How do I begin clearing out all the trash in my house?

July 14, 2009 1:35 AM

How do I begin clearing out all the trash in my house?

I live in a house of hoarders. Until I manage to secure a stable job and move out to live on my own, I've to make do with living with my parents who have the habit of buying and keeping all sorts of things in the house. The result - an apartment chockful of things we don't need, furniture style that clash, and very unhappy uninhabitants.

There are way too many things and I'm at a loss as to how to start going through the mess and throw things out.

posted by magazineaddict to home & garden (17 comments total)

FlyLady is a great source of information.

There's also Children of Compulsive Hoarders.
posted by amyms at 1:46 AM on July 14

True hoarding is a symptom of a greater anxiety. I'd be careful about clearing away willy nilly, even if the stuff is making them unhappy. It could create enormous distress. If they are true hoarders.
posted by taff at 1:47 AM on July 14

Hoarding is an addiction. Hence treatment with a 12 step program for hoarders might be a good idea. If at all possible I would also see if you can get an outsider in to mediate the process and then leave at the end of it.
posted by rongorongo at 2:38 AM on July 14

...sorry this one is the link to a 12 step program - but the previous link has a lot of supporting information and suggestions on strategies.
posted by rongorongo at 2:45 AM on July 14

Reforming your parents' habits may be a huge project -- impossible, even, if they don't want to change. If junk is still flowing into the apartment, throwing some of it out won't help much. Assuming you have your own room, can you focus on shoving the excess crap out of it so you can have a peaceful, uncluttered space within the chaos?
posted by jon1270 at 4:39 AM on July 14

Worry about your own space. This is like saying, "My parents who are letting me live at home for free are alcoholics who don't want to stop drinking. How do I begin emptying the liquor cabinet and finding and tossing all of the secret bottles stashed around the house as well?"
posted by availablelight at 4:43 AM on July 14 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this is something you can't do for them. However, if they are amenable to it, perhaps you could section off one small area, claim it as yours for the time being, and make it a space where you don't feel the chaos? I'm doubtful they will follow suit, but at least you'll have a peaceful retreat.

Caveat: you can't actually throw any of their things out, but perhaps find a new home for it in another room.
posted by agentwills at 4:49 AM on July 14

Seconding the Children of Compulsive Hoarders site, and sending you my empathies/sympathies. There are forums available there, and others have shared their stories and frustrations; there are links to articles, videos and information.

And warning you, in the nicest way possible, that if you start going through the mess and clearing things out, you will likely trigger anxieties that will rebound and compound the problem. You probably can't change the home, or the behaviour that maintains it. You might want to focus on safety issues as a start - making sure that in emergencies people can get out/be rescued - but that's just putting a thumb in the dam.

Perhaps a space where you're more comfortable can be created, as was suggested - but reminding yourself that it's their home that you share; that their issues need professional help and as much as you want this that you're not competent; and that you just need to bide your time might be the best tactics. I wish you all the best.
posted by peagood at 5:47 AM on July 14

Nthing that you can't do anything if your parents are not willing to see or change the problem. You keep saying "my house" but it's not really yours is it, so you don't really have a right to be chucking their things out. The most you can do is maybe make your own room your sanctuary and use this as motivation to get out of there.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding something I don't see how clashing furniture styles is an actual "problem"?
posted by like_neon at 5:47 AM on July 14

As the child of a hoarder, I understand the temptation to throw everything out. It's crap, no one needs it, etc. However, unless your parents have explicitly said, magazineaddict, we would like you to throw out all of our things, please don't. All that will do is set off a whole cascade of anxiety on their part, and then they will start rifling through every bag you take out of the house and they will go through the garbage to make sure you haven't tossed any more of their treasures. It's a sickness, and as soon as you remove their stuff, they will begin replacing it because they are unable to not hoard.

Make a safe zone for yourself and your things, enforce it ruthlessly and resolve to move out as quickly as possible. The only fix for hoarders is long term behavioral therapy combined with medication, and unless they are willing, this approach will not be possible.
posted by crankylex at 6:03 AM on July 14

It's not your house so you have no place to be chucking their things out. Sorry, but that is just one of the downfalls to not living on your own, you don't get to call the shots. And as others have said, it's not going to help anyway and you will end up where you started.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 6:28 AM on July 14

If your parents are not on board, then, as plenty of others have mentioned, that's something that has to be dealt with first. Also, all efforts will be futile if your parents continue to buy stuff that they don't need. If this is something you're going to work with your parents on, then you have to deal with it in manageable chunks. So, assuming they're on board:

Start with the kitchen. It's a space with a well defined purpose and it's easy to identify things you use often, vs things that just take up space. Chef's knife? Keep. Cherry pitter? It's gotta go. If there's a particular cupboard or drawer that bothers you the most, start there. For me it was the cupboard with the containers in it. So many different types of containers! Containers without lids! Lids without containers! Why we put up with it for so long, I have no idea, but I was really happy when it was cleaned out. When you finish with the container cupboard, or whatever the equivalent is for you, go on to the next drawer or cupboard. One thing at a time, one room at a time.

