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END OF AN ERROR
May 16, 2003

IT'S LEGO, not Legos. Heh


There's a Hoarding marathon on TLC right now

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Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Slime posted:

When the hell are you going to use them all? Every plastic food container, when are you ever going to fill them all up with food? Just keep a couple and get rid of the rest, you don't goddamn need them.

I guess that depends on how often you get new ones. I buy ice-cream about once a year and rarely get the sort of takeaway that comes in those containers. And if at any time I have more than I need, well, they stack neatly so they don't really take up any extra cupboard space, and they do break after a while.

Redrum and Coke
Feb 25, 2006

wAstIng 10 bUcks ON an aVaTar iS StUpid
In my house we try to reuse hard plastic containers, assuming they have a lid that can be closed again. Soft plastic gets thrown out.
My city doesn't separate plastic garbage, and it feels wrong to throw away something that we can use for leftovers.

Scaly Haylie
Dec 25, 2004

Tiggum posted:

I guess that depends on how often you get new ones. I buy ice-cream about once a year and rarely get the sort of takeaway that comes in those containers. And if at any time I have more than I need, well, they stack neatly so they don't really take up any extra cupboard space, and they do break after a while.

A glimmer of sensibility from Tiggum. But yeah, he's not crazy for having tupperware.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

lancemantis posted:

My grandmother would wash and re-use ziplock bags.

Not re-using ziplock bags is insane. They're thick plastic that's specifically designed to be resealable. Literally the whole point of the ziplock bag is it's reusability. What do you do with them, throw 'em away after one use?

Redrum and Coke
Feb 25, 2006

wAstIng 10 bUcks ON an aVaTar iS StUpid

Loomer posted:

Not re-using ziplock bags is insane. They're thick plastic that's specifically designed to be resealable. Literally the whole point of the ziplock bag is it's reusability. What do you do with them, throw 'em away after one use?

I reuse them, assuming they're still fine. Eventually they leave the kitchen and end up in my tool box with assorted screws and cables.

Malcolm Excellent
May 20, 2007

Buglord

Loomer posted:

Not re-using ziplock bags is insane. They're thick plastic that's specifically designed to be resealable. Literally the whole point of the ziplock bag is it's reusability. What do you do with them, throw 'em away after one use?

I'll freeze chicken, beef and venison before its cooked. I do pitch them out after because I figured meat stuff shouldn't be reused.

E: growing up a nice old lady down the street from my aunt ended up with a basement full of cat poop and pee and dead cats and garbage. She also had a non working bathroom and fridge. They ended up doing one of those hazmat jobs to the house.

Malcolm Excellent has a new favorite as of 16:06 on Dec 5, 2015

Caffeinated Bacon
May 23, 2007
That's enough motive, I suppose, to make a man dress like Dracula and assault criminals
About 9 years ago I responded to a check the welfare call at an upscale apartment complex. Apparently there were custody issues between an estranged mother and father over their young daughter. The dad called 911 and wanted us to make sure his daughter was safe. Usually these calls are total bullshit, but not that night. We made contact with the mother and were invited inside. The two bedroom apartment was filled with straight garbage. The kitchen was impassable with pizza boxes and Styrofoam take out containers. The oven was packed with leftover food and paper plates; the sink was no longer visible beneath the pile of dishes and food. The refrigerator running but was propped open with more garbage. The floor was no longer visible anywhere, it was all garbage and clothes. Anything I kicked with my boots sent an intrusion of cockroaches scurrying in every direction. The small German ones you just know that will try and hitchhike out with you. At one point we all went back out to our cars to blouse our boots and wrap them up with duck tape. Keep in mind this was once a very nice apartment. Granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, Spa style bathroom etc.

