (I’m very lucky to say) and really have wanted nothing but the best for me. We have been a single income household since 2012 as my mother was not only fired, but since 2017, has been declining with Alzheimer’s (she’s at a medium stage now with my dad as her care taker). My dad retired a couple years ago so we are living off of the pension he has. I would confidently say we are on the bottom rung of middle class, in NYC standards.

One of the biggest struggles I’ve had in terms of home has been my dad’s hoarding. It’s not at a level like on “Hoarders” but it’s enough where no matter where we’ve lived, I’ve never been able to have friends over nor have we ever had guests because of the combo of physically not having the space (living in a studio apartment single room of the three of us) and having simply TOO. MUCH. STUFF.

I moved out in 2020 only to return back to my parents home in 2024 and having those almost 4 years of being able to live somewhere else where I was able to choose my space and actually have a HOME has made it even more difficult moving back home as a 26 year old. I’ve never felt like I’ve had a home before, just a place to keep things and lay my head, and moving out was a breath of fresh air I didn’t even realize I was grasping for.

Now that I’m back, I am been driven nuts. The one time I spoke up about the clutter, ie: telling my dad that we don’t need to keep every single plastic utensil and we need to throw things away and we can actually make a home of what we have because we deserve it, HE deserves to live somewhere with integrity, he cried and got so angry with me. I understand if what I said was harsh, but I sincerely apologized to him because it has been 26 years of build up of this frustration. I get angry about this because it feels like it’s him saying that he thinks we don’t deserve to live in a nice space. Nice doesn’t have to mean expensive, but just somewhere that makes you feel like this is a home. Not boxes still being left in every corner from 11 years ago when we moved into this current apartment still not being unpacked.

I try to be thoughtful and compassionate since that argument, which was back in May of 2024, because I know he has trauma from what his mother did to him in terms of abuse and throwing away his things as a child in front of him as a form of getting her way. He really does try the best he can to make sure I have a good life, I eat well, and that I can be the happiest I can be.

But something as small as today where he told me he didn’t throw away a broken pot because we can use it as the “popcorn” pot while the new pot I got him can be the “pasta” pot (they’re exactly the same size) and he’ll just keep the popcorn pot in the hallway because there’s no room left in our kitchen, made me silently scream in my room to the point where I felt like I had to throw up.

I don’t know what to do anymore except cry and feel so much guilt. Does anyone have any advice as to what I can do? Thank you so much for reading this, it means a lot to me ❤️

My mom refuses to admit she has a problem and its driving me insane. Half of my room is filled with her clothes, and she doesn't even wear a third of them. Giving them away doesn't even cross her mind.

She has a shelving unit dedicated to her skincare and hair stuff, and the rack is 3 pounds away from collapsing. I have a younger brother who's 4 and I dont want it to fall on him so I removed all the dirty, empty, and old items from the rack into two garbage bags. my mom didnt even notice because there was still tons of unused stuff left behind. Before she left for work she rummaged through the garbage, putting herself in a bad mood because apparently im wrong for throwing out her dollar store backscratcher that she doesnt use and has been sitting in the bottom of a bin for 6 months.

Im just so aggravated by her, she says we dont help her declutter or clean but she gets upset and undoes all our work because she cannot keep a space clean for very long. I wanna yell at her and throw all her things away, but I know it'll only make it worse. I want to shake her and ask her if she likes to watch her family live like this.

She can't even tell me to clean my room because she knows the reason its messy is because she leaves her clothes in piles on the floor and tells me to leave it alone so she can fix it later, but later never comes. She'll shuffle her hoard around and call it organizing but she'll never admit that she needs to get rid of them. There are two closets in my room and I let her use the smaller one at her protest but I knew if I gave her mine she would fill it up anyway so I might as well have the bigger one.

I'm just so tired of being told im messy and disorganized when she is 100 times worse and most likely the reason im messy. Atleast I know where all my things are, she forgets as soon as she buys them. Amazon packages show up everyday, just more material for the hoard.

I've been down on my luck and moved back in with my parents and older brother. It is what it is and I'm trying my best to focus on getting a job so I can leave asap.

I was looking for my one and only winter coat and made the mistake to ask my dad while I was sifting through three closets FILLED to the brim with his outerwear that I've never seen him wear.

