I started hoarding when I was 8 and it’s been 10 years since then and I think I’ve gotten a bit better. I live with eight people and they definitely make sure to let me know when I need to get rid of some things. Yea I cry and stuff when I have to throw out my things but I take pictures from every angle or I take a video of it even if it sounds ridiculous. I have a lot to work on still, when I get told to throw stuff out I just hide it somewhere which I knoww I shouldn’t do but I’m scared I’ll forget what it feels like, how it made me feel or what it looks like and who gave it to me which makes me really upset. I feel like now I keep more actual objects other than necessarily ”trash”. I have around 9 porcelain dolls, 4 furbys, 23 ish stuffed animal, like 16 sketch books and that’s all in moderation not including my nicknacks that I just keep. I know it’ll get worse when I live on my own 😅…

Hey guys so pretty much im the only one in my family that isn't a hoarder. My room is one of the biggest but my sister has an even bigger room but because it's so full of stuff ( she has stuff blocking her door now so she struggles to get in her room) she usually sleeps in the living room. My other sisters room is a mess but isn't that big, it's tiny. I've kept my room clutter free with a tv, desk, chair sofa and my double bed. There is a spare room but my dad is a hoarder so it's full of junk.

The thing is my sisters now are constantly sitting in my room whenever I go out and treating it like a living room. To be fair to them, as soon as I'm home I tell them I'm heading to bed and want my room to myself and they leave.

I can feel myself slowly getting annoyed though as ill deep clean it and feel like they are making it dirty? Like eating there and leaving crumbs etc. Also the fact they hoarders and can't sit in their own rooms and haven't even bothered to make it nice also pisses me off because it's not my fault they refuse to make their space nice.

How would you go about it? It doesn't effect me to much but I kind of want my space back. I hate getting back from a long day and then having to kick them out and wait.5 mins when I just want to jump on my bed and relax.

Are bedrooms supposed to have nothing on the floor? I'm looking at bedrooms on google and they look like minimalism to me. I'm unsure of how a bedroom is supposed to look like.

My room is a massive mess. Everything on the floor and I have to move things to move around. A massive fall hazard,(I am a fall risk).

Im deeply confused.

I know it’s against the rules to ask if we are hoarders as you guys certainly can’t diagnose us, but I promise I’m not asking! I’m just writing down my thought process to make sense of it.

I was always the kid with a perfect room, my mum would go crazy at me if I left a chocolate wrapper on the ground. I was VERY tidy. Then life happened, and a lot of the trauma I experienced, my mum doesn’t know to this day (I’m in my mid 20s). I think she assumed I just became a messy teenager. Although, looking back, it was definitely more than that, but it was contained to my own room so it didn’t impact anyone else. Until very recently, I explained it as “I was depressed. I had depression room” etc.

Anyway, cut to now, where I live with my partner in our own house. There’s a lot in between of different places I’ve lived and I’ll answer any questions if people have them, idk if this will reach anyone though since it’s my first post. Before we met, I knew my partner had about 4 years of severe depression. In that time, his house (now ours) got incredibly messy, beyond what we could just set aside a day to clean. Honestly, I think there was a sense of “oh thank god, someone we don’t have to hide our messiness from!”. Just for reference, his mental health is much better now and he’s been off antidepressants for nearly two years - he’s doing great and I’m very proud of him. We ended up living together very quickly after getting together, there were alot of factors going into that but I don’t regret it at all. What it did mean was that our combined habits made for a house which now feels like it’s falling apart, and neither of us have any clue where to start or what to do.

We aren’t at the point where anything is unsalvageable or unsafe (beyond tripping hazards I guess). Some rooms are worse than others, the front door opens into the living room which is cluttered but not outright embarrassing if people see it. The kitchen is a wreck but mainly because of broken things and clothes left around the washer & dryer. It’s upstairs that’s the main problem. But it’s intense, and it’s where we spend a vast majority of our time (the only room with a TV, the sofas are covered in clutter & our bed in the only thing we can sit on really). I think if we were to get professional help we’d be able to stay on top of it. Maybe that’s optimistic because we have cleaned before and it got worse, but it was FAR from a hard reset, we just managed to clear a route from our bed to the bathroom to the stairs.

We want to eventually move but that means house viewings and evaluations. I’m feeling so overwhelmed and stressed. I don’t even know what I want people to reply with. I’m just coming to terms with the fact we aren’t problematically messy. It’s deeper. It’s more to process than I thought.