So while there’s nothing particularly unusual about a hoarder I’ll never forget this one because the woman was a stripper. So in the middle of all the trash are dollar bills. There was cash everywhere, George Washington watching our every move. They were stuck to plates, on the floor, in mystery liquids, everywhere. Just thousands of dollars tossed around like unwanted receipts. In addition to the money there were the stripper outfits and toys. The closer you got to her bedroom the more you noticed the thongs, giant heels, sequined bikinis and dildo flotsam on her trash lagoon. The only clear spot in the apartment was about half of her bed. She kept it clear because it’s where she performed for her cam show.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

JoshVanValkenburg posted:

I'll freeze chicken, beef and venison before its cooked. I do pitch them out after because I figured meat stuff shouldn't be reused.

Nah, you can wash them like anything else that's been in contact with raw meat, like your knives, cutting boards, etc. They're actually easier to clean properly than a lot of kitchen things because they're made of a largely non-permeable plastic membrane, so contamination stays on the surface, while ceramic plates have cracks that can introduce contamination deeper, wood cutting boards are a nightmare to fully sterilize, etc. Just make sure to be thorough and get inside the lock and the corners, and use hot water with a good detergent or, if you're really worried, you could wash them in vinegar first and then another wash in hot water and detergent. If you don't mind them wearing out much faster you can also give them a quick swirl through some boiling water, but that's overkill. If you do throw them away, at least throw 'em in the recycling.

Dooky Dingo
Feb 17, 2011

Gym badge day is a VERY dangerous day!

PYF Gross Hoarder Home: "Dildo Flotsam"

If that doesn't make it, I'm pretty sure that will be the name of my parachute account.

END OF AN ERROR
May 16, 2003

IT'S LEGO, not Legos. Heh


Caffeinated Bacon posted:

About 9 years ago I responded to a check the welfare call at an upscale apartment complex. Apparently there were custody issues between an estranged mother and father over their young daughter. The dad called 911 and wanted us to make sure his daughter was safe. Usually these calls are total bullshit, but not that night. We made contact with the mother and were invited inside. The two bedroom apartment was filled with straight garbage. The kitchen was impassable with pizza boxes and Styrofoam take out containers. The oven was packed with leftover food and paper plates; the sink was no longer visible beneath the pile of dishes and food. The refrigerator running but was propped open with more garbage. The floor was no longer visible anywhere, it was all garbage and clothes. Anything I kicked with my boots sent an intrusion of cockroaches scurrying in every direction. The small German ones you just know that will try and hitchhike out with you. At one point we all went back out to our cars to blouse our boots and wrap them up with duck tape. Keep in mind this was once a very nice apartment. Granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, Spa style bathroom etc.

So while there’s nothing particularly unusual about a hoarder I’ll never forget this one because the woman was a stripper. So in the middle of all the trash are dollar bills. There was cash everywhere, George Washington watching our every move. They were stuck to plates, on the floor, in mystery liquids, everywhere. Just thousands of dollars tossed around like unwanted receipts. In addition to the money there were the stripper outfits and toys. The closer you got to her bedroom the more you noticed the thongs, giant heels, sequined bikinis and dildo flotsam on her trash lagoon. The only clear spot in the apartment was about half of her bed. She kept it clear because it’s where she performed for her cam show.

What does blouse mean

Plavski
Feb 1, 2006

I could be a revolutionary
Post more pictures

Pharnakes
Aug 14, 2009

Tiny Lowtax posted:

What does blouse mean

Wrap them up in some sort of disposable liner, from context.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



Tiny Lowtax posted:

What does blouse mean

tuck them into your boots, so that there's no gap for anything (cockroaches in this case) to get through.

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

tuck them into your boots, so that there's no gap for anything (cockroaches in this case) to get through.

Then they wrapped them with duct tape to make sure.

Aesop Poprock
Oct 21, 2008


Grimey Drawer

Loomer posted:

Not re-using ziplock bags is insane. They're thick plastic that's specifically designed to be resealable. Literally the whole point of the ziplock bag is it's reusability. What do you do with them, throw 'em away after one use?

