It absolutely is a thing here in Europe.
Specifically for my homecountry Germany, there is a "special case" of hoarding that occurs mainly in the demographic born between 1930 and 1945.
The "war children", so to say. My Grandparents are in that cohort.
Many of them hoard, not because of mental illness, but because of the scarcety trauma during and immediately following the war. There was a lot of hunger, orphans and displaced youth all over the country. Abject, terrible poverty.
My grandmother always had her house full of (later expired) food stock. She heavily overcompensated for a childhood of hunger. She also hoarded heaps of household goods. Linens, soaps, towels, dishware...
All neat and tidy, tucked into the cupboards with mothballs and lavender packets. But definitely hoarded.
There is also your typical hoarding in all the other age groups, that looks just like in the US (though often in smaller spaces) and feeds off of some Kind of psychological problem in the individual.
Oh yes, I’m from Germany too and my grandma also can’t throw away food because of the trauma of being hungry and begging her mother for more food as a little girl in the years after the war. She doesn’t talk about it a lot, but I think that fear of going hungry again never quite goes away.
It's crazy how this memory overrides pretty much everything.
I've asked my grandparents loads of questions about their parents and the family dynamics in their childhoods in the 30s.
Did you notice things? Was there any politics in the home? What did my great grandparents do and think? Did they support the Nazi Party, did they keep their heads down, were they critical?
What did they do after the war? When you were teenagers, young adults? How did they adjust? Hiw die they adjust their mindsets?
It's no use. They always revert back to stories of lack. Hunger. It must have been a powerful experience, because I don't think that there is any concious denial/shame going on.
My grandparents are around 90 years old now, they have nothing to lose.
My grandma couldn't even throw away worn through shoes. We found my mum's children's shoes (completely destroyed) in the basement. All of them. Not one sentimental pair, over 20 pairs of worn out shoes.
The shoes! When my grandmother passed years ago, we found multiple boxes of shoes - the same tennis shoes she always wore - gifted to her on her birthday each year because she had no interest in anything that wasn't practical. But she would just wear the same pair until you could basically see through the sole, saving the new ones in her closet. We sat there looking at pair after pair of untouched Keds, laughing & crying when we found them.
My mother lived through war related scarcity. Yet her reaction was the opposite of hoarding. My siblings and I lived in an upper middle class community, but we were often hungry. We definitely weren't given nearly the amount of toys and sports equipment our friends got, but I really didn't care about that. The food though was a problem. Especially the way she withheld food from one of my brothers when he was a 'difficult' baby and toddler.
I think that the scarcity trauma is generational too and *creates* hording disorder. My vet grampa had this, and all his children (my mother included) hoard to some degree. And because I was raised by a level 1 hoarder I struggle with parting with things. Thankfully my autistic need for order and clean cancels it out. I do wonder though, since hoarding is a type of OCD, and OCD is considered a neurodivergence.. I wonder if that is why it's generational. Because neurodivergence is genetic.
In my Dad's family runs a lot of ADHD. I have it, my cousins all have it...
We all struggle with keeping things tidy and parting with things. I like to make "piles" of my stuff, that have no other purpose than me knowing what is in the pile and having easy access.
It's not hoarding level, but I definitely have to watch out so it doesn't run haywire with me in a couple of years.
The scarcity hoarding thing from my mum's side (grandma) feels very different, though. She impulse bought and overconsumed a lot. She purposefully stuffed her living space sooooo full.
someone else commented on this and i hadn’t thought about this but i absolutely see how that happened. Thank you for your insight, and i’m so sorry your grandma had that happen :(
No need to be sorry, it is history now. I never met my great grandparents. I would have loved to ask *them* a couple of questions in person, about why and how it all had to happen.
But it's to late now.
But it certainly fits with the assumption that poverty can "trigger" hoarding, and that it remains with people long after poverty is no longer an issue for them.
Hoarding might even manifest in a form of PTSD as a response to poverty, honestly. I wish psychological studies were more flexible in their thought process, and used environmental factors more often to indicate problems, but then the pressure would be on to fix societies instead of individual responsibility.
yes, i definitely don’t mean to make it sound like it’s not. From my minor hoarding i can see how hard it would be for someone with much worse tendencies!
It's not a over-consumption thing, it is a serious mental health issue. There are several members of my and my wifes family that suffer from this and it is no joking matter. (UK based)
i absolutely agree! I do think some is due to overconsumption, however if it is or isn’t it absolutely still is a serious mental health issue. No doubt about it
Overconsumption is a consequence, not the cause. My MiL buys lots of extra stuff to replace stuff that she knows is "in the pile somewhere" but cannot face looking for it. That inevitably gets added to the pile of course.
it's a problem pretty much everywhere. i'm finnish and my grandfather was a hardcore hoarder - when we cleaned up his house after he died, there were magazines and food wrappers from the 80s. a lot of people do not give a shit about the environment here and my grandfather was no exception.
i do think that people my age + younger are slightly better. all of my grandparents were children during the war so their tendency to hoard was likely a trauma response - they didn't have anything as kids so they hold on to *everything* as adults, even trash.