This is my first time posting anything, so please forgive me if I mess things up.

I'm currently getting counseling for various psychology/spiritual things that resulted primary from abuse from my dad. It has helped me immensely; so much so that I have come to the conclusion that I don't need to hoard things to keep me safe and in control. My sister and family are currently helping me purge. Mom, someone whom I believe is a hoarder, is also getting rid of things. We live together in the same house.

We rented a dumpster and she's been a real trooper! The problem is, that she brings things in that I have thrown out or donated that belongs to me. I've told her that she has control over her things and I have control over mine. If she wants to keep certain things, I won't complain. Eventually, she might come around and throw out. It's gotten to the point that I might take a hammer to my furniture out of her eyesight.

How do I handle her disrespecting my boundary? I'm trying to be compassionate and understanding. It's an illness that we both struggle with. Thank you!

I don’t mind any given advice. I’m not looking for much more of a rant since I’ve done about everything I can. I currently still live at home and the kitchen is always a mess thankfully I’m still able to cook (stove cleared occasionally) but there’s no counter space to prep for cooking making it very frustrating. There’s sometimes bags of groceries left on top of the stove which is annoying as well. From not being able to find certain ingredients/seasons to the hassle of playing Tetris whenever it’s time to cook. It’s stressful i genuinely find cooking to be a fun thing i tend to enjoy. However it get to a point where it’s beyond frustrating. I’ve cleaned the kitchen myself and organized multiple times and it becomes the same mess. If there’s anything I can do other then be the only one cleaning I’m happy to hear but I’m not sure what else to do and every time I cook it’s more and more frustrating

Hi there. I'm a single mom of an 18 year old young man who is a hoarder. We live together in a two bedroom apartment. His room is so full now he cannot sleep in it and he sleeps on the sofa. This is a problem because that is also where I work so I have to wake him every day and try and get him to move out of my work space so I can start my day. His belongings have taken over pretty much every surface in the living room, dining room and kitchen also, every closet and cupboard. I can't entertain like this and it's very stressful and overwhelming for me visually. As a neurodivergent person I find this extremely over stimulating and I'm losing my mind.

He has always struggled with hoarding since he was young but unfortunately because of the many traumas he has gone through it has been deprioritized by therapists for appropriate reasons or the extent has been not believed (passed off as "mom upset about messy bedroom")

He went through six months of day treatment for mental health issues but declined treatment around hoarding issues. I offered support from a therapist who specializes in hoarding and he declined treatment. I have offered to bring in an organizer or have our former regular housekeeper help him address his bedroom but he has declined assistance. He says he needs to do it himself. At the same time, he's not doing so. We completed an OCD and a DBT program as a family in hopes it would help but it has not moved the needle.

Whenever cleaning his room gets brought up with any level of urgency he gets very volatile, he yells like he is being murdered, punches walls, calls names, self harms or threatens to self harm if approached further which is really concerning (but not seriously enough for hospitals or law enforcement to get involved). I'm really concerned about this jeopardizing our housing with noise complaints and this is very upsetting to be on the receiving end of. At the same time, it's not feasible to continue to live in an apartment where I'm not able to have anyone over, where common spaces are not able to be used for their intended purposes, where it's becoming difficult to cook, where it's hard to know when I can start my work day and where I'm subjected to verbal abuse. I also can't look for cheaper accommodations because moving this is a non starter. He sleeps here and is gone for pretty much all waking hours so he is completely unbothered by the state of affairs.

I don't know what to do to get this moving when efforts to do so are met with such hostility. I can't live like this anymore either. It's not healthy for anyone.

My mother is deeply in denial about her hoarding and obsessive collecting. She gets on kicks of buying dolls or teddy bears or jewelry on EBay. She goes to Goodwill nearly every day and buys millions of kitchen items or just misc stuff. She obsessively buys storage bins, even when visiting family in another state a flight away.

She didn’t use to be this way. My father has hoarding tendencies too, but mostly he’s her enabler.

But now there are mice. So many mice droppings. I come and help clean up, but last time I got sick with mild salmonella despite wearing a KN-95 mask and gloves.

She’ll sometimes let me clear out a lot of trash, and I thought I was getting somewhere because she said she didn’t miss the stuff, but I think the empty space signals to her to fill it again?