My grandma would do this with things you definitely shouldn't be keeping the bags for. She would keep scraps of old lunch meat in them way after they were slimy and would wash off the slime and try to make sandwiches out of them

Her cooking was usually good and she's not a weirdo about reusing things otherwise so I don't know why it was just that one horrible thing

BrigadierSensible
Feb 16, 2012

I've got a pocket full of cheese🧀, and a garden full of trees🌴.

Caffeinated Bacon posted:

About 9 years ago I responded to a check the welfare call at an upscale apartment complex. Apparently there were custody issues between an estranged mother and father over their young daughter. The dad called 911 and wanted us to make sure his daughter was safe. Usually these calls are total bullshit, but not that night. We made contact with the mother and were invited inside. The two bedroom apartment was filled with straight garbage. The kitchen was impassable with pizza boxes and Styrofoam take out containers. The oven was packed with leftover food and paper plates; the sink was no longer visible beneath the pile of dishes and food. The refrigerator running but was propped open with more garbage. The floor was no longer visible anywhere, it was all garbage and clothes. Anything I kicked with my boots sent an intrusion of cockroaches scurrying in every direction. The small German ones you just know that will try and hitchhike out with you. At one point we all went back out to our cars to blouse our boots and wrap them up with duck tape. Keep in mind this was once a very nice apartment. Granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, Spa style bathroom etc.

So while there’s nothing particularly unusual about a hoarder I’ll never forget this one because the woman was a stripper. So in the middle of all the trash are dollar bills. There was cash everywhere, George Washington watching our every move. They were stuck to plates, on the floor, in mystery liquids, everywhere. Just thousands of dollars tossed around like unwanted receipts. In addition to the money there were the stripper outfits and toys. The closer you got to her bedroom the more you noticed the thongs, giant heels, sequined bikinis and dildo flotsam on her trash lagoon. The only clear spot in the apartment was about half of her bed. She kept it clear because it’s where she performed for her cam show.

How was the kid? Please tell me you took her away from that hole.

Jimmy Noskill
Nov 5, 2010

A few years ago a new friend of my wife and I started having some family issues. To cut a long story short, we offered to let her stay with us. I gave her my office and we moved all of her stuff in. We didn't bother her in there for the most part, but over time we started to notice things. Dishes kept disappearing, a strange odor came from the room, that sort of thing. The few times that we went in there we were flabbergasted by what we saw; we're not the neatest people in the world but we do have standards.






She doesn't live with us any more, thankfully.

coronatae
Oct 14, 2012

Shay. The story of one person's nastiness in the course of a few weeks. Apparently the guy who posted this also posted about the experience of seeing this lady's body in the morgue after she died but I haven't read it yet.

To summarize: :itwaspoo:

Plan Z
May 6, 2012

Plavski posted:

Post more pictures

These usually just end up with the same 30 pictures posted in every thread anyway.

My aunt makes a really good living off of buying and selling antique clothing. She has a good eye for when to buy something, and when to sell it. Unfortunately, she comes from the side of the family that's been particularly well-off, and married a man who made good money, so she eventually built up a big collection. It never got organized, and started taking up room in my grandparents' house. Not a ton, but it wasn't easy to get around parts of the house that were normally accessible.

It got exponentially worse when my uncle died of malpractice (prescribed an overdose of hepatitis medication). It was obvious that she was suffering from massive depression afterwards (and who wouldn't). Coupling the rush of getting a ton of clothing from an auction being one of the few good feelings in her life, mixed with the extra money she earned from life insurance and malpractice suits, and she quickly completely filled her own house and basically filled my grandparents' to the point where none of us really had a place to sit or sleep when we visited the house. If my sister or I mentioned that our Aunt may be depressed or hurting or that the "collection" was too large, my mother would literally slap us or tell us to shut up, my mother being the type to still equate "severe depression from losing a loved one" with "crazy asylum case." The only way her two friends would try to cheer her up was to take her to more auctions, which fed this. One of them later cried and apologized after they finally saw what happened and that my father and I had to clean it up.