I then heard him say to my brother "she probably can't find her coat because she's always throwing things away willy nilly, maybe that'll teach her". I wanted to LOSE IT. I thought I could at least talk to my brother and process it with him. We obviously have a fucked up childhood and don't usually talk about "deep" things, but he ended up defending my parents. I was so fucking upset to learn that hes perfectly happy to live in a hoard and thinks having 50+ towels (JUST towels, not counting the other shit) in the linen closet is normal.

It sucks and I'm devastated to learn that my brother will probably never see the light. It sucks and I'm sad. I feel gaslit by my family for being the only one who thinks something is wrong with the way the house is.

I won't give up on myself though, I'm going to do my best to get myself out of this. I've done it once and I can do it again. It would just really help to hear someone tell me that they see my reality and understand. I just need a virtual hug :/

She watches antiques roadshow (I hate that show so much now for being associated with this) and she constantly is looking at stupid vases and ceramic figurines she bought at goodwill for 1$ and is claiming they're all worth at least 30$. This is specifically funny (and frustrating) to me because I have actually valuable collectables. If i had to estimate the value of every collectable i have together (not counting my TCGs) it'd probably total over 5k? As far as TCGs go I I have a deck that's worth at least 500$ minimum. So it specifically pisses me off because she collects GARBAGE.

My hoarding mother passed away unexpectedly this summer and the family and I have been cleaning the house almost non stop since. Massive bungalow with a “store” in the basement.

They live on an acreage just of town and used to operate their “recycling/contracting” company from there. The house is looking good/better now (that was mostly mom’s) and dad is receptive to the changes there mostly. The issue now is the yard and out buildings. The 4 mobile homes, 10+ garages, shops and grain bins that are all full. Step dad has said he wants to get out of it, sell and move. He’s getting older and wants less work. As is it’s an unimaginable amount of work. In my brain I see it taking +10 years without a lot of hired help.

Problem is. Every time I see him he’s telling me about this or that, that he bought to fix and re-sell. He doesn’t need the money. I think he is bored and is filling the void with more stuff. I just honestly don’t know what more I can do! I know I am his executor, and that either now or in the future this is all going to be my problem. Arrrrgh!

December is always a struggle for me even after moving out of my parents' house. Christmas decorations are like, a specific genre of clutter my mom collects. There are decorations she put up years ago and never took down because they just became part of the mess that she's blind to.

So putting up decorations in my own home now is stressful because I''m always half thinking of them as clutter. Like I want to enjoy it and go ham on tacky Christmas decor but too many decorations starts to make me anxious and feel like I need to clean.

Plus there's just so much stuff. Wrapping paper and tissue paper and cards and tags and bags and ribbon and boxes... Like it never ends. Even the gifts are more stuff. I'm grateful and appreciate that people are giving me presents, but after a while (esp when they're just. in a pile under the tree) they feel like clutter too.

And then on top of that I always have at least one hoarding-adjacent blow up with my mom. Like last year my mom found out that I've donated a number of singing decorations my grandmother has given me over the years (those ones where you press a button and it plays a song and moves around). My grandmother has gotten me one of those every year for the last 20 years. A few years ago I decided to keep only 3 and donated the rest. We got into a huge fight about it and how I'm so ungrateful and it would crush my grandmother to know I haven't kept the gifts she gave me, and next time I should just give them to my mom to keep at her house instead of throwing them away, etc etc

Anyway it's all going to ramp up in the next few weeks and I'm already tired.

So, I have two HP who are both pretty in denial about their respective responsibility for the state of the house. One recognizes the house is a mess and is less willing to take responsibility for his role in it; the other both doesn't see a problem and minimizes her role in it. Neither have been to visit me for any extended period of time since I moved cross country five years ago; one HP has been here very briefly and the other has never been.

I told them after visiting their home (The Hoard) this summer that I was nit coming to their home for the holidays. I have a pet and they do not, and it is very hard to find pet care for my pet because he has special care requirements. (Basically it is a combo of skill and expense. I get so nervous leaving him especially as he ages.) I usually end up driving and negotiating with my boss to let me telework for a period of time so I can take my dog, recover from the cross country drive, and then drive back. My boss doesn't love this arrangement either but he values my time (I think) so lets me do it. I have started to tell my HP that work is becoming less tolerant and the drive itself is just hard on me. As my pet ages, it is less and less practical to leave him. Hence they are FINALLY coming to visit me.

