[lmm]

> My house was so difficult to walk through with the years of stuff piled up. Much easier now that it's all been burned to the ground!

For anyone who's dealt with a hoarder house that's not the reducto ad absurdum you think it is, just the tragic reality.

[throwaway3b03]

I'm that hoarder, and granted, not in terminal stage, but enough to severely impact my quality of life. And I disagree, I think it would take me two days to clear out the house, but mostly lack the energy and motivation to do it. So no, burning down the house would be way way worse.

[lotrjohn]

User name does not check out. :-)

[ansho]

> I think it would take me two days to clear out the house

my experience helping clear out a hoarding family member's house tells me this is highly unlikely.

[hjadal]

If you don't care about the possessions you could remove it quickly. The problem is that when you try to clean it, they want to evaluate every single item for if it should stay or not. Throwing it all in garbage bags and then in the bin takes much shorter amount of time.

[technothrasher]

I just recently helped a buddy clean out his dead relatives hoarder house. The only real decisions were "consignment, charity, or dump?" It took us weeks. I'm sure if we threw a ton of money, people, and vehicles at it we could have done it quickly, but that's not your typical scenario.

[nostrademons]

The problem is having to make an item-by-item decision for thousands of items.

If the decision is just "dump", the problem become easy: you strip the house bare and throw it in a dumpster. There was a hoarder house near me that was cleaned out in a couple days that way - they parked a dumpster in the front yard, hired a couple guys to toss everything in the house in garbage bags and toss all the garbage bags in the dumpster, gutted it down to the studs, remodeled it, and sold it.

[rtkwe]

The trouble is it's hard to get the hoarder to agree to do that, that's part of the disorder over valuing items that are junk, and also depends on the severity of the hoard. Sometimes the intervention can happen before it's all rotted to junk and there is legitimately items worth selling or keeping in the mess and the person just needs help letting go of the volume of random crap.

[bluGill]

I would not be surprised if they would be money ahead hiring someone to sort through all the "junk" and make the decisions. There likely are a lot of things that have value in the mix that got sent to the dump.

[somenameforme]

You don't need to throw money at people. When we first moved abroad we ended up in this exact situation with quite a lot of belongings that we mostly just wanted to get rid of. We posted on Craig's List (maybe Facebook would be the goto now a days?) and literally within 30 minutes there were people there with professional moving gear clearing with us and then organizing/moving everything out that we didn't want.

They regaled us with a tale of how they just got to the city and were looking forward to being able to furnish/populate their house, but it was obvious that they were just grabbing and selling everything as a career. No harm no foul though, as we just wanted stuff cleared out and it certainly ended up 'in circulation' for folks that could use it.

[doubled112]

Isn’t this a reality TV show?

[rtkwe]

It used to be at least. Not sure if it's still airing but the process does happen outside of the confines of the TV show too.

[igleria]

When time came for my incapacitated-by-stroke father to move after we sold the family house to his new apartment, he did exactly this:

> they want to evaluate every single item

I almost gave up on him and only resumed when he was literally crying for me to come back. Did not regret coming back.

When he died 5 years later, my poor mother needed WEEKS to throw away all the useless shit he had accumulated in his apartment. Then I did regret not being harsher on him, but he was mentally and physically ill.

To anyone reading this: You are not the only one being hurt when you are a hoarder. Let people help you.

[ninalanyon]

I suspect that many hoarders know this deep down. But the effort required for them to change their own behaviour is so great that they, most likely unconsciously, dismiss the harm it does to others as a lesser evil.

[Tangurena2]

The hoarder houses I've been part of cleaning also require ripping up and discarding the carpeting. Some walls could merely be repainted, some required that special paint for trapping decades of cigarette smoke, and some required replacing the sheetrock that had been damaged by unspayed pets "marking" the walls.

[jamesnorden]

"I could have an use for that dirty diaper some day, you never know."

[parineum]

> I think it would take _me_...

Even more unlikely when said hoarder says _they_ can do it in a few days.

[coldtea]

>it would take me two days to clear out the house

"I'm not addicted, I can quit anytime I want"

[Forgeties79]

This is unproductive and quite rude.

[jdross]

It could actually be very productive. Addicts do not do well with coddling

[Forgeties79]

The comment above was clearly not intended to be helpful and it's a bit disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

[coldtea]

Comments can be productive whether they are intended to be helpful or not. Just calling out a common case/rationalization can make the other person see it as a possibility. Or make others identify it as some problem they also have.

No helpful disposition is required behind the "calling out" for that to be the case.

The (unverifiable anyway) intention doesn't add some magic dust to a comment to make it good or bad.

[nlitened]

> And I disagree, I think it would take me two days to clear out the house, but mostly lack the energy and motivation to do it

Likely you’re psychologically unable to ever do it, but it’s comforting to have this convenient lie.

There’s only one way to know.

[lazide]

Burn his house down? (/s)

[flir]

Maybe just one room?

[ninalanyon]

Doesn't work. Did that with my sister. I managed to clear out the dining room so that it wa possible to sit the family around the table to eat. Went back six months later and not only was that room uninhabitable but the amount of junk in other rooms had increased and the family was eating off trays in front of the television.

It's not the junk that is the problem, it's the way of thinking that leads someone to refuse to discard it. Or more likely there is some even deeper rooted cause that makes them think that way.

It can also be the case that the people they live with don't help either.

[AdamN]

Yeah - I read that and was like 'yeah' and didn't even realize at first that they were trying reductio ad absurdum. At some point demolition is the best step.

Don't agree in demolition of the USG though - it's actually quite effective when you think about it.

[foxyv]

Been there! It's hard, but not nearly as bad as building a new house I would say. Although the temptation exists!

[barrenko]

You can finally see the moon?

[ur-whale]

> For anyone who's dealt with a hoarder house that's not the reducto ad absurdum you think it is, just the tragic reality.

As a matter of fact, hoarder house is quite an accurate description of the US government.