My father used to confide when I was really little that he wasn't looking forward to cleaning up after his parents, as grandpa was the type to buy a whole new tool set instead of trying to dig out an old one, or buy twenty lovely gimmicky flashlights instead of one or two real maglites. He stopped once he saw the clothes mess, and would basically hold his head in his hands looking at all of the stuff that kept us from just being able to throw down a sleeping bag on the dog piss-stained carpets (she owns dogs and doesn't really train them). She did take really good care of my grandparents and my other aunt, who has Down's and is possibly autistic (they never really had her tested for it, but she displays really obvious signs), so I won't just rag on her. I can only guess how difficult it was to do full-time (she moved in shortly after my uncle died, and we lived three hours away), so this won't be me just ragging on her.

Eventually, both my grandparents passed, and everybody basically insisted my aunt move out of my grandparents' house, and put my mentally retarded aunt in a group home (we should have done this 10+ years earlier, it's been so good for her). My mom started hinting that my dad and I should get ready to do it, and my father ended up losing around 50 pounds over the course of his parents' deterioriating health, and just stressing over months of how much of a pain it would be, mostly due to my aunt's complete inability to find fault in anything she does.

It all started almost right away. Although it was literally impossible to get to any of my grandfather's belongings behind piles of Victorian dresses, and un-opened "AS SEEN ON TV" boxes, she claimed she couldn't get anything out unless we got out grandpa's things that were literally underneath all of these piles of clothes. This was as we were walking over piles of what I could only assume were dresses and gowns that were in every inch and doorway of the house. She was being mean and abusive every time we visited that winter, blaming the entire mess on me, my father, my mother- anyone but herself.

The first time I'd ever had an argument with her was when I noticed we had two days left, and the computer room was just a desk underneath a pile of crap that had been building up since 1996. She was literally yelling at me as I threw out piles of blank floppy discs, WIndows 3.1 Shareware game CDs, and thousands of blank CDs that nothing had been burned onto (wasteful, I know, but we had one week until that house was going on market, and I knew I'd have to throw this poo poo out when she would eventually pass away). After two full weeks in the winter and destroying my toe with a U-Haul trailer, we got everything out that wasn't furniture. She didn't get rid of it for weeks afterward, eventually losing a buyer because an inspector couldn't get past the furniture or the piles of stuff she had since brought into the house after my father and I left.

The bright side is that she seems to be getting it together now that the burden of that house is off her shoulders. I've gotten along with her much better in the times that I've visited her new home than the past 27 years I've known her. It's definitely changed my outlook. I'm still dreading her original house (which she still owns), as that one is apparently filled to the brim and is very large, but I'm no longer holding onto things "because they may be valuable." I've donated 90% of my books and bought a Kindle, gave old kid stuff to my little cousin and churches/daycares, and downsized everything I own to be able to fit into a small U-Haul trailer, at least until I can afford a house.

I used to have pics, but they were all on a phone that went kaput. I'll try to find them somewhere. I have a picture of my father standing in front of a Pod filled with garbage bags of vintage clothing that really seems to sum up the whole ordeal.

Plan Z has a new favorite as of 09:13 on Dec 9, 2015

Caffeinated Bacon
May 23, 2007
That's enough motive, I suppose, to make a man dress like Dracula and assault criminals

BrigadierSensible posted:

How was the kid? Please tell me you took her away from that hole.

This all happened around 2 or 3 in the morning so I had to make an emergency request for CPS to come out. When they finally showed up hours later they were just as horrified as I was. They ended up taking the kid that night. Normally they do everything they can to keep kids with the family or relatives nearby. This was the only time that I've seen them take a kid because of just cleanliness issues. Aside from her mental problems this lady did not appear to have any drug or alcohol issues. No idea what happened after that night.


Edit: That Shay story is a classic. So good.

Caffeinated Bacon has a new favorite as of 19:47 on Dec 8, 2015

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

coronatae posted:

Shay. The story of one person's nastiness in the course of a few weeks. Apparently the guy who posted this also posted about the experience of seeing this lady's body in the morgue after she died but I haven't read it yet.