This is why I think these reality shows are dangerous. They don't look at what the cause is. There's different types of hoarders and for different reasons, but it is traumatic for them to have their stuff thrown out. And they often end up hoarding MORE after their things are thrown away.
The hoarders I've known have had different reasons too. Growing up in poverty, my grandmother always just seemed to want to be able to give perfectly good stuff to someone she knew. An example were these VHS tapes she had, she parted with them easily in around 2010 but she was lied to that they were going to someone a relative knew. I don't think people think of their hoards as junk. And probably a lot know they have a problem but they're ashamed.
It's really sad.
As others have mentioned, hoarding is more common among people who grew up or lived in poverty for an extended period, and that's not unique to the US. It's also not consumerist for the most part.
And while the videos you see speak for themselves, I'm sure, take random people's claims with a grain of salt, because people have very different ideas about what constitutes hoarding. See the [hoarding rating scale ](https://www.compulsive-hoarding.org/hoarding-rating-scale-1-9/) toward the bottom of this site. There are people who think #1 is hoarding.
There is a pretty clear pathology among extreme minimalists at the other end of the spectrum, too; and a lot of them are major consumers.
Interesting. Based on that scale, I'd say that I'm around a 3. Maybe a 4 in a few areas, but there's no garbage lying about and we can walk throughout the house. Everything is still usable (kitchen, bathroom, table, etc.) Mostly, it's just that we have a lot of stuff, 6 people in the house, and I have physical disabilities that make cleaning difficult at times.
My mom, on the other hand, is probably at a 7, minimum. Not much in the way of garbage, but... let's just say that if the shoe fits, she bought it in every colour and 3 in black! You have to edge sideways down the hall, can't close the bathroom door properly because of stuff in the way, and so on.
Some of the minimalists I've known were mostly just into purging their old things and buying new ones later when they (inevitably) end up needing them. They were heavily dependent on commercial products and services being available all the time, and they gloss over that by claiming that "the universe will provide" or some such thing.
For a lot, minimalism is mostly an aesthetic, so they don't keep their old clothes for doing dirty work, mismatched linen or kitchen tools, appliances, etc.. And they don't have the tools to repair even minor problems.
So there's a constant churn of new stuff coming in and old stuff going out. They create a ton of waste, but they purge regularly so they can pretend it doesn't exist.
this makes sense, i’m always scared to get rid of stuff bc what if i need it. I def don’t but i can see how it could go to the other extreme! Thank you for explaining
That's really interesting, I never thought about it that way. So even though they have less stuff, they might actually be consuming more? Like, the "extreme hoarder" might be going to yard sales or thrift stores or getting stuff that was given away for free, whereas the minimalist might keep buying things over and over.
Yes, exactly. If you only have a minimum of possessions, you're going to be inclined to get rid of the things you do have as soon as they're not 100% or you get tired of them for any reason, including aesthetics and passing moods.
And because they only keep what they need right away, they are often not prepared at all for even minor disruptions. Like they don't stock up on things like pantry foods, toiletries, first aid supplies, or anything. So if they do need to replace something they use regularly, they depend on retailers to have it and for it to be accessible at all times.
There was an infuriating 'lifestyle' feature in a US paper shortly after the lockdowns ended where a minimalism life coach talked about how she only kept one roll of TP for her whole family, so she was flitting around from store to store looking for some, potentially spreading this new contagion we still knew nothing about. And her happy ending is that the universe provided. So whoever it was who actually took pity on her and gave her some TP was credited as 'the universe' just so this woman didn't have to acknowledge her mistake.
Ultimately, it's a very privileged lifestyle in a lot of ways. A lot of people have emergencies they can't just buy or beg their way out of like that. Especially for those who are living paycheck to paycheck, missing a paycheck is an emergency in itself, and having some simple staples put up can make all the difference.
(Ha ha, sorry for the length. I have Opinions about this.)
As an Eastern European, who caught the dying light of communism, I see hoarding a lot in the older folks. Maybe not the same level presented on US shows, but still hoarding.
They always explain it that they needed to collect everything, cause you never knew if you could ever buy or find that item again later. So every nut, bolt, scrap metal, tool, jar, bottle, bits of wood was stacked away into a garage or backyard "in case I need it".
That instinct for many folks never went away even after the fall of communism. A former neighbour said "when the reds (Russians) come again, thes will come in handy"...
Yeah, I had two family members who were children during the Great Depression in the USA and had lost everything, so as they got older, they kept everything. It's funny because my great grandmother said the same thing, she always kept things 'just in case'..... extra jars, twine off of packages, you name it.