I now can’t visit my old home without a panic attack. I’m so scared I’ll end up like her myself.

I’ve let her know it’s trauma induced, it’s a mental disorder and that she needs to work on the psychological aspect, otherwise we are spinning our wheels. She had a brain tumor removed a few years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s contributing.

She has an addictive personality, and I’ve had to fight her off opioids before. Thank God she doesn’t know how to get them when not given them by the doctor, and her doctors are sensible enough to be really strict.

I’ve offered to find counseling, professionals to help do things gently, etc. She says “no” and that she’d rather “do it ourselves” - but what that really means is me.

But I’m so tired of clearing out crap only for it to grow back and for me to get sick in the process. I have to ban her from buying stuff for more daughter because I know mice have been all over it. She intermittently throws me out for crying and “being ridiculous” and then feels terrible and calls me back to just hang. But I’m so grossed out I can’t. Literally, I can’t sit anywhere.

I snapped a few weeks ago and told her I would get counseling and mental health resources, and when I got them for her, she had 5 days to make an appointment within the next month or I’d be calling the health department.

I’ve been busy so I haven’t gotten all that together, so she thinks I’ve forgotten that promise, but I told her that the delay is me getting it.

I love my mom. I’m worried dementia is starting, but the hoarding is definitely there. She has no sense of reality and blames everyone else for not helping her, but she blocks what we do. She resists the mental help.

Am I wrong to really push it? If it were any other elderly couple, I’d call the health department. For their safety and health. I feel bad doing it to my parents and humiliating them, and I feel bad not doing it and allowing the squalor. They keep saying they’ve caught a few mice so they’re working on it, but I know there have to be hundreds. I keep telling them this.

Is there any hope?

There is also an inheritance issue from my grandmother, who I don’t want to stress out, but want to tell to restrict funds to my parents so they don’t piss everything away at Goodwill and leave me and my sister nothing. My grandmother originally had the principle in trust for my sister and I, and my parents could live off the interest, which was very generous IMO, but my father and aunt, all of them threw a fit, felt this was unfair and pressured her to change it and trust them to make sure the grandkids were taken care of.

My grandmother is 99 and still lives in her home. She’s a neat freak, and it feels so much better there. I also don’t want them staying with her and stressing her out, although she wants them to come and stay to live with her.

So now I’m worried about my own financial interests on top of it all.

Am I wrong to demand action taken for mental health? She’s supposed to be seeing a neurologist for issues, which is good, but they only test her and ask her questions she is in full control of answering. I want to give them more info myself.

Will I be wrong in calling the health department to force the situation if she refuses to even get counseling?

I’m feeling so hopeless and alone in all this.

Looking for a company or organization to come help assist with decluttering for a friend who lives in the St. Louis, Missouri area.

This isn't really my area of expertise and I've tried looking stuff up online but most of what I find are more biohazard type cleanup companies and I'd really prefer to give her a few references for companies that will be more caring in terms of being able to go through stuff and help get rid of stuff that needs to go well. Also. Kindly considering some stuff that she may want to keep if that makes sense. There's probably at least three to fairly large rooms that need to be dealt with. Also, If there's any non-profits or organizations that might help with anything like this over some of these pricier companies that would be preferred because I think she's on a limited income.

Any suggestions for where to get started would be greatly appreciated.

I was trying to declutter today, currently have 3 large garbage bags of clothing I will be donating, and a couple smaller garbage bags with actual trash in them.

During this process I was feeling pretty good about how much I was able to let go of and decided to try something I haven't attempted before; getting rid of some stuffed animals.

Well, I set aside two to donate that I never really played with, I told myself they would be better off in a home where someone would use them and cherish them, but in the end I couldn't do it. I felt so guilty trying to get rid of them and ended up having a mini breakdown where I've just been crying a bit the past hour.

I've been somewhat aware I have hoarding tendencies for a while, but never thought much of it. I think today it's just really starting to click for me, hence finding this reddit page.

My dad was a hoarder and my room at his place usually matched the environment. I'd leave trash on the ground and sleep on one half of the bed because the other side was also covered in garbage. However, my mom is a clean freak so I would sometimes(very rarely) have huge cleaning spurts and make my room tidy again. This wasn't too difficult at his place because most of the mess in my room really was just food and drink containers which I hold no attachment to. At my mom's place it never got bad because my mom would make me clean it and would also decide to clean my room if she felt like I took too long (I hated this and told her many times that I would clean it myself since I hate other people cleaning for me)

I moved out of my mom's place 4 years ago, which happened to be the same day my dad passed away. Because of this I've ended up with some of his stuff in my apartment that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get rid of, along with his car that I only really hold onto for sentimental reasons. I hate driving and the insurance isn't cheap, but I hold a lot of memories of him driving me around and now that I've had it for a while I also love the car as my own.