To summarize: :itwaspoo:

I just read through all of the Shay posts. Her body wasn't in the morgue, it was left in the treatment center for several hours before anyone picked it up, and it was super bloated. He also took photos of the body, so I'm not sure Shay was the only weird one there.

trickybiscuits
Jan 13, 2008

yospos
This is a 2-hour talk by a doctor who has studied hoarding. You can't see his slides, which is kind of dumb, but it's a good talk that explains more of what hoarding is. It's associated with having a very visual memory (true for me) and is often co-morbid with depression and anxiety (also true for me). Between this and the KonMari method cleaning videos people post online, I've been starting to get a handle on my own hoarding. My room isn't anywhere near as bad as these pictures though. It just takes a long time to clean because there's a lot of stuff.

Dooky Dingo posted:

Only one story
Years ago a couple of people shared their stories of working on rent-to-own businesses. It was amazing. Please share more.

Toys For Ass Bum
Feb 1, 2015





:nws: http://www.amazon.com/Doc-Johnson-Pussy-Pump-Purple/dp/B001MSMEXA :nws:

:catstare:

computer angel
Sep 9, 2008

Make it a double.

I'm pretty sure that's just piece of a mirror or something dude.

Toys For Ass Bum
Feb 1, 2015

Cosima posted:

I'm pretty sure that's just piece of a mirror or something dude.

dang.
I like playing "find the sex toy/lube bottle" with these pictures, and though I had a winner.

Dooky Dingo
Feb 17, 2011

Gym badge day is a VERY dangerous day!

trickybiscuits posted:

Please share more.

You asked for it, buddy.

So, one time, I get a task to run to this families house in a small town (<5k people). They are usually pretty regular payers but they've been getting more and more behind each month. However, this is a special case because this family has spent tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars over the course of about two decades at this particular rent-to-own location. Essentially, not really customers you want to lose, but they still have to pay their bill.
Now, because they were such regular payers, I had never been to their house before. It was a relatively small looking house from the outside, nestled in the center of the town. The very first thing I noticed was the numerous lawn... accessories that were all over the place. Garden gnomes and fairies, wind catchers and chimes, colored mirror balls, fountains that had long since run dry and the various jetsam and flotsam that could accumulate after years of decorating for every holiday. Whimsical, but cluttered.
The inside was an entirely different matter.
As soon as I was ushered into the house by a 6 year old boy wearing a only a diaper and my eyes adjusted to the inky darkness, I saw loads and loads of... stuff. Every imaginable thing littered every corner. Odds and ends, ranging from "As Seen On TV!" boxes with Billy Mayes' exuberant face to used fast food containers to stacks of CD's, broken and shattered toys and even the occasional taxidermied small animal, such as a raccoon.
Obviously, there was the normal musty stench that goes along with these types of houses and this wasn't my first rodeo, so I simply waited by the door until I could speak to the customer, making sure not to actually touch any walls or anything else, lest the host of various vermin and pests scrabble on to me for the promise of distant shores and less competition.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't get to speak to the quiet, well-mannered scrawny man who usually came to the store to pay his bill. Instead, I began to hear the ominous whine of a motorized scooter as it slowly wheeled it's way from the back recesses of this cave.
Perched atop this scooter was one of the largest women I have ever seen in my life. Her skin was loose and yellow, mottled by the dark spots of age and, presumably, cancer. Fingers stained a deep yellow from untold ages of chain smoking the cheapest cigarettes money could acquire.
Resting upon the woman's ample breasts, thankfully contained within a "Tweety Bird" t-shirt that I could only describe as "sticky looking", were three McDonald's "Filet-O-Fish" sandwiches. This seemed odd to me because the woman had two more sandwiches already in her hands and was alternating bites from both sandwiches as she wheeled towards me with as much vitriol and anger as a rascal scooter can muster.
I couldn't tell you, exactly, what the woman said to me. What I can tell you is that I was promptly pelted with half-chewed chunks of cheese covered fish sandwich pieces while this enormous woman screamed at me.
The moment she turned an unhealthy shade of reddish-purple, I dialed the number for the main store, asked for the manager and hesitantly handed the phone to the woman. She then began trying to spew the chunks of sandwich into the store through my cell-phone.
What was truly amazing was that she never stopped taking bites or chewing during the whole thing. When she finished one sandwich, she simply unwrapped the next, tossed the wrapper over her shoulder and continued gorging.
While this was happening, the 6 year old chased another child of indeterminate gender, fully clothed thankfully, through the area around the piles of detritus.
In the middle of the chase, the boy came to a sudden halt, screwed up his face and began grunting for about 30 seconds and then took off running again.
After about 10 minutes of yelling, chewing and promising to come in to the store, I was handed back my phone and told to get out of the house, which I promptly complied with.
I called CPS as soon as I got back to the store, but it turns out that CPS was the exact reason why they had been late on their payment in the first place.
CPS had visited a few days before and told them to clean up or they would take the kids and so they had forgotten to make their payment, even though they had the money.
What I witnessed was AFTER they had been cleaning for a few days.
Man, I hated that job.