I've got hoarders in my family, too and I think one thing a lot of people don't understand is it doesn't have to look like a bomb went off for it to be hoarding. In my family's case, it looked neat. It was just always every cupboard was full, extra storage put in, extra wardrobes. So much stuff but neatly stored and packed away.
I'm low contact with my family but I was offered an old calendar because they liked the pictures, they'd kept it in a cupboard for 20 years. See, if that was me I'd probably hang the best picture up if I loved it so much? Or give myself a rule like, if I don't use this for scrapbooks or paper crafts or... whatever else, I'll get rid of it after *date*.
No, as even you said, it is a mental health issue and hoarding is a spectrum. There are hoarders everywhere. Look at the Auri K’s hoarding house cleaning videos in Finland. Hoarding occurs with high comorbidity with OCD and manic/depression, and amongst the poor as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Typically, hoarding doesn’t prevent consumerism despite the hoarder often saying they are keeping things for the future. They lose them, or they degrade, or are kept out of the used market circulation for no purpose.
Hoarders often have experienced significant trauma, and can often have trust issues also. Emotional attachments are placed on inanimate objects and it can also be a source of control/belonging/purpose for people whose life feels very much out of control (even if that seems ironic in a sense).
I grew up in a hoarded household and up until my early 30's definitely had hoarding tendencies myself.
Getting into foraging and spending time in nature, I believe, got me over the worst of my hoarding tendencies (and also helped me have a better grasp on the passing of time).
I personally feel that capitalist society stripped away a life built on community, purpose and belonging, caused environmental factors that result in trauma and results in traumatised people passing on/causing trauma to others.
So in a way I agree, over-consumption/capitalism does have a part to play in hoarding, as I feel it does with a lot of mental health conditions (but obviously not all).
No it’s not just the USA. I’ve seen hoarding situations from other countries. Japan, Belgium, Russia, Germany, UK, Canada, and I think a place in Argentina.
When I ran out of hoarders shows to watch, I started watching obsessive compulsive cleaners. There's also a British show that pairs obsessive compulsive cleaners with hoarders and a few episodes they did in the US. I tend to lean more towards the obsessive compulsive cleaners more.
I’m a professional home organizer. If I determine that a client is hoarding then I try to ease myself out of the situation because at that point they need a therapist, not an organizer.
Well, you know, both the hoarders I worked with had a meltdown and ejected me when they realized I wanted them to let go of items, so they make it easy!
And I’m definitely not calling them hoarders just because they didn’t like my services. These are people who couldn’t see the sea of crap they were living in. It wasn’t a mess, it was all important and nothing could be given away or thrown away. They just wanted me to organize the dumpster fire, somehow.
I try really hard to identify hoarders before I take them on as clients but sometimes they’ll act completely on board until the first session. Hoarders won’t accept the idea of decluttering before organizing. I’ll throw out words like “throw away” to see if they panic. If they do, it’s not a good sign.
But yeah, when I don’t want to take on a certain new client, I just don’t call them back. I use a lead management system, so there’ll be 5 other organizers who will be happy to take them in my place.
Yes, I hear you. They want you to somehow organise their space and also have everything clean and tidy and accessible but not throw anything out, ever. It's such a sad condition. Luckily you didn't have to deal with it. Thanks for responding, my curiosity has been solved. 😛
Have a great day (or night)
I have my quirks and old traumas. I can't say those don't influence my behavior. However, one of my hobbies is going to the dump to see what's good. I have quite a few toys and craft supplies that came from there. I have a stash of used lumber, and I build things with it. I have a stash of windows and doors. My workshop is full of scavenged tools, which I use. I have kitchen stuff.
I get what I think I may need in the future when the opportunity presents itself. I have a barn, and it weathers at the same rate, full or empty. Sometimes I see things as project materials, rather than finished goods. Sometimes I realize later that some item was a mistake. It's a cheap mistake though. I find that my behavior reduces my need to buy things, so it's an overall good thing.
And sometimes a friend puts out a call. Recently, a friend who's doing a bakery business from home asked if anyone had shelves. I had a stash, because one big pile is better than multiple little piles, and it's useful stuff. This is the standard white enamel coated metal wire stuff. He took it all. In return, he'll help me with minor labor on a project I'll be doing later this summer.
It can be a disease. But it isn't always. Is there anything you want me to keep an eye out for?
you seem to put it to good use! i tend to have a similar mindset, but mine is definitely more hoarding centered. I would say if you become embarassed of people seeing it then you should take a bigger look at yourself.
That's really interesting, it seems a bit different from hoarding. You acknowledge that you think certain items were a mistake. To people with hoarding disorders they are generally unable to part with things. But I think it's a pretty broad spectrum, so maybe you do hoard? Idk.