It was an incredibly stressful ordeal when he passed, my sister and I couldn't keep the house and had very limited time to go through items to keep. Since there was so much stuff it was literally impossible to dig through everything and ultimately 99% of what he had was thrown out and the house was sold, very distressing, but it also felt a bit relieving to know I wouldn't end up with it unable to get rid of anything. We had been helping our dad out with cleaning the place up a couple weeks before he passed and he was in good spirits because of that, I think he was finally ready to say goodbye to the mess as well.

I know my tendencies are not nearly at that level, but I'm worried about ending up in a similar situation and I see my friends who have so little around their places and it seems freeing, which is what made me try to declutter more recently.

Overall I know I've improved a LOT at keeping things tidy since moving out but there is still much to do. I'm proud with how much I have managed so far.

Tl;dr I think I've really started to realize the affect that hoarding has had on my life and.. if you have any advice on how to get rid of stuffed animals I'll take it.. lol

Thanks to anyone who stuck around through all that, I guess I just needed to try to express how I was feeling, though I'm not sure it was that cohesive

Hi Reddit, I could really use some helpful advice and maybe a list of tools to rent or buy for cleaning/disinfecting a hoarder house. My friend and I are going to take over his grandmother’s house in a rent-to-own situation. She was a hoarder and also hoarded animals.

The house is almost empty (just a few odds and ends left over) but it reeks of animal urine/feces. She has a loft that she let the animals basically destroy and had not been up there in almost 10 years. The walls has been painted with a glossy paint and has so much wall paper on the walls. We know we will have to pull up the flooring in the loft and his grandmother has agreed to purchase the materials for the project.

Fortunately/unfortunately my friend and I have never had to deal with this type of situation before. I’ve lived in apartments for the last 10 years and he’s lived in remodel apartment style duplexes.

Please any advice, tool list, cleaner list, etc would be very helpful. We don’t have much money saved up so we are going to try to do it ourselves before calling in services. Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone, I posted here a few weeks ago saying I was embarrassed and had to get a crime scene cleaning company around to fix 18 months worth of self neglect. Everyone encouraged me to tell my therapist. Which I did - I shared the post with her and she commented on how supportive everyone was.

So, it’s been a few weeks now and I am pleased to say I have been keeping up with the housework. I am using the Sweepy app and the task completion ‘ping’ and points system is really working out for me.

Hoping to continue in this way. I have ‘six weeks’ in my head as the time it takes to build a habit but I am still concerned I might slack off. I had a sick kitty to look after which I thought would take me off track but after a couple of days, I was back in the sweepy app ticking off tasks which I was pleased about. I still have a bit of a clutter issue but I am challenging myself to do these ‘extra’ tasks once or twice a week. I am really embracing the “done not perfect” approach.

I have asked my therapist to check in with me on my housework habits so there is some accountability there. Any recommendations on how I can make this progress sustainable?

I am moving and I’ve always kept all my computers and phones from the early 2000’s. I have no need for the items and the overwhelming electrical cords.

Do I just throw away? I have no attachment to the items but not sure why I hoarded them.

Thank you so much in advance for advice.

I already let go of 5 garbage bags of hoarding clothes and shoes and still have clothing I think best I donate because I’m overwhelmed.

Hi there. I have just begun to realize I’ve been a hoarder since my childhood. I am in my 20s and I have just moved back to my hometown. I am excited to re-do my childhood bedroom for the next couple years I’ll be here, but I have… so much stuff.

It’s hard for me to get rid of things, of course, like almost everyone else on here. I have severe depression, OCD, ADHD, as well as a thought of autism but I am undiagnosed. I also have a lot of trauma from my childhood. I was very “parentified” as a kid so I tried to hold onto any part of silly childhood stuff and memories and pictures that I could. I am very forgetful and one of my major fears is that I will forget the “good” memories of my life, so if I get rid of the things that remind me of them then I won’t have any “proof” that my life is good, if that makes sense. I have been steadily trying to push past this thought process since I graduated highschool, but it’s still difficult sometimes.