Schneider Inside Her
Aug 6, 2009

Please bitches. If nothing else I am a gentleman
My mother has hoarder tendencies but has good taste, so she just has a bunch of knick-knacks and suchlike all through the house. My uncle didn't have a bunch of money and would grab free stuff and "bargains" so his house was just full of brick piles, trash plastic, a bunch of old handbags, boxes and boxes of magazines, etc etc etc. When he suddenly died the whole family banded together and helped clean out his house. It took like 2 months to finally complete. Filled up so many skip bins full of garbage before it was complete. I found this purple riding crop and my cousin saw and said "Wow, I found some of them. Dad really liked horses, didn't he?" He sure did, little buddy. He sure did.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


redweird posted:

My mother has hoarder tendencies but has good taste, so she just has a bunch of knick-knacks and suchlike all through the house.

Sounds like the opposite of that is true.

Schneider Inside Her
Aug 6, 2009

Please bitches. If nothing else I am a gentleman
She doesn't have hoarder tendencies and has bad taste? I expected better logic from someone who is almost certainly on the autism spectrum.

trickybiscuits
Jan 13, 2008

yospos

Dooky Dingo posted:

You asked for it, buddy.

So horrible, so satisfying. Thank you.

Jimmy Noskill posted:

A few years ago a new friend of my wife and I started having some family issues. To cut a long story short, we offered to let her stay with us. I gave her my office and we moved all of her stuff in. We didn't bother her in there for the most part, but over time we started to notice things. Dishes kept disappearing, a strange odor came from the room, that sort of thing. The few times that we went in there we were flabbergasted by what we saw; we're not the neatest people in the world but we do have standards.






She doesn't live with us any more, thankfully.
Re-reading this thread and I got depressed because my space looks so much worse than this. Man, all the sorting and decluttering I did after reading that Marie Kondo book, and it's still a garbage dump.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


redweird posted:

She doesn't have hoarder tendencies and has bad taste?

Exactly. Collecting and displaying knick-knacks doesn't make you a hoarder, it's just lacking in aesthetic quality or capacity. If she's got so many that they're piled on top of each other or just stored in boxes never to be taken out or looked at then that's hoarding.

Schneider Inside Her
Aug 6, 2009

Please bitches. If nothing else I am a gentleman
I believe we were just having a discussion on the difference between collecting and hoarding? I presented my own family as an example for each.

Crow Jane
Oct 18, 2012

nothin' wrong with a lady drinkin' alone in her room
My boyfriend and I live in the top unit of a duplex, and a few years back, we had a downstairs neighbor who was a hoarder. We both worked long, irregular hours at the time, so for the first few months, we rarely saw her, but she always seemed nice enough. When she was moving in, we noticed she seemed to have a ton of stuff for just one person, but whatever. She was quiet, which was all we really asked for.