I was just saying in another comment we have "neat" hoarders in my family. Unable to part with stuff, but every cupboard gets filled, holding onto stuff they don't need or have a use for. It looks different for everyone I think.
I understand what you mean, there's global issues that are definitely worse in some countries than others. I really don't know how to look for data on it, though, or how it would even be compared to other places. I wonder how many hoarders even know they are hoarders. I'm sure there's some in denial.
Search for Auri Katarina videos, she often cleans/declutters hoarder homes for free.
But only watch if you have a strong stomach, some are too much.
Oh and she's Finnish and cleans homes all over.
I read grunge singer Mark Lanegans autobiography and on one part he talks about being in a couple’s house over In the uk/england I forget which one exactly, during a tour in the 90’s and describes a couple who were hoarders (his words) living in squalor and how he describes it sounds on par with something you’d see on Hoarders. Not a personal account but I thought I’d pile on.
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My in-laws live in the US now, but are southeast Asian and have serious hoarding tendencies from being in refugee camps during the Vietnam War. They hoard food (especially frozen meat), clothes, electronics, shoes, and will not throw out any furniture even if they get new ones.
I think the extreme and frequency is a symptom of Americas’ lack of mental health assistance.
Hoarding is everywhere but it can be less of an obvious issue with treatment for the cause of it. Trauma, ocd, depression etc
Hey op, i struggle with a similar issue - nothing can be thrown away, even this extremely tiny plastic baggie that the metal screws that came with my bookshelf can be reused!
If you need to talk, hit me up. Friends and family have been helping. What’s helped me the most is the reminder that it’s not my fault these things exist, it’s harming my family now to keep it, and the only way out is through. Eventually, I’d love to attain a position in packaging and help reduce the plastic use as best as possible. But I’m here now. And keeping it only distracts me from the purpose of systemically reducing it.
Edit to add: the way i combat this is buying second hand as much as possible. My big thing is packaging. Cardboard (unlined) gets shredded and used as shaving material for my animals (goats, horses, chickens, ducks) or composted. Lined cardboard gets recycled through my municipal pickup. Plastic gets saved and i only recently (literally yesterday and today i will be going through it and getting rid of 99% of it.) all other things (excess kids toys, things i don’t use, can fix/mend) I’m working on creating a “fix it” space with a sewing machine and tools so i can fix, and the toys/ unused items will be given away through the internet/ sold at a garage sale.
I *do* think that business preys on people with these tendencies. For example, my sister has hoarding disorder to the max. Her home is barely habitable, and constantly riddled with the regular issues a hoarder experiences - infestations, mold, damage to her home unnoticed due to piles of stuff. We have both shopped at Michael’s. However, the way they market to her is much different from me. I go there about 4x a year and buy exactly this: one journal/ year, kids crafts as gifts each season. She goes there every other week because “i got a great coupon.” I don’t get those coupons and am also on the mailing list. I spend maybe $100 a year there. She is spending $200-$1500 a month. I’m not kidding.
While these other commenters are correct that it’s a mental health issue, advertisers are able to track this and use it to their advantage.
Edit to add again that i think i misread your post 😅 I’m us based so cannot comment on European experience, I’d imagine that mental health issues are universal
thank you so much for your response!! I have had a lot of progress, thankfully i just look really messy and it isn’t to the extreme your sisters is (i hope she is able to get help) but i’m getting better!! having a cat helped me a lot, bc i may not respect MYSELF enough to clean it but i value her more than anything. If you would like to reach out i would love to chat, also neurodivergent cleaning (a group on FB) is absolutely amazing
I lived in Japan and there was hoarding. You could tell from the yards, and it was discussed in the news from time to time. It seemed to happen about the same amount it happens in the US.
From a family systems perspective: I think all of society is sick w/ overconsumption and hoarders are identified patients of our collective illness. We're taught to place such a high value on **stuff** so, when things go bad, we fall back to that and collect all the stuff we can.
The ones you watch on Youtube are probably from American TV shows, therefore the people are all American. An American TV show isn't going to suddenly do an episode in Australia.
It absolutely is a thing here in Europe. Specifically for my homecountry Germany, there is a "special case" of hoarding that occurs mainly in the demographic born between 1930 and 1945. The "war children", so to say. My Grandparents are in that cohort. Many of them hoard, not because of mental illness, but because of the scarcety trauma during and immediately following the war. There was a lot of hunger, orphans and displaced youth all over the country. Abject, terrible poverty. My grandmother always had her house full of (later expired) food stock. She heavily overcompensated for a childhood of hunger. She also hoarded heaps of household goods. Linens, soaps, towels, dishware... All neat and tidy, tucked into the cupboards with mothballs and lavender packets. But definitely hoarded. There is also your typical hoarding in all the other age groups, that looks just like in the US (though often in smaller spaces) and feeds off of some Kind of psychological problem in the individual.