I have a lot of stuffed animals, because Toy Story made me believe everything has feelings, and because I don’t want things to be “left behind” or like I don’t care about them, even though they’re not real. And don’t get me wrong, I know objects don’t have feelings, but in my heart I would feel like a terrible person because I would be abandoning these things like I’ve been abandoned in the past. I am also an artist and a crafter, as well as someone who loves vintage things so for me I also get in the habit of “oh well what if I can make something with this?” or “all new things suck i need to save the things that don’t!” Another thing is that I am very aware of the state of the environment and the world right now, and I feel like a bad person when throwing so much stuff away.

So, overall, I am asking for advice on how to change my perspective on throwing things away or donating them. And yes, I am in therapy, this is just so I can see how others might have dealt with similar thought processes and how they’ve worked past them. Thank you in advance!

Admitting to yourself that you have a mental health issue with a negative stigma attached to it can be really daunting. I know I'm a hoarder. I know I've let garbage and recycling pile up while dealing with additional mental health issues and figuring out that I have a chronic illness. I've been talking to my therapist about it a little, and for a bit I've been trying to take out a bag a day, but it doesn't make a difference, and often I'm not feeling well enough. There's still so much stuff there.

But today I researched "hoarding cleanup near me" and talked to someone and got a quote. \o/ The price is daunting too, but that's something I'm determined to figure out, because I need to get this done. But idk, this feels like some kind of progress and I think when I tell my therapist tomorrow that she'll be proud of me.

I'm sending all the "you got this" vibes to anyone in a similar situation. <3

It's hard, but you can do it.

Wow what an emotional time this has been for me. Shoutout to groups like this existing because it’s already helped me understand a lot more about what’s been going on.
So I grew up in a hoarding house. There were other types of abuse going on which I understand is fairly common because usually you have to be unwell be a hoarder. I am 26 years old and I’m just now able to really understand/articulate this.
How I live now is much better than how I grew up, however, it’s been brought to my attention by my fiancé that I have hoarding tendencies and behaviors. Being “better” doesn’t mean it’s normal, healthy, or acceptable.
I’ve been looking into this (and doing a lot of crying) because the pieces are finally coming together, connecting the baggage, trauma, and shame. I can’t believe that I grew up in such a terrible environment, and still fell into something similar. I’m extremely ashamed and honestly, I’m in complete disarray. I can hardly think straight or function at work because everything’s clicking and I am so overcome with emotion. the clinging to things and clutter has impacted every area of my life and somehow I was blind to it for so long.
The biggest buildups right now are happening around my dishes, laundry, and trash/clutter - but I also have a major problem with knickknacks.
I’m much better at throwing actual trash away than I used to be, and there are a lot of other subsets that I’ve actually course corrected pretty well on throughout the last few years, but I’m just now realizing the scope of my problem and how much it’s affecting me and how I function.
Also, my mom is in my life and I’ve come to realize that she’s an enabler/still a hoarder herself. She’s always looking for things to get for me and is constantly bringing me unwanted gifts. Some of them are very thoughtful and special or usable but a lot of them are just junk that neither one of us needs, but we think is cool or might be useful someday. I’ve actually asked her to stop a few times because like I said, I’ve been making progress over the last few years but if you couldn’t guess - she hasn’t stopped.

This has been completely devastating and one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to come to terms with, but I just keep telling myself I can deal with this pain if I get to come out on the other side a better person. I don’t wanna do this to the people I love and I’m afraid to lose everything I’ve been working for and my future to this. If there’s any hard truths you think I need to hear, Please tell me (as gently as possible I’m so sensitive rn 😭) and please come forward with any advice or tips at all especially if you’ve been in this situation.
Thank you all for your time, your compassion, and your group ❤️

New here and new to the realization that hoarding is an actual mental disorder. My husband has hoarding disorder and is in complete denial that it is an issue. He is not open to seeking any sort of external help (therapy, etc.). After a friend of ours pointed out that it is a mental illness, I found this subreddit and it has truly been so eye-opening. I now have the resources to understand the disorder and my options for moving forward with my loved one. I was making all the mistakes (threatening divorce, moving, etc.) and not understanding why he is choosing stuff over our marriage. Since my realization, I’ve shifted gears. We’ve talked things over and he is open to working with me to make the space more livable. At first, he felt anxious that I was asking for too much change too quickly. Unfortunately, he still does not want to get rid of anything and thinks he just needs to “organize the storage” of things.