My place is quite small since I live alone in a HCOL city. Luckily they are not staying WITH me but they are staying as close to me as they were able, and plan to "spend time at my apartment." For some reason this week, the impending visit has really weighed on me. I felt so stressed about the amount of clutter or lack thereof that they may perceive. Will they nitpick anything? Will they tell me I have too many books? Too many clothes? Not enough dishes? Not enough blankets? I guess I just got very anxious about it all.

The good: I spent some good time cleaning in anticipation of the visit. Not just wiping down surfaces, but going through my fridge, decluttering some drawers, clearing out old stuff from my bathroom. It feels like my apartment is much cleaner than its default state.

The bad: I am up late worried still about how the visit will go. I am not sure how to process everything. I am in a weird "get rid of more stuff" mood but know I cannot do that while they are here because that WILL cause fights.

The end. :)

Just wanted to put my thoughts down on paper in case any others could relate or offer some perspective.

My mother has been a hoarder my whole life. I recently cleared the den in our house that has been hoarded almost to the ceiling since before I born. She has been adamant for years that there were valuables and cash hidden in this room (she learned that if she hides things of value we would be deterred from fixing the mess) So I expected to sort things out so we could have a yard sale, but it was majority unusable trash. Junk mail, denigrating plastics, and hundreds of free anything she could get her hands on. Many boxes were half filled and there were places where the bottom layer of boxes were even empty. Don’t get me started on the layer of bugs caking the floor. The only reason I’ve been able to finally do this is because my mother has been in the hospital and she needs room for a full hospital bed set up with equipment now.

I cannot process the fact that as an only child raised in a 3 bedroom house I was never given the space to grow. I didn't get to sleep in my own room in my own bed until high school and that was only after I threw a fit and forced my way into it. She has held me and my dad hostage in this house for 30 years and we are finally taking back our lives. This week I had dinner with my dad sitting at a table in my house for the very first time in my life.

She recently came back home from the hospital after ~month and she is bedridden and I am now going to be her caretaker along with my dad. This house has been my life's greatest challenge. I will clean and fix it and set up systems for her to function and take care of herself hopefully independently. I genuinely don't know if this is a relationship that can ever be healed. She still finds ways to avoid accountability and even blame me for it because if she didn't have a child her life wouldn't be like this. I don't know how to deal with everything she has done and what is happening. I feel so alone and scared but I am holding it together for my dad. I think after this I need to leave and go no contact.

Hi, I found this sub a few months ago through the narcissistic parents subreddit but was too embarrassed to post. Finally making one today because I was able to convince my dad to let me (mostly 😓 ) sell off/get rid of everything in our two storage units instead of trying to find buyers and "good homes" for it. It's been draining our finances. Now with this, once I'm able to get him to the storage unit, we can take a couple boxes he really wants to keep and I can deal with the rest. Maybe a childhood book I loved as well if I can find it in the storage hoard lmao. I'm finally going to be able to afford HRT and community college... feels good :)

So I am 99% no contact. But occassionally information gets to me. Turns out my mother finally got a partial cleaning person - heavy emphasis on partial. Only vacuuming, nothing else. Im getting a sense the person didnt want the job and was pushing back- turns out the person doesnt want to use their supplies and wants to use my mothers vacuum. well my mother gets snotty and tells this woman her vacuums are 20+ years old and she doens't want them broken, they haven't been repaired expect for a belt replacement and new bags when full.

yes my mother has canister vacuums, no wonder it this takes forever.

now i understand the hoarding problem she has one vacuum for each level of the house- thats THREE large vacuums. I stupidly asked why she doesnt get rid of the three oversided vacuums that require bags no one sells anymore and get a rechargable vacuum that is much lighter, easier etc. NOPE, these are HERS, she bought them shes not changing etc.

This is with everything. she doesn't have one caddy of cleaning supplies she has supplies in every bathroom FIVE bathrooms filled with supplies, then supplies in the laundry, kitchen etc. its multiples of the same scattered all over the house.

If she would just condense and have ONE set of everything she would have so much less shit in that house. Get ONE HIGH QUALTITY item, get rid of the rest and use your good item. stop torturing yourself with outdated equipment.