A few months after she moved in, I came home to my boyfriend drinking a beer with a look of abject horror on his face. She'd caught him in the foyer that afternoon, and asked him if he had a minute to help her put a table together. Being a generally helpful person, he agreed. She opened her door to let him in, and his jaw dropped. Just piles of crap everywhere, taller than he is (he's 6'2", so that's fairly impressive. She wasn't a particularly tall woman, I'm not even sure how she reached), with narrow pathways carved through. It's a two bedroom unit, and both bedrooms were apparently so full that she just slept on the couch. Some things were in boxes, most weren't. She had an ancient terrier and two cats (one of which had whatever the cat equivalent of a cleft palate is), and he said the smell was so bad he had to breathe through his mouth the whole time. After putting the table together, he practically ran upstairs and commenced drinking.

I sort of thought he was exaggerating until a few months later, when we were awoken early on a Saturday morning by the police banging on the building door. Apparently they'd been called in for a welfare check, because she hadn't been returning her sister's calls. She didn't seem to be home, and by that point we knew she maybe wasn't quite right in the head, so we let them in. She never locked her door, so they were able to get into her place no problem, but when they saw the dog they asked if I could come in and keep him calm. I stepped inside (to my eternal regret, wearing just a robe), and immediately started gagging. Not only had my bf not been exaggerating, it had gotten worse in the time since he'd put the table together. Just piles of sometimes literal poo poo everywhere. There was a breakfast bar, which had four half-empty, rotten gallons of milk just sitting on it. The windows were completely blocked by furniture and loose crap, so it was practically pitch black inside. The floor felt sticky. The whole place just felt sick and wrong. I pet the poor dog (he was a very sweet old fella, I always felt just awful for him) while they looked for her. She wasn't in, and the cops practically ran outside to get a breath of fresh air, visibly shaken. I have to believe Baltimore city cops have seen a lot of bad poo poo in their time, but one of them said it was the worst he'd ever seen.

After that, we let the landlord know what had happened, and he agreed to keep an eye on the situation. In the meantime, my boyfriend decided to help her if he could. She was apparently terrified of rats, and used that as an excuse for not taking the trash out, so he offered to do that for her once or twice. She eventually just started leaving full trash bags in the foyer for him to take out for her; no asking, no thank you. He did it anyway, but it didn't stop the smell from her apartment from getting so bad I had to hold my breath while walking up the stairs. All the while, every time I saw her coming home, she was carrying bags of more stuff.

After a while, she lost her job and stopped paying her rent and bills. Her power got shut off, and I offered to charge her phone for her a few times. After that, similar to the garbage bags, she would just leave it on the stairs every day for me to take up and charge, with never a please or thank you. I'm not as nice a person as my boyfriend is, so after a while I just started stepping over it.

The final straw happened because of the dog. We were having a particularly hot summer, and she would apparently just leave him leashed to a bench on the front porch all day while we were at work. I came home to a note taped to our front door from one of our neighbors, a dog walker, who was just appalled by it and offered to take the dog to the vet on her own dime, as he was pretty obviously not well. She agreed, and several of us on the block contributed to the cost. A week later, he was back on the porch. At that point, the landlord had about all he could take and evicted her.