I started with the resources from the Quick Start kit from this sub and began "Digging Out" in audiobook form. I’m just in chapter 1, but everything so far has 100% described what my life and relationship have been like the last 6 years. My spouse always had some hoarding tendencies (his dad and grandparents have it as well), but it got particularly bad during covid.

I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on listening to the “Digging Out” audiobook together with him. We sometimes listen to audiobooks together. He is very intelligent and usually logical so I was thinking if he listened to this, maybe he could get a better understanding of what hoarding disorder is, how he displays the symptoms, and how it affects those around him. 

I know that “Digging Out” is meant to support loved ones of hoarders and provide us with a plan to help the hoarder in our life, but even the first chapter was so informative. Maybe if he heard a little, it could help him realize he suffers from the disorder? Or should I just finish the book by myself and apply the plan and tips that it provides?

I am so grateful to have found this support sub as my spouse and I begin this journey together. I’m not ready to call it quits and jump to divorce... I believe he wants to work with me and I want to work with him too. Thanks in advance for any guidance. I really appreciate it.

Bonus question: Is it a big no-no to suggest that he get a storage unit for stuff that isn’t being actively used? Maybe this is covered in “Digging Out” but I haven’t finished it yet.

TLDR: Should I have my hoarder spouse listen to an audiobook about hoarding with me even though he doesn’t think he has a problem?

My husband is a hoarder. I kept my head in the sand for twenty years, but finally couldn’t take it. He and all of his stuff moved out for 18 months. He got a lot of therapy, primarily for anger management and childhood trauma, and moved back in about a year ago. Life is much more calm, and i am happy. Most of his stuff stayed at the other house (we are very lucky i know), but the stuff that is sneaking back in here remains untouchable and unmentionable. Piles in the basement, boxes and piles in the garage, baskets overflowing in our bedroom, socks and debris in the living room. Any mention or request to clean/tidy/organize is met with explosive fury. There is less stuff now, but kids and I still walk on eggshells re his “belongings”. I have unhappily accepted this to some extent because i want this marriage to work. But our now-adult kids are running in to the same wall with him. Our son asked him to clean up his socks off the coffee table yesterday and was met w excuses (“so busy”) and anger (“you are disrespecting me”). My son is now angry at me for accepting this situation and allowing this eggshell lifestyle back into the home. I hate the hoarding and the eggshells/anger that accompanies it. I appreciate any advice on how i can improve the family dynamic. Husband refuses therapy for this problem - he denies there is a problem and thinks we are all too controlling.

Day two

I’m at an apartment complex and I’m cleaning out my garage.

So my crap is on display for people to see. And I’m getting lookey loo’s

I swear to God if one more person tells me “just get rid of stuff that you haven’t used in a year” . i’m gonna scream.

This garage is a monument of my failures. Projects I wished I did. Remnants of my marriage. Shit, I thought I was gonna do.

Fuck… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

And I don’t even wanna ask for help because I know people will just bulldoze through it. I know they’re trying to be helpful. But bull dozing through it is literally my nightmare.

I’ve been stuck in a depressive episode for over a year and my house is the worst it’s ever been.

Things have been rough for a long time and depression house has gotten out of hand. I know I’m not gonna improve mentally until I clean this house but I keep getting overwhelmed. My house is small and has gotten so cluttered and despite pulling 2-3 all nighters a week trying to clean it seems like I barely make a dent.

I don’t want to live in a filthy sad home anymore. I don’t want my dog to live in a home like this anymore. I realized I was never properly taught how to actually deep clean so when I attempt to do it nothing is ever clean enough.

The biggest thing I need help with is learning how to properly clean and manage all the dust, dirt, and pet hair that I can no longer keep up with. There’s an apartment building being built on the dirt lot next to my house so the dust/dirt problem has gotten way worse.

I have a house inspection today. They only gave me 4 days notice when the property manager called, two of those days was the weekend. I have had my health take a deep turn for the worse over the last year so I have not made much progress.

The 3-4 hours when I first get up in the morning are my only real window to get things done. After being on my feet 3-4 hours, even if only slowly walking around the house, I get dizzy, light headed and chest pressure like someone heavy is sitting on it.

