Deleted
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2010 11:43:57 GMT -5
I'm not a hoarder but I definitely tend towards squalor. I wouldn't call myself disorganized either. Everything in my house has a place (except in times of stress, during which the clutter does build up). I don't have any trouble sorting things into categories and placing them so as to maximize efficiency.
I do feel some emotional attachment for certain things. But I am generally able to let things go and keep just a few sentimental keepsakes.
When I'm stressed out, I do tend to become paralyzed and unable to make decisions. This is how my clutter builds up-- not because I am attached to things but because I simply don't want to deal with them.
But mostly, I just don't like to clean. And as others have said, if you don't clean, the filth will build up and you will have a squalor issue.
When I'm doing well, I have a schedule and force myself to clean on a schedule. During these times my house looks very clean and neat. Even if I don't clean up my messes immediately, they are cleaned on a schedule and that keeps my messiness under control.
But when I'm going through difficult times, I don't clean much at all, and the house gets very dirty even though there may be very little clutter.
At this moment, I would say I'm under high stress. I have a spare room full of clutter but not particularly dirty (because I don't live in there). I also have clutter piles in every room. But I could still easily vacuum and dust and clean the bathrooms. I just tend not to. Thus the squalor.
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Regarding the authority/professional issues.
I have to agree that living on a lower income makes you more likely to be classified as someone with a problem and also more likely to suffer the consequences of it.
I own my own home and I never have to worry about inspectors. Frankly, I was shocked when I joined this site and read that living in government housing meant you had to allow inspectors in to judge your housekeeping.
I have a spare bedroom where I can stow my extra stuff, whereas when I had a small apartment I could barely walk through my living room. I have a dishwasher so I no longer have huge piles of dirty dishes in the sink and counters. I no longer have the stress of having the landlord drop by unexpectedly.
I am no better than I was before, but my home looks cleaner and I am less stressed. And the only reason is because I had the money to purchase a bigger place.
I have an acquaintance who used to live in squalor. She married a wealthy man and now she has a cleaning lady. She is no better or neater than I but she will never be accused of squalor. She can pay to have it cleaned up. The authorities will never hear of her.
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Post by missjean on Jan 3, 2010 13:34:04 GMT -5
Simply put, I'm a piler and not a filer. I will put papers on a shelf or table or floor even though my filing cabinet is half empty.
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Post by gottaproblem on Jan 6, 2010 15:48:31 GMT -5
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Post by Arid on Jan 6, 2010 21:28:22 GMT -5
Just as an aside, . . . like cleandream, we own our own home; so, I, too, thought that I/we were "safe" from inspectors.
Well, guess what?!!!!
We received a notice in November telling us that in order to re-new our homeowner's insurance, an INSPECTOR would be coming to our home to inspect and TO TAKE PHOTOS, INSIDE and outside!!!! I was NOT a "happy camper," let me tell you! I was CERTAIN that we would be denied insurance because of my excess (compared to "normal" people) of books, magazines, newspapers, etc. ("information hoarder" here).
I did a small amount of "damage control," as I like to call it, but I didn't even attempt to get rid of everything.
MUCH TO MY AMAZEMENT, the only thing that the inspector "fussed" about was some wiring in the basement and some porch repairs that need to be made. (Ironically enough, we ARE having porch repairs done; it just happens to be a different porch. Our plan was to address the other porch later rather than sooner. Obviously, we are going to have to do those repairs sooner than we had planned.)
Our insurance did get renewed, albeit at a higher rate. (They claim that we were underinsured before. Yeah; right! Whatever. . .)
So, the moral of this story is that NONE of us is safe from being inspected at one point or another. It can happen to ANYBODY. . . Be prepared!
Arid
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2010 21:35:43 GMT -5
Arid, I had forgotten all about it, but you reminded me that I did have an insurance inspection not long ago, when I switched to a new insurance company.
I guess I was lucky in that they gave me a couple of weeks' notice and told me ahead of time that he would only be photographing the outside of the house. So luckily it was a painless experience. I barely noticed it.
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Post by peppermonkey on Jan 6, 2010 21:47:45 GMT -5
I loved seeing this question when I logged in.
I have a friend who insists I am a hoarder because I live in squalor.
I am not a hoarder. She can come and have all the trash she wants!
If I get rid of the trash and I then agonize over whether or not to let go of objects, then we can revisit the question, but for now I still maintain that I don't hoard.
What I do see in myself is demand resistance, which I am working on with my therapist, plus mindlessness which would be the opposite of presence or mindfulness. I will take the wrapper off something and set it on the counter rather than dropping it in the trash cans that I have strategically placed everywhere for myself. I am not paying attention to what I am doing, and I guess the habits of a tidy person never got ingrained in me. I sit on the couch with a pile of garbage on the right next to me, and an empty trash can on the left.
Shame is in there. Haven't used my kitchen sink in years. My toilet is broken as well. But I won't let anyone in to fix them until I get rid of the mess, which brings me back to demand resistance, lather, rinse, repeat.
Then there is the fibromyalgia. But, I am seeing some results thanks to the guaifenesin protocol and as promised I am starting to have short bursts of clarity and energy.
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recovering
New Member
Joined: December 2009
Posts: 14
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Post by recovering on Jan 7, 2010 14:22:31 GMT -5
I was a hoarder and I lived in squalor. I would say that when I was hoarding, I didn't necessarily have an emotional connection to every individual item in my hoard. Certainly I did have one with a lot of it! But there was a lot that I recognised as individual pieces of trash.
However, that trash was a part of my overall overwhelming emotional attachment to "My Piles," which I believed would keep me safe from my step-dad. So I could say "that empty box is trash" without a problem, but I couldn't throw it away because if I made my piles any smaller, then I would be less safe. So when the mice died in my room, I didn't want to look for the bodies to get rid of them because I might have to throw some things away. Even though my step-dad had been out of the house and out of contact for years, I rationalized "Well, no one would want to molest me in this stench, and eventually the bodies will stop smelling," and just went on my way. That's how deeply I was attached to "my piles of stuff."
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