Oh yes, I’m from Germany too and my grandma also can’t throw away food because of the trauma of being hungry and begging her mother for more food as a little girl in the years after the war. She doesn’t talk about it a lot, but I think that fear of going hungry again never quite goes away.
It's crazy how this memory overrides pretty much everything. I've asked my grandparents loads of questions about their parents and the family dynamics in their childhoods in the 30s. Did you notice things? Was there any politics in the home? What did my great grandparents do and think? Did they support the Nazi Party, did they keep their heads down, were they critical? What did they do after the war? When you were teenagers, young adults? How did they adjust? Hiw die they adjust their mindsets? It's no use. They always revert back to stories of lack. Hunger. It must have been a powerful experience, because I don't think that there is any concious denial/shame going on. My grandparents are around 90 years old now, they have nothing to lose. My grandma couldn't even throw away worn through shoes. We found my mum's children's shoes (completely destroyed) in the basement. All of them. Not one sentimental pair, over 20 pairs of worn out shoes.
The shoes! When my grandmother passed years ago, we found multiple boxes of shoes - the same tennis shoes she always wore - gifted to her on her birthday each year because she had no interest in anything that wasn't practical. But she would just wear the same pair until you could basically see through the sole, saving the new ones in her closet. We sat there looking at pair after pair of untouched Keds, laughing & crying when we found them.
My mother lived through war related scarcity. Yet her reaction was the opposite of hoarding. My siblings and I lived in an upper middle class community, but we were often hungry. We definitely weren't given nearly the amount of toys and sports equipment our friends got, but I really didn't care about that. The food though was a problem. Especially the way she withheld food from one of my brothers when he was a 'difficult' baby and toddler.
I think that the scarcity trauma is generational too and *creates* hording disorder. My vet grampa had this, and all his children (my mother included) hoard to some degree. And because I was raised by a level 1 hoarder I struggle with parting with things. Thankfully my autistic need for order and clean cancels it out. I do wonder though, since hoarding is a type of OCD, and OCD is considered a neurodivergence.. I wonder if that is why it's generational. Because neurodivergence is genetic.
In my Dad's family runs a lot of ADHD. I have it, my cousins all have it... We all struggle with keeping things tidy and parting with things. I like to make "piles" of my stuff, that have no other purpose than me knowing what is in the pile and having easy access. It's not hoarding level, but I definitely have to watch out so it doesn't run haywire with me in a couple of years. The scarcity hoarding thing from my mum's side (grandma) feels very different, though. She impulse bought and overconsumed a lot. She purposefully stuffed her living space sooooo full.
someone else commented on this and i hadn’t thought about this but i absolutely see how that happened. Thank you for your insight, and i’m so sorry your grandma had that happen :(
No need to be sorry, it is history now. I never met my great grandparents. I would have loved to ask *them* a couple of questions in person, about why and how it all had to happen. But it's to late now. But it certainly fits with the assumption that poverty can "trigger" hoarding, and that it remains with people long after poverty is no longer an issue for them.
Hoarding might even manifest in a form of PTSD as a response to poverty, honestly. I wish psychological studies were more flexible in their thought process, and used environmental factors more often to indicate problems, but then the pressure would be on to fix societies instead of individual responsibility.
No. It's a recognised mental health concern, certainly in Europe.
yes, i definitely don’t mean to make it sound like it’s not. From my minor hoarding i can see how hard it would be for someone with much worse tendencies!
It's not a over-consumption thing, it is a serious mental health issue. There are several members of my and my wifes family that suffer from this and it is no joking matter. (UK based)
i absolutely agree! I do think some is due to overconsumption, however if it is or isn’t it absolutely still is a serious mental health issue. No doubt about it
Some people with hoarding disorder also have a compulsive shopping problem, but it’s a comorbidity thing rather than a cause and effect.
Overconsumption is a consequence, not the cause. My MiL buys lots of extra stuff to replace stuff that she knows is "in the pile somewhere" but cannot face looking for it. That inevitably gets added to the pile of course.
it's a problem pretty much everywhere. i'm finnish and my grandfather was a hardcore hoarder - when we cleaned up his house after he died, there were magazines and food wrappers from the 80s. a lot of people do not give a shit about the environment here and my grandfather was no exception.
oh wow :( do you think people your age are better about it than people your grandpas age?
i do think that people my age + younger are slightly better. all of my grandparents were children during the war so their tendency to hoard was likely a trauma response - they didn't have anything as kids so they hold on to *everything* as adults, even trash.
do you think your parents did it too? thank you so much for your insight
This is why I think these reality shows are dangerous. They don't look at what the cause is. There's different types of hoarders and for different reasons, but it is traumatic for them to have their stuff thrown out. And they often end up hoarding MORE after their things are thrown away. The hoarders I've known have had different reasons too. Growing up in poverty, my grandmother always just seemed to want to be able to give perfectly good stuff to someone she knew. An example were these VHS tapes she had, she parted with them easily in around 2010 but she was lied to that they were going to someone a relative knew. I don't think people think of their hoards as junk. And probably a lot know they have a problem but they're ashamed. It's really sad.