She keeps every little grocery bag, no way can you possibly use 100's of grocery bags. keep a few and toss the rest. this woman keeps every hanger from the drycleaner. shes never purchased hanger in her entire life. she just keeps accumulating the free drycleaner hangers. keeps accumulating the rubberbands from the produce . baggies of rubberbands, she cant stop.

Does anyone else have this problem. I cant deal with them. i cant even suggest there are 2 people living in 6k sq ft, maybe just throw some stuff away.

like last month the clothes washer broke so there was about a week when laundry had to wait. I stupidly suggested - just wear your old stuff and throw it way, use the old ratty towels and THROW THEM AWAY. i got hit with such push back. that house is filled with everything, she has pants triple hung on hangers, wear stuff you no longer like and throw it away. make life easier on yourself. use some old towels and toss them. 'i bought them, they are mine, im not throwing them away' closely followed by 'thats too much trash, what would the nieghbors think'

im going back to no contact.

they are 80/81 years old, idk what they are waiting for. start unloading that house!

throw away for obvious reasons

sorry if the pacing is weird, this is all coming off the top of the dome

So we're just not doing thanksgiving this year. The house is just too much of a mess and we don't have any family nearby to go to for thanksgiving, so we're pretty much just skipping it. Overheard my mom crying about it the other day and i've been doing my best to not think about skipping the holiday, but i've only gotten more and more upset about it and upset about everything regarding my living situation. Never had a friend over to my house, never had family over, and I'm 20. Fucking 20. I have a job, but i'm nowhere near close to moving out at this rate. Hell, i don't even have a permit because the registration is expired. Therapy won't even work for me because I can't talk about the hoard without fear that my little sister is gonna be taken by CPS. I have no one to turn to for help with this because I have to keep it a secret, but also because of the hoard i'm so dysfunctional that I don't know how to properly take care of myself.

It feels like it'll never get better and i'm honestly starting to believe it

ETA and Update: Thank you all for your advice. It really meant a lot to me. To clarify, when she got out of the hospital, she was put into a rehab facility (after a difficult couple of nights at my place) and a month later they discharged her. She’s here with me now and will receive in home rehab for some time. Unfortunately, some of the advice that is best simply isn’t within reach. I am hoping that doesn’t draw anger here. Most of all: it may be difficult to understand for some, but culturally, putting her in a home is not an option. As for privately talking with people who have cared for her, and this is the part I’m most nervous about sharing online because it’s such a unique situation, many of them are her former colleagues. The weight of her secrets is crushing me.

I’m also furious because within an hour of being at my house, she slipped into her defensiveness around keeping things, all the way back to deciding that instead of my cleaning out her place, she’s going to move back and do it. She had already agreed multiple times that I’d have a professional team help me and get it done quickly. Now I’m “trying to control her and take away her independence, that is my house” etc.

I told her that my boundary was that either she can go along with what we’d agreed to as a family, or she could go back to her house after the in home nurses are done with her here and her grandson and I would not be a part of her life; that she could choose her things over her relationships for another decade.

I really appreciate everyone’s support and advice and hope I don’t come off as stubborn or stupid or ungrateful. I want her in a home, but it would be considered a giant disgrace and abuse in our culture. I get the irony, and I hate it.

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My whole childhood was marked by my mother’s hoarding. She never admitted to her problem being as bad as it was and always claimed she would take care of it when she had time. I said I wanted her house clean before her grandchild was born. She said of course it would be — it wasn’t. Then before he could walk — same story. So I stopped visiting. I told her her house wasn’t fit for a child then, and it’s not fit for a child now. She was only going to see her grandkid if she visited us.

For decades her explanation was “when I have time,” which turned into “when I retire.” I told her that she’d be less capable at that point; that what was going to happen was that she couldn’t handle it and that if she didn’t hire someone to help she was going to fall one day and die and the mess would be my responsibility. She retired a couple of years ago. Things of course only got worse without my knowing (though she took every opportunity to lie when asked). She fell one day last month and nearly died after spending days on the floor.

The EMT told me the house was in terrible condition and after hospitalization she can’t come back to it. When I went there, I was David Lynch level disturbed. It was worse than I could have imagined. She had the gall to say it got worse because we stopped visiting.