When she finally moved out, she left the bulk of her hoard behind. My landlord's handyman cleared it out into the backyard for a towing company to take care of, and the pile practically reached to our balcony. I sadly don't have the pictures anymore, but dear lord. Among unidentifiable piles of crap, she had:

- three exercise bikes. She did not look like the sort of woman who exercised regularly.
- no less than five dot matrix printers. In 2012.
- the backseat of a car
- a bucket full of bottles of 80's nail polish, judging by the fonts and the way they'd separated
- a massive collection of cheap carnival stuffed animals, the kind that aren't remotely cuddly and look dirty even when brand new. After who knows how long in her hoarder's den, they looked terrifying
- a surprisingly solid vinyl collection. I scored a few Ramones albums and a 12 inch of my favorite XTC song, among a few other things
- a swarm of fleas, which, when deprived of her animals, migrated up to our apartment and made our cats miserable

Looking back, I don't know why we just sort of lived with it the way we did. We're seriously lucky that the house didn't catch on fire, especially when her power was shut off. The smell in the foyer was so awful we stopped having friends over. It took the landlord months to get the place in a rentable condition again, and even then, the new tenants had issues with fleas almost immediately. We still live here, and occasionally we'll get mail for her, usually from collection agencies. I have no idea what happened to her after she got kicked out, but she was a nice lady, and I seriously hope she got help somehow. But I am very, very glad I don't have to deal with the stench anymore.

Hate Fibration
Apr 8, 2013

FLÄSHYN!

Crow Jane posted:

The final straw happened because of the dog. We were having a particularly hot summer, and she would apparently just leave him leashed to a bench on the front porch all day while we were at work. I came home to a note taped to our front door from one of our neighbors, a dog walker, who was just appalled by it and offered to take the dog to the vet on her own dime, as he was pretty obviously not well. She agreed, and several of us on the block contributed to the cost. A week later, he was back on the porch. At that point, the landlord had about all he could take and evicted her.


But what happened to the dog? :(

Crow Jane
Oct 18, 2012

nothin' wrong with a lady drinkin' alone in her room

Hate Fibration posted:

But what happened to the dog? :(

I never knew, and I still feel bad about it :smith:. When we realized how bad things were, we briefly talked about offering to adopt him, but he was sixteen years old (on top of not being in great health) and she'd had him since he was a puppy. A huge change like that really wouldn't have been good for either of them at that point, and I think her pets were just about all she had in the world, besides piles and piles of crap. It was all around just such a weird, depressing situation.

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


Aesop Poprock posted:

Was there any actual proof that this was true and not just some lovely attempt to save face after pretty much everyone ripped him apart for how lovely he was? People that slovenly don't usually just change for good in the course of a few months, if ever
I finally dug up the old thread, but he posted the story with a few pictures http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3499987

I. M. Gei
Jun 26, 2005

CHIEFS

BITCH



This thread is hitting a little close to home.

More hoarder stories, please!

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Slime posted:

When the hell are you going to use them all? Every plastic food container, when are you ever going to fill them all up with food? Just keep a couple and get rid of the rest, you don't goddamn need them.

I save plastic yogurt cups to use when painting with water colours and stuff. I think the lesson here is that if saving plastic food containers seems like hoarding to you, you buy way too many things that come in plastic containers and are literally killing the human race and a lot of animals as well :tipshat:

I suck at painting so maybe I should stop saving the cups though.

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Panfilo
Aug 27, 2011

EXISTENCE IS PAIN😬
Vaguely related, but when I was in middle school my mom got me a nice desk for my room. I really liked the desk, and had it through high school, college, and every place I lived on my own up to being married.

A year into our marriage, my wife was getting pretty tired of the desk. It was quite worn out at that point, drawers were just stuffed full of random knickknacks I never used, and too small to fit a monitor and keyboard easily. Wife suggested I get rid of it and replace it with a much bigger, nicer desk, and sort through all the junk in the drawers and organize stuff in a new desk. As silly as this sounds, it caused me to get really upset; the desk was the only piece of furniture that came from my previous home, the only thing that followed me through six moves in five years, and I couldn't bear to part with it.

I finally did relent, and I'm much happier with a bigger, more organized desk but the point is I can see how these hoarders can develop unhealthy attachments to objects. Stuff might be associated with a late spouse or parent, a familiar sight or smell that might be comforting to the hoarder. A common problem with hoarders seems to be a fear of change.

Conversely, I've heard ex military/ex convicts tend to be very fastidious with their personal surroundings, because of their living arrangements.

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