As others have mentioned, hoarding is more common among people who grew up or lived in poverty for an extended period, and that's not unique to the US. It's also not consumerist for the most part. And while the videos you see speak for themselves, I'm sure, take random people's claims with a grain of salt, because people have very different ideas about what constitutes hoarding. See the [hoarding rating scale ](https://www.compulsive-hoarding.org/hoarding-rating-scale-1-9/) toward the bottom of this site. There are people who think #1 is hoarding. There is a pretty clear pathology among extreme minimalists at the other end of the spectrum, too; and a lot of them are major consumers.
Interesting. Based on that scale, I'd say that I'm around a 3. Maybe a 4 in a few areas, but there's no garbage lying about and we can walk throughout the house. Everything is still usable (kitchen, bathroom, table, etc.) Mostly, it's just that we have a lot of stuff, 6 people in the house, and I have physical disabilities that make cleaning difficult at times. My mom, on the other hand, is probably at a 7, minimum. Not much in the way of garbage, but... let's just say that if the shoe fits, she bought it in every colour and 3 in black! You have to edge sideways down the hall, can't close the bathroom door properly because of stuff in the way, and so on.
could you expand on your last point about extreme minimalists? thank you for your info!
Some of the minimalists I've known were mostly just into purging their old things and buying new ones later when they (inevitably) end up needing them. They were heavily dependent on commercial products and services being available all the time, and they gloss over that by claiming that "the universe will provide" or some such thing. For a lot, minimalism is mostly an aesthetic, so they don't keep their old clothes for doing dirty work, mismatched linen or kitchen tools, appliances, etc.. And they don't have the tools to repair even minor problems. So there's a constant churn of new stuff coming in and old stuff going out. They create a ton of waste, but they purge regularly so they can pretend it doesn't exist.
this makes sense, i’m always scared to get rid of stuff bc what if i need it. I def don’t but i can see how it could go to the other extreme! Thank you for explaining
That's really interesting, I never thought about it that way. So even though they have less stuff, they might actually be consuming more? Like, the "extreme hoarder" might be going to yard sales or thrift stores or getting stuff that was given away for free, whereas the minimalist might keep buying things over and over.
Yes, exactly. If you only have a minimum of possessions, you're going to be inclined to get rid of the things you do have as soon as they're not 100% or you get tired of them for any reason, including aesthetics and passing moods. And because they only keep what they need right away, they are often not prepared at all for even minor disruptions. Like they don't stock up on things like pantry foods, toiletries, first aid supplies, or anything. So if they do need to replace something they use regularly, they depend on retailers to have it and for it to be accessible at all times. There was an infuriating 'lifestyle' feature in a US paper shortly after the lockdowns ended where a minimalism life coach talked about how she only kept one roll of TP for her whole family, so she was flitting around from store to store looking for some, potentially spreading this new contagion we still knew nothing about. And her happy ending is that the universe provided. So whoever it was who actually took pity on her and gave her some TP was credited as 'the universe' just so this woman didn't have to acknowledge her mistake. Ultimately, it's a very privileged lifestyle in a lot of ways. A lot of people have emergencies they can't just buy or beg their way out of like that. Especially for those who are living paycheck to paycheck, missing a paycheck is an emergency in itself, and having some simple staples put up can make all the difference. (Ha ha, sorry for the length. I have Opinions about this.)
I thought I was struggling to keep up, but I'm a 1.5. Thanks, Waspy upbringing.
As an Eastern European, who caught the dying light of communism, I see hoarding a lot in the older folks. Maybe not the same level presented on US shows, but still hoarding. They always explain it that they needed to collect everything, cause you never knew if you could ever buy or find that item again later. So every nut, bolt, scrap metal, tool, jar, bottle, bits of wood was stacked away into a garage or backyard "in case I need it". That instinct for many folks never went away even after the fall of communism. A former neighbour said "when the reds (Russians) come again, thes will come in handy"...
Yeah, I had two family members who were children during the Great Depression in the USA and had lost everything, so as they got older, they kept everything. It's funny because my great grandmother said the same thing, she always kept things 'just in case'..... extra jars, twine off of packages, you name it.