Now the mess is my responsibility, and I have to care for her in my home. There are no siblings to help clear and clean out, and no money to put her somewhere. I’m not emotionally ready to live with the person who ruined my childhood like that, but I have no choice. I’m going to spend the next year of my life driving back and forth out of state while giving her a life more safe and comfortable than she bothered to give me, probably battling her disgusting tendencies here now. I get that it’s an illness but that doesn’t make it any less unfair to me and I am so resentful.

I already work too much, but she’ll get to spend time with my kid in my much better house while I do the work in her den of my childhood trauma triggers on my off time. Every aspect of this feels unfair; I can’t not yell at her when she starts to defend it, and I don’t yell or in general show anger to my kid like that, so this all feels wrong. For decades this woman made me feel like an asshole for not having faith in her. She’s “sorry” now but it doesn’t matter.

I just found this thread and am so glad I did. It gives me comfort knowing I am not alone. Being the child of a hoarder is an isolating experience that most people can’t relate to. Only a select few people in my life know about it, and I still don’t think they understand the extent of it.

My mom is a hoarder. My childhood home is overrun with antiques, unopened boxes, and pure filth. The kitchen piles up with trash, old food, and dirty dishes. In high school, I was terrified of going into kitchen pantry because there was nearly always a dead mouse to be found in a trap. Growing up, I could never have friends over, and I used to resent my mom for it. I now understand that her issue is more psychologically rooted, but it still really gets to me. And then I feel guilty about feeling that way.

I am now in medical school, so I get holiday breaks. In college, I hated holidays because I always felt like I had to put on this whole facade that I was so excited to be going home. Well now, I actually refuse to go home. It is just too depressing, and I know the energy I put into talking to my mom about it or trying to clean is pointless and soul-sucking. My extended family lives nearby, and thankfully we are having Thanksgiving at my grandparents. But I still have to drive nearly 3 hours there and 3 hours back because I have no where to stay. I am just starting to get the same feelings of resentment from my past. I am so mad that I can’t just have a normal holiday break like the rest of my friends posting pictures in their beautiful homes with family. I know that there are worse things and I need to count my blessings, but it is still a big bummer for me. Also, another depressing aspect of it is that my mom borrowed money from my student loans (with a crazy interest rate) for her car payment. But then I hear my stepdad complain about the dozens of Amazon boxes that arrive weekly and are just left unopened.

Can anyone else relate to these feelings of holiday loneliness? I would love to hear any tips or advice you have on how to cope with these feelings. I am a broke med student and can’t afford therapy lol

Just need to share, new to sub. I’m 45, having to live with my HM the last 6 years due to mental illness issues of my own. I had a breakdown last year after my father passed (he was my only escape as they were divorced for a long time)

I’ve been having a difficult recovery due to the anxiety I have from this house and the fact my mom SAYS she wants a clear house but does nothing to change it. We both have ADHD and I know she’s CAPABLE of cleaning/organizing because I told her I need the kitchen table to work and she magically cleaned up the dining room (but didn’t get rid of anything).

My issue is the overwhelm to the point of paralysis that’s put a halt on my ability to sort anything. Even my room is cluttered and disorganized which makes me crazy that I can’t seem to do anything about it. I haven’t been able to “compute” to get anything done myself. I watch the YouTube decluttering videos and try to read the books, but to no avail. There HAS to be a way out of this!

I just feel trapped and needed to vent. Thank you 🙏

My mom is trying so hard to be better and she's making progress, but I can't help at all. I am not allowed to touch anything or go through anything, put anything anywhere else, etc.

She's overwhelmed and struggling and I don't know how to help or what I can do. It is breaking my heart and I just want to make things easier, but the more she struggles the more she lashes out and makes me not want to be there.

If anyone has any advice on how to manage living there and helping while not sacrificing my own mental well-being, that would be great. Or any ideas on cleaning tasks that are easy I could bring up to help her get a grip on things.

I have posted on here a while back about moving out of my childhood home that was extremely hoarded by my mother. Well.. it still isn't cleaned up in the slightest and my mother seems to have no intention of doing so. Besides the point, my parents are moved into their new house that is around 35 minutes away from the old one. My dad tries to keep it relatively clean but its starting to get cluttered.

With the holidays coming up they are trying to host a few things and I keep getting calls from my mom to help clean. I live in an apartment 15 minutes away from them. I told her I don't live with them anymore and I am busy with college. She got extremely defensive and said "thats not an excuse this is still your house"

I'm 20 years old. I am a nursing student. I have finals coming up. I DO NOT have time to clean up my moms new hoard that she is starting. She complains that I come over and make messes and don't clean them, which is far from the truth. I really don't know what to do.

