Panfilo posted:

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

Panfilo posted:

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.

Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:

I'm not a hoarder, but I do have a hoarding tendency, and yeah sentimental attachment to stuff is a pretty big factor in it. Which I think is okay, provided you have a place for everything to go.

SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:

Unsure if Hoarder I-Spy was the last thread about hoarding or not, but here you go.

Jerry Cotton posted:

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

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

AlbieQuirky posted:

I paint at most twice a month, and I eat yogurt every day. Fortunately, I can recycle the yogurt containers, which are already made from recycled plastic, so even though it's not perfectly efficient and could/should be better, I don't have a house filled with plastic cups and I rejoice in that.

I cannot wait for grocery stores to stop using styrofoam packing for meat, poultry, and fish, because my city doesn't recycle that.

Inzombiac posted:

My first roommate in college would eat huge bowls of cereal for breakfast/lunch before class and leave the bowl of milk on the counter next to the sink.
He would "recycle" the milk up to three days in a row. He has a child now, god help them all.

Inzombiac posted:

My morning breakfast is yogurt in granola but the kind I buy does not come in large containers since it's a small local company.
Maybe I should write them about it.

My first roommate in college would eat huge bowls of cereal for breakfast/lunch before class and leave the bowl of milk on the counter next to the sink.
He would "recycle" the milk up to three days in a row. He has a child now, god help them all.

Inzombiac posted:

My morning breakfast is yogurt in granola but the kind I buy does not come in large containers since it's a small local company.
Maybe I should write them about it.

My first roommate in college would eat huge bowls of cereal for breakfast/lunch before class and leave the bowl of milk on the counter next to the sink.
He would "recycle" the milk up to three days in a row. He has a child now, god help them all.

Rondette posted:

I went through a phase of watching those Hoarder programmes, I can't remember which particular one it was but there was one where a crazy cat lady had a room she could no longer access due to all the poo poo she also hoarded, and the cats used it as a birthing room. I guess she still chucked stuff in there because when they went to clean it out they kept finding dead kittens. As they dug deeper and deeper these poor little kittens got flatter and flatter, until they kind of resembled furry little drinks coasters. And then it was almost almost comical.

Wheat Loaf posted:

I've never seen a full episode of it, because I saw the clip where the hoarder in question kept her dead cats in her fridge (where she also kept her food) and breaks down as she describes how she does it because her pets are all she has and she can't let them go, then after that the cleaners find a decomposing kitten sealed in a ziploc bag in a closet. It was one of the most miserable things I have ever seen and left me with absolutely zero appetite to watch any more.

BrigadierSensible posted:

This is a thing I don't understand about the hoarder mindset. If the cats were "all she had" and "she can't let them go", then how/why did she neglect them so? If you care about something, least of all a living thing, you take care of it.

You don't just go "welp, its dead, chuck it in a bag and throw it in the closet. That's how much I care about it."

Prokhor Zakharov posted:

Get the gently caress outta here, I lived in an overcrowded punk house for nearly 3 years and that poo poo makes me gag

Inzombiac posted:

I have as well and the worst problem there was late night parties and stale beer cans everywhere.
This dude also cheated on his fiance and severed our friendship because I refused to keep his secret and encouraged him to come clean. Now he has a baby with a girl I used to date and he made fun of me because she was "too dumb to function".
gently caress 'em.

FearCotton posted:

And finally, papers. Tons of papers. I recommend Marie Kondo to everyone if only for her section on how to handle papers.

FearCotton posted:

4. Bottle caps or soda tops. People save these. I cannot tell you why.

Rondette posted:

I went through a phase of watching those Hoarder programmes, I can't remember which particular one it was but there was one where a crazy cat lady had a room she could no longer access due to all the poo poo she also hoarded, and the cats used it as a birthing room. I guess she still chucked stuff in there because when they went to clean it out they kept finding dead kittens. As they dug deeper and deeper these poor little kittens got flatter and flatter, until they kind of resembled furry little drinks coasters. And then it was almost almost comical.

FearCotton posted:

about hoarder houses though--ever walk past an apartment or house that has a weird tinny smell? Like metallic, oily mud? That's cockroaches. A lot of cockroaches.

canyoneer posted:

Dude in an Ask/Tell thread about prison said that every prisoner would clean their cell to make it spotless multiple times a day as part of their routine.
I guess when you have a lot of time and it's one of the few parts of your surroundings you can influence, you want it perfectly clean.

quote:

never would wash his sheets/pillowcase, so those too were yellowed and stained to hell and back.

Thin Privilege posted:

Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:

I'm not a hoarder, but I do have a hoarding tendency, and yeah sentimental attachment to stuff is a pretty big factor in it. Which I think is okay, provided you have a place for everything to go.

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

Mine is a combination of that and "oh but what if I need this someday?"

"I might end up needing this" is why I have a box full of computer cables that weighs ~55 pounds in my closet. I can't help it. Will I ever really need a 50-foot parallel printer cable? Aside from the chance of John Titor arriving from the future looking for legacy technology in order to save the world, I can't think of a single reason I should be keeping the drat thing. I don't even own a computer or a printer that has a parallel port.

But hey, I might need it someday

Jerry Cotton posted:

Having a box of cables is not half as worrying as having weighed it.