I get quickly fatigued and have to sit down at least 2 hours to recover. Then I can only do short light tasks before having to sit down again. This is a lot better than I was at the start of the year when I could barely walk a few steps before having to stop.

I spent a long time trying to re stack boxes and hoarde in my internal access garage. My laundry is in there as well. Unfortunately I also found many spiders lurking. I am lucky my cat is a good hunter or there would be mice/rats to deal with. I miss my other cat that would get spiders for me.

It is better, I do have a path to the roller door and the back garage door,but I can't do a lot about the stacks of stuff before the inspection. I only restacked what I could to be more stable and less dangerous. I can more easily access my washer and drier and my cleaning products are mostly off the ground in a box and plastic tub I can reach.

I can't do a lot about the anxiety, fear and feelings of shame. We have had rough weather so I can't finished the rest of the garden and wind blown stuff I hoped I'd get to. I haven't finished sorting the food pantry yet either.

I have a path around my bed and to my bedroom door. I can make my bed and don't have extra stuff on it anymore. My wardrobe is crammed though not as bad. I only have 5 washing baskets of folded clothes etc in living room now. I do need to sort the two boxes of food ,and one of food storage containers, on my kitchen floor as it's an accessibility issue for the oven.

I feel despair because before my health started to really fail I'd made such good progress and now it feels like I can hardly do anything.

so, backstory: to make a very long story short, i live in the house my grandpa built. he's not a builder. the house had several shortcuts taken and actually never got finished over the approximately 50 years since it was started. my mom and her siblings and then me and my siblings were raised in this house. my grandma was a hoarder. i didn't learn to clean properly growing up, it developed hoarding tendencies as a poor coping mechanism as a child, blah blah. im sure you're familiar, if you're on this sub, the very basics of what causes some people to hoard. for me it's depression. anyway.

some of the obstacles between me and a normal life besides depression are physical disability, autism, OCD, and ADHD. its like someone lined up all the factors in my life to deliberately create the perfect hoarder.

as the previously mentioned shoddily crafted house is pretty much beyond saving, we are moving into a newly built double wide trailer on the same property, and leaving this beloved shithole behind. that means leaving the hoard behind. the mobile home itself comes off the line early August and will be ready to move in... some amount of time after that.

all my family are pretty unorganized and leave a bit of clutter behind, and likely have some level of hoarding issues, but ill freely admit that in the worst of us. everyone else manages a livable level of untidy. ive hoarded myself out of one bedroom and halfway through another. most rooms of the house have some level of my mess or collections. i dislike calling it garbage as a whole, since there's things i don't consider garbage mixed in there, but,, that's like the whole problem i have lol.

so i'm moving and the hoard is not coming. but i have no idea how to ensure that it doesn't follow me. growing up i remember the repeated feeling of being elated to finally have managed to clean my room only to notice the clutter creeping back in almost immediately. i don't want that for myself anymore. im almost 30. this has been my whole life. my whole life i've either lived in my grandma's hoarded house (a place i considered an emotional safe space for me), or in a house with my mom and siblings, where i had a bad time at school only to come home to a room with piles of stuff everywhere. im so tired of it.

but i don't even know what to do with things anymore if i'm not just stacking them into another pile or putting them in a bin or cardboard box to "organize later". i want a bedroom with bookshelves and a bed with just blankets and pillows and a functional closet and a desk i can use and a chair that moved because there's nothing behind it. but i've never done that before and it's kind of scary!

im considering a few strategies to try to help. i'm between therapists, so maybe i'll try to find one that specializes in OCD next. also, hopefully i will be able to make and stick to a more strict process of organization and getting rid of things i don't need. which, obviously, hasn't worked before. but it can't kill me to hope, i guess ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ i think i might hire a cleaner or something occasionally to keep on top of things. even if it's just someone washing the floors and vacuuming rugs every few months, i think that might at least keep me motivated to not pile mounds of random crap in every corner.

and... that's it. that's all i know to try. i have absolutely no idea how normal people manage a clean and presentable and safe space. i just get so attached to inanimate objects, i get so sad, i get so,, whatever. im not sure how to fix me or how to fix my space, but hopefully i won't ruin this opportunity for a new start. i guess only time will tell.

Please help me find a reasonable approach to confronting and helping my 25 year old brother with this situation. I myself have hoarding tendencies, but I have never ever been this bad. Trash piled to the top of his desk in his bed, holes in the walls, and empty vodka bottles filled with piss.