It has gotten to the point where I am constantly reminded of my childhood and the things she's said to me over the years. The biggest being when I would complain the house was too messy to have friends over, only to be met with the response "well it is your fault you don't clean your room. thats why you are so awkward and antisocial" The majority of stuff in my room was not mine. I was a kid, I didn't know what to do with mountains of clothes and useless items. Where do you even begin to clean something like that?

She even complains that I don't come clean the litter box even though yes, they are my cats I had since childhood, but I DO NOT LIVE THERE! She thinks I can just come help whenever and it is stressing me out because I feel like she thinks I owe her something??

Every Christmas Eve for the entirety of my life we spent yelling at each other and trying to get the house looking somewhat presentable for guests. I always dreaded it.

How do I even survive the holidays? I love my family but I can't drop everything to help them clean. I don't want my Christmas Eve to be the same as usual.

I am planning on talking to my parents today. Thankfully it's not as bad as many people experience, but it's still disgusting. Nothing is ever in it's place and the house always reeks. I'm currently living with them and all I want is some structure. I want them to commit to a small schedule of cleaning. Dishes, counters, and sweeping. A daily 10 minute dash to find things not in their place and put them in their place. Simple, basic house maintenance stuff.

I'm scared because my family doesn't communicate directly. We had always viewed saying boundaries out loud to be a sign of rigidity, and just "live and let live" style of coexisting to be a positive characteristic. To care deeply how others feel while simultaneously caring nothing about how you feel and doing everything in your power to tiptoe around any housemate behavior that bothers you. My mom specifically has a lot of trauma around cleaning, and she is extremely sensitive about being called out. I want to protect her emotions so bad, to be a "good kid" and make sure she never has to deal with uncomfortable emotions. The issue is that I don't even want to exist in their space anymore. It literally disgusts me, and it's worse than it has ever been. And I know why, and I worry that if it isn't t addressed things will just get worse.

So wish me luck. This is against everything I was raised by 😬

If y'all want to give advice it's welcome. If y'all don't have any advice I'm good with that too.

It's a weird combination of compulsive cleaning constantly and also not being sure if I'm doing enough. Like I'm so unfamiliar with a normal household that I have no idea what IS the right frequency for cleaning/changing things out. What's the right place for everything in the fridge? The cabinets? How often do you change out your towels? I also feel guilty, like I'm taking up more than my fair share of space somehow (it's a very normal-sized one bedroom apartment).

It's weird that day to day life feels so easy now. Like I'm not struggling doing basic stuff, so I feel lost at what to do with myself. I also want to invite friends over, but I'm still worried that it will be obvious I don't know what a normal household looks like.

What was your experience like when you finally moved out of the hoard?

I deep cleaned the house in September and now it's just how it was. My grandma (also a hoarder) had to move and she gave us a lot of her junk to keep and now we have more and more boxes of stuff. I went on a trip for 5 days with my mom and that whole time my sister didn't clean at all. There is a million fruit flies now and I was pissed. So I've just stopped cleaning completely. My mom came in my room yesterday and complained how messy the living room was and that it was clean a few days ago. It was weeks ago. They don't appreciate when I clean. They treat me like a maid. And now my mother is freaking out because Thanksgiving is around the corner and the house is a disaster and I need to clean it up. I've told her for weeks now that I'm done cleaning and I'm not going to do it until they help me. My older sister told me that it's not the best way to handle the situation because not cleaning doesn't help. I understand that but I just don't know what else to do. My plans to move out aren't working and I'm not in a great mental state rn. What would be a better way of handling this?

Hey everyone, I'm really happy that I found this subreddit. I would like to tell my story. Maybe I will get some peace, maybe not, but it's worth a try.

The backstory

My mother and father are pretty much opposites when it comes to organisation and such. My dad, who grew up very poor, loves bargains and value. The idea of getting something for dirt cheap, and having the ability to make a profit really drives him. He's very intelligent, a business man, and is always thinking of how to make money.

My mother, who also grew up just a poor, was the opposite. They both had large families, but all of my mom's siblings were teachers , nurses, etc. My dad's side were all about making money.