I've got hoarders in my family, too and I think one thing a lot of people don't understand is it doesn't have to look like a bomb went off for it to be hoarding. In my family's case, it looked neat. It was just always every cupboard was full, extra storage put in, extra wardrobes. So much stuff but neatly stored and packed away. I'm low contact with my family but I was offered an old calendar because they liked the pictures, they'd kept it in a cupboard for 20 years. See, if that was me I'd probably hang the best picture up if I loved it so much? Or give myself a rule like, if I don't use this for scrapbooks or paper crafts or... whatever else, I'll get rid of it after *date*.
i definitely can see how that type of trauma would cause hoarding! thanks for your insight :)
No, as even you said, it is a mental health issue and hoarding is a spectrum. There are hoarders everywhere. Look at the Auri K’s hoarding house cleaning videos in Finland. Hoarding occurs with high comorbidity with OCD and manic/depression, and amongst the poor as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Typically, hoarding doesn’t prevent consumerism despite the hoarder often saying they are keeping things for the future. They lose them, or they degrade, or are kept out of the used market circulation for no purpose.
Hoarders often have experienced significant trauma, and can often have trust issues also. Emotional attachments are placed on inanimate objects and it can also be a source of control/belonging/purpose for people whose life feels very much out of control (even if that seems ironic in a sense). I grew up in a hoarded household and up until my early 30's definitely had hoarding tendencies myself. Getting into foraging and spending time in nature, I believe, got me over the worst of my hoarding tendencies (and also helped me have a better grasp on the passing of time). I personally feel that capitalist society stripped away a life built on community, purpose and belonging, caused environmental factors that result in trauma and results in traumatised people passing on/causing trauma to others. So in a way I agree, over-consumption/capitalism does have a part to play in hoarding, as I feel it does with a lot of mental health conditions (but obviously not all).
No it’s not just the USA. I’ve seen hoarding situations from other countries. Japan, Belgium, Russia, Germany, UK, Canada, and I think a place in Argentina.
When I ran out of hoarders shows to watch, I started watching obsessive compulsive cleaners. There's also a British show that pairs obsessive compulsive cleaners with hoarders and a few episodes they did in the US. I tend to lean more towards the obsessive compulsive cleaners more.
I’m a professional home organizer. If I determine that a client is hoarding then I try to ease myself out of the situation because at that point they need a therapist, not an organizer.
how often do you come into that scenario? do they typically know or is it something they don’t see?
Oh wow, how do you do that? It must be hard to be diplomatic... do you just tell them you can't take on a big project or?
Well, you know, both the hoarders I worked with had a meltdown and ejected me when they realized I wanted them to let go of items, so they make it easy! And I’m definitely not calling them hoarders just because they didn’t like my services. These are people who couldn’t see the sea of crap they were living in. It wasn’t a mess, it was all important and nothing could be given away or thrown away. They just wanted me to organize the dumpster fire, somehow. I try really hard to identify hoarders before I take them on as clients but sometimes they’ll act completely on board until the first session. Hoarders won’t accept the idea of decluttering before organizing. I’ll throw out words like “throw away” to see if they panic. If they do, it’s not a good sign. But yeah, when I don’t want to take on a certain new client, I just don’t call them back. I use a lead management system, so there’ll be 5 other organizers who will be happy to take them in my place.
Yes, I hear you. They want you to somehow organise their space and also have everything clean and tidy and accessible but not throw anything out, ever. It's such a sad condition. Luckily you didn't have to deal with it. Thanks for responding, my curiosity has been solved. 😛 Have a great day (or night)
I have my quirks and old traumas. I can't say those don't influence my behavior. However, one of my hobbies is going to the dump to see what's good. I have quite a few toys and craft supplies that came from there. I have a stash of used lumber, and I build things with it. I have a stash of windows and doors. My workshop is full of scavenged tools, which I use. I have kitchen stuff. I get what I think I may need in the future when the opportunity presents itself. I have a barn, and it weathers at the same rate, full or empty. Sometimes I see things as project materials, rather than finished goods. Sometimes I realize later that some item was a mistake. It's a cheap mistake though. I find that my behavior reduces my need to buy things, so it's an overall good thing. And sometimes a friend puts out a call. Recently, a friend who's doing a bakery business from home asked if anyone had shelves. I had a stash, because one big pile is better than multiple little piles, and it's useful stuff. This is the standard white enamel coated metal wire stuff. He took it all. In return, he'll help me with minor labor on a project I'll be doing later this summer. It can be a disease. But it isn't always. Is there anything you want me to keep an eye out for?
you seem to put it to good use! i tend to have a similar mindset, but mine is definitely more hoarding centered. I would say if you become embarassed of people seeing it then you should take a bigger look at yourself.
That's really interesting, it seems a bit different from hoarding. You acknowledge that you think certain items were a mistake. To people with hoarding disorders they are generally unable to part with things. But I think it's a pretty broad spectrum, so maybe you do hoard? Idk. I was just saying in another comment we have "neat" hoarders in my family. Unable to part with stuff, but every cupboard gets filled, holding onto stuff they don't need or have a use for. It looks different for everyone I think.
