Do you know someone who is a hoarder? I have to visit peoples homes to carry out repairs or...

I have had two neighbors that were. One was a little German lady who was widowed and she lived in the house behind the corner of my back fence .My friend organized a garage sale for her several years ago because her brother and sister in law were going to visit for a month and they were coming from Germany. She had to help clean out one of the two spare bedrooms so they’d have a place to sleep and put their luggage. I bought a few items, and the yard and garage was still full. The prices were very cheap and my friend said I could make an offer on anything. Sold a lot. About 10 years later the lady died and her son wanted her to organize an estate sale. She went through everything in the kitchen and garage, the bedrooms etc. The lady was what she called an organized hoarder. She would wrap items in tissue paper and carefully store them. Was thinking she would have yard sale and make a lot of money. My friend worked about 6 weeks every day she could on that. It was about a week before the sale and she found that the attic was also packed full. And a large shed in the back was piled up in boxes to the ceiling. The lady had been going to yard sales and buying up good useable items cheaply and packing them away for a decade. The estate sale brought $15,000 and the leftovers, which were many, were sold to a professional estate sale business owner for $3000. I said it was too bad that little lady didn’t spend that money on herself doing things she loved rather than hoarding stuff that way.

I have another neighbor to the side of my house that inherited his home when his parents died. The parents were very neat and kept their home and yard in pristine condition. This son moved in with his stuff and didn’t get rid of the contents of the home. The backyard and trees are overgrown and he mows often enough outside the fence & the front yard to keep from getting fined by the city. But he neglect things so bad that the tree branches grew into his roof and he had to have it reroofed about two years after having the shingles replaced after a microburst storm. They tore the top of the roof all and everything in the attic was exposed. He had things piled up to the top of the attic. I bet that was one job the roofers still talk about. The boy and I sat on our deck and it was like looking at one of those drawings where you search for certain objects. The boy would point and say “theirs an archery bow” etc. His garage is piled to the top and I’ve heard his home is too. If he’d had a garage sale each year after he moved in he’d have made some good money and cleared out a lot of space in that house.

PrestonJ · 36-40

Yep, my dad , brothers, and my sister. I just cleaned up the garage for my dad and he immediately emptied the storage unit into the garage. It’s like he couldn’t stand an empty space. It’s impossible to use anything when you can’t get to it

iamnikki · 31-35, F

My old neighbors were hoarders. They never used their front door. They would always go in through the garage. I'd watch them hobble sideways between the cars and all the junk and get in the house.

SW-User

My mother in law is a hoarder but tidy at the same time. She does gift away a lot of stuff, but she can't throw anything out nor stop herself from constantly buying new stuff, usually second-hand and cheap. All the drawers in her furniture is simply filled with clothes, random cloth and more haha.