While my dad loved to buy stuff, anything with value, my mother was all about cleanliness and organisation. If you put your tea down there was a good chance she would get rid of the mug. I don't think she was too extreme, it's just a contrast with my dad.

12 years ago my mother passed away from cancer (I was 18). Before she passed she said "look after dad", I think about it still, and I do. During this time my dad also had a stroke. He is physically fine, but (self-reported) says he gets agitated easier now.

To look after my dad, I spent as much time as I could cleaning up after him. Organising things, trying to make the barrier to entry as low as possible to declutter the house. Over the years, he built up a lot of stuff, things that could have value. I tried putting things on ebay for him, stacking things as efficiently as possible. But as soon as something moved, something took its place. There are basically no flat surfaces to do anything in the house.

My dad's need for value was particularly bad in the 2008 financial crash. His business took a big hit. He ended up buying basically a warehouse full of junk from auction sites that he would sell at the bootsales. He made a profit, but the volume is still there.

During the summer holidays between university, and if I had any time at home between work or adventures, I was helping my dad again. This went on for a few years.

Then, my dad purchased a business. I won't say exactly what it is for privacy, but let's say be bought a sporting goods store.

With his need for value, and now that he had an outlet with this new business. The amount of stuff increased. Again, I spent months working with him at the shop, all the time organising, cleaning, tidying, trying to make his life easier by removing the things that get in his way.

Long story short, he is getting older, almost 70. And the house, the shop, it all gets worse. I have given up that the most I can do is try and keep the kitchen clean, and tidy up a little here and there. The house is full of stock from the shop. Imagine a corridor, and take away 50% of it with stuff. No flat surfaces except the bare minimum, opening the fridge and realising there is something in there that shouldn't be.

I love my dad, he has been a great father, and still is. He looks after me, and I look after him. But, I can't do this anymore. 12 years of worrying about him, cleaning up after him, it never ends.

I can't fight his demons for him. I don't even know if he thinks he has demons himself. Am I enabling him? Am I even helping him?

I truly don't know what to do anymore. Any direction I choose leads to pain. How do I get him to see that I've always been here to help? Is that even my responsibility? How do you not help someone that you love? Ultimately, maybe I'm back at stage one of the cycle again, and after a month once I've left the house, I will forget, I will come back, I will feel pain again, and then it all starts again

a few weeks ago i posted about my win, albeit an emotional one, through cleaning up the room i rent from my parents. i had hoped that this might trigger some self-awareness in my parents, and make them clean up their spaces a little, too, but today a new freezer arrived. we already have two freezers. there are four of us living here - there is no need for two industrial-sized freezers, let alone three, and while my dad swears he will get rid of one of the current freezers, he also promised to take some trash to the dump a few weeks ago, and it's still sitting in trash bags in my room a month later. there is enough trash piled atop of one of our current freezers so as to make it almost unusable, and now there's another freezer next to it, so it's almost impossible to manoeuvre around the kitchen or to move items out of the aforementioned freezer with trash on top of it. just looking at the current state of the kitchen is making me incredibly anxious and stressed out, and even though my dad promises he'll throw one of the current freezers away, given my parents' habits in the past i just don't believe him.

Hey all, just found this sub, so sorry we’re all meeting under these circumstances but thank you so much for being here.

I grew up with a hoarder parent and developed OCD at a young age, a lot of my compulsions were centric around trying to create order in the home. This was coupled with me becoming suicidal because I couldn’t leave the home, and subsequently (many times quite literally) screaming crying and begging on my knees for them to do something about the state of the house. I moved out at 19 and the hoarding was still a massive issue. By the time I moved out my bedroom consisted of nothing more than the clothes and personal items in my closet, my mattress on the floor and a mirror. I did not have anything out in my room and became incredibly overwhelmed if I ever came back from school and had left something out on my bed for example.

Anyway I’m now going on 3 years NC with my entire immediate family (other parent massively enabled and sibling was incredibly abusive. Both parents were also abusive and neglectful outside of the hoarding itself)

I’m just wondering if anyone else here is NC? A big part of it was the genuine severe damage the hoarding did to me, I have both sexual and physical trauma as well but I believe the hoarding/not being able to leave that house damaged me the most and I absolutely hate my biological family for it (can you tell I’m still in the anger stage of grief lol)

Anyway just wanted to hear from you guys that are NC too and how that’s going for you, I always feel lonely around the holidays and just finished a depression induced hour long cleanathon of my already clean home lol.