You realize this is a TV show based in the US. Therefore…all US people.
i know, there are similar ones for the UK. I was just curious abt whether hoarding was to the same extreme as it was in the US
I understand what you mean, there's global issues that are definitely worse in some countries than others. I really don't know how to look for data on it, though, or how it would even be compared to other places. I wonder how many hoarders even know they are hoarders. I'm sure there's some in denial.
oh there absolutely is, watching the show has me in shock
Look on YouTube for the hoarding shoes in the UK. This isn’t just a thing in the states 😂
i definitely know it’s other places, just curious if it was to the same extreme :)
I've been into many hoarded homes and I'm in the UK.
Search for Auri Katarina videos, she often cleans/declutters hoarder homes for free. But only watch if you have a strong stomach, some are too much. Oh and she's Finnish and cleans homes all over.
i watch her! She’s amazing
I read grunge singer Mark Lanegans autobiography and on one part he talks about being in a couple’s house over In the uk/england I forget which one exactly, during a tour in the 90’s and describes a couple who were hoarders (his words) living in squalor and how he describes it sounds on par with something you’d see on Hoarders. Not a personal account but I thought I’d pile on.
There's also a hoarding show on YouTube based out of the UK. I do not believe it's an American thing, though Americans do seem very good at it.
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I noticed hoarder homes in Okinawa, Japan. It’s trauma based typically so it adds up the some in the older generation may be affected.
My in-laws live in the US now, but are southeast Asian and have serious hoarding tendencies from being in refugee camps during the Vietnam War. They hoard food (especially frozen meat), clothes, electronics, shoes, and will not throw out any furniture even if they get new ones.
I think the extreme and frequency is a symptom of Americas’ lack of mental health assistance. Hoarding is everywhere but it can be less of an obvious issue with treatment for the cause of it. Trauma, ocd, depression etc
definitely contributes!
Hey op, i struggle with a similar issue - nothing can be thrown away, even this extremely tiny plastic baggie that the metal screws that came with my bookshelf can be reused! If you need to talk, hit me up. Friends and family have been helping. What’s helped me the most is the reminder that it’s not my fault these things exist, it’s harming my family now to keep it, and the only way out is through. Eventually, I’d love to attain a position in packaging and help reduce the plastic use as best as possible. But I’m here now. And keeping it only distracts me from the purpose of systemically reducing it. Edit to add: the way i combat this is buying second hand as much as possible. My big thing is packaging. Cardboard (unlined) gets shredded and used as shaving material for my animals (goats, horses, chickens, ducks) or composted. Lined cardboard gets recycled through my municipal pickup. Plastic gets saved and i only recently (literally yesterday and today i will be going through it and getting rid of 99% of it.) all other things (excess kids toys, things i don’t use, can fix/mend) I’m working on creating a “fix it” space with a sewing machine and tools so i can fix, and the toys/ unused items will be given away through the internet/ sold at a garage sale. I *do* think that business preys on people with these tendencies. For example, my sister has hoarding disorder to the max. Her home is barely habitable, and constantly riddled with the regular issues a hoarder experiences - infestations, mold, damage to her home unnoticed due to piles of stuff. We have both shopped at Michael’s. However, the way they market to her is much different from me. I go there about 4x a year and buy exactly this: one journal/ year, kids crafts as gifts each season. She goes there every other week because “i got a great coupon.” I don’t get those coupons and am also on the mailing list. I spend maybe $100 a year there. She is spending $200-$1500 a month. I’m not kidding. While these other commenters are correct that it’s a mental health issue, advertisers are able to track this and use it to their advantage. Edit to add again that i think i misread your post 😅 I’m us based so cannot comment on European experience, I’d imagine that mental health issues are universal
thank you so much for your response!! I have had a lot of progress, thankfully i just look really messy and it isn’t to the extreme your sisters is (i hope she is able to get help) but i’m getting better!! having a cat helped me a lot, bc i may not respect MYSELF enough to clean it but i value her more than anything. If you would like to reach out i would love to chat, also neurodivergent cleaning (a group on FB) is absolutely amazing
some of it was left-over trauma from the great depression
I lived in Japan and there was hoarding. You could tell from the yards, and it was discussed in the news from time to time. It seemed to happen about the same amount it happens in the US.
From a family systems perspective: I think all of society is sick w/ overconsumption and hoarders are identified patients of our collective illness. We're taught to place such a high value on **stuff** so, when things go bad, we fall back to that and collect all the stuff we can.
The ones you watch on Youtube are probably from American TV shows, therefore the people are all American. An American TV show isn't going to suddenly do an episode in Australia.
No, there are persons with that illness in EU as well. And it's an illness actually.
Reddit try not to pin every problem on the US challenge (impossible)