You can't just go on a rampage chucking everything, no matter how appealing that might seem. It has to be a rational process, and it's going to be tiring! For every item you go through, you have to make a decision, and decision making gets to be tiring and stressful. Take it easy. Enjoy your newly organized/cleaned out container cupboard for a while before moving on to the gadget drawer, or whatever it is that you decide to tackle next. Going gradually may make it easier on your parents as well, since they are probably more attached to the stuff and used to having it around than you are. Another thing that may make it easier on them is throwing things out only when absolutely necessary. A lot of stuff can be donated to charities (salvation army, etc), and some things can be sold as well. It's easier to part with something if you know it's going to a good cause, or of course, if you get money for it. If you can't sell or give something away then recycle, or trash it if that's the only option. Furniture can be tricky to get rid of, but I've found that a lot of times if you just put it out on the curb it'll disappear pretty quickly. I put a chair out once and it was gone in half an hour.

Good luck!
posted by benign at 7:32 AM on July 14

I spend a lot of time straightening things when I am back at home. I'll take everything out of the linen closet, sort it, fold it and put it back nicely. Or I'll clear a space on the living room floor and dustbust it. I also work on the areas that are in my control- my space in the bathroom and all my old stuff which I go through and throw out whenever I can.

In my case, a lot of what we have is actually not trash, it's just stuff that can be organized and put away more neatly.

Spend as much time outside as you can. Take a walk or go outside to read. Definitely do not throw anything away unless you've been authorized to do so.

There is hope. My mom got really serious about cleaning up just before my wedding when she realized a lot of people would be visiting the house. There's still a long way to go, but now I know that she is capable of throwing things out.
posted by betsybetsy at 9:06 AM on July 14

Maybe try humoring yourself?

Your post reminded me of something from a David Sedaris book (he writes funny stories about his life, especially what it was like to grow up in a big crazy family...)

I think the passage was in "Me Talk Pretty One Day." In one part, David describes how when he was young he had OCD and was compulsively clean, but the rest of his large family wasn't - hilarity ensued.

I agree with everyone else that you can not clean the house because the hoarders will freak out.

You indicate you will be moving eventually. I think reading funny stories about situations similar to yours might help you cope and maybe even provide a little inspiration/energy towards your goals.

I know this advice might not immediately provide the profound change you were looking for. Yet, I think I am advocating that if you change the inside (your internal perspective on the clutter) maybe the environment outside might change more rapidly (i.e. you'll move on in life) into something more agreeable.
posted by jbenben at 11:22 AM on July 14

Keep your room exquisite. It's the only room you have control over.

For the rest, offer to vacuum and dust. Do so weekly. As you do, put things away and straighten stuff, DO NOT throw anything away unless you ask, and only ask for things that are truly trash. If horizontal surfaces are tidy and everything is stacked neatly or put away, it's amazing how much stuff you can fit in a room without it feeling oppressive.
posted by kjs4 at 9:47 PM on July 14

One strategy that helped my hoarding parents dispose of things near the end of their lives, was when I found charities and thrift stores that would take some of the excess clothing, appliances, and furniture they'd accumulated. It vastly helped them to think that their cherished possessions were going to good use, and were going to be valued by someone less fortunate than they.

After I'd done several truckloads of this, it became easier to "extend" the metaphor a bit, and haul away piles of old newspapers, pounds and pounds of plastic food containers, and other detritus, much of which went directly to the county landfill, while I assured them I'd found a new charity that was eager for such things, in cities and towns farther away than they would like to drive. I hated lying to them, to the extent that I did, but getting rid of the excess paper, plastic and other materials that I had to do this to remove, made their home much safer, cleaner, and easier to navigate, both for them, and for the home health care workers who were visiting in those last years.

And I treated their possessions, in their presence, always, with care and respect. Their behavior, I recognized, was at least partly rooted in being children of Depression era families, whose personal thrift outlooks were molded in times of scarcity and want. They were frugal in retirement, and always concerned about being able to pay their own way, and keep their own dignity, and what hoarding they did was, to that degree, rooted in rational personal history, and anxiety about their future pensions and benefits, which they saw changed unilaterally, a number of times, by the Federal government, which paid them both pensions and provide them medical benefits.
posted by paulsc at 11:36 PM on July 14

Thank you, guys, for the immense amount of helpful information and advice. I was well aware of the fact that removing my parents' possessions from the house probably wasn't the best thing to do.

I've decided to start out by clearing out their items that they've used my room to store and place them in the storeroom. Gotta work on creating my own respite from the clutter in the house. As for the stuff outside my room, I've spoken to them and sorta tricked them into a spring cleaning of sorts under the pretext of having some friends over for summer. Hope this works out!!!
posted by magazineaddict at 6:13 AM on July 17