My mom is a hoarder, she hoards everything! Anytime there is a chance to receive free gifts, she'll rush to get it. For example, we already have 7 grocery trolley at home but whenever our local market is giving out trolleys, she will rush to get them! I have never argued with her on this matter as I believe its her house so she can do whatever she wants but it annoys me so much to live with so much clutter.

Over the years that I've lived here, I have always tidy up the home and made the clutter neat at least for my own mental wellbeing. I am 100% sure once I move out, things will go out of control and It makes me worried.

My room on the other hand, is super minimal! I have counted less then 50 items in total that I own. Moving out would really only take 1 trip and at most 2 luggage.

I can't wait to get my own apartment!

Sorry for the rant!

All my life we were taught that books were sacred, growing up we didn't have TV, and I still love reading. When I visit my parents their (large) house is just crammed with books. Piles and piles of them. Every time I visit there are more. Recently an uncle died, leaving a house full of hoarded crap. It took all the younger generation a lot of time and money to clear it up. The penny hasn't dropped though. I just know I'm gonna be loading up trailer loads of books and taking them for recycling some time in the future because nobody wants them.

I just finished the HBO Max show/documentary, Chimp Crazy. And whoa. It’s wild. And kind of triggering? My HP is an animal hoarder, so there’s a LOT of behavior from the chimp “lovers” (I.e. controllers) in the show I completely recognize in my HP. I want to talk about it with others that grew up with animal hoarding.

I grew up on a “hobby farm” with too many cats, horses, goats, poultry of many kinds, and a pig. It has since become just too many cats (there’s a big legal saga behind that change and that’s a post for another day), and cats are their primary hoard victim now. My HP just insists they are the only one that could take good care of these animals, they only ever truly bond with animals, and they obviously got some weird and sick joy from just owning these animals. With the show and my HP, it’s obvious they’re just selfish people out of their depth in taking care of these animals, and mentally unwell. The anger and drama we saw in Chimp Crazy is exactly how my HP would behave when the legal stuff was happening, and their irrational anger continues. It’s one of the hardest things for me to witness, and I’ve been out of their hoard and been LC for 20 years.

My HPs mental health is sort of unknown to me because of course nothing is wrong with them 🙄 at minimum family has always said that my HP was “weird” (I suspect autistic based on their dad/brother), but there was a car accident that resulted in a TBI, so brain damage is a hard thing to diagnose as a specific thing. After finishing the show I was googling the main character and it took me to some Borderline Personality subreddit and wow - I read a lot that sounded exactly like my parent.

Has anyone else watched the show and noticed all of this? It was just wild to see and my partner was shocked at how much I pointed out that I’d heard growing up. I’m not really asking for advice, but just a conversation on this because it’s distressing.

And a final thing - the show was directed by the same guy that directed Tiger King. My HPs love of Carole Baskin and her (legit) rescue led to us meeting her and Howard years ago and my favorite party trick is pulling up that picture and telling people about it all 😂

My Mom is a hoarder. Her entire house is what I’ve ID’d as a level 5; no usable surfaces, small pathways to some rooms, others are inaccessible. Her kitchen is completely unusable by any standards (except hers apparently). She’s coming for Thanksgiving and wants to bring crock pickles she made at home. I am trying to think of a tactful way to tell her not to bring them since she will want us to eat them and I honestly don’t want to eat anything that comes from her kitchen. Not sure why she’s so delusional to think she should be preparing food in her home until her kitchen is cleaned. Any ideas on how to get out of this?

And still I am blamed for the stuff and mess.

I have gone home and cleared out all of my childhood things, either taking them with me, donating it, or putting it in the rubbish - some of which was retrieved from the rubbish, in which case I no longer define as mine, it's his.

Still it was "you need to come and take your stuff!" So the next time I was there I disposed of the rubbish else where rather than in his curbside bins.

STILL! The mountains of stuff and mess is somehow mine. I ask him to point to something that's mine, and he can't. And even if it was in fact all mine, I'm not allowed to touch it.

I'm trying to remember that he didn't arrive her through logic so I'm not going to be able to use logic to get him out of it.

Do your parents have overgrown yards with too many trees and plants like they hoard plants just as much as stuff inside?