What's your Experience with Obsessive Hoarding?

Question

What's the most peculiar thing you've ever known someone to obsessively hoard?

My father records ball games on vcr tapes to watch later, which he does, but will not reuse them! He's got a huge closet full of video tapes with baseball and football games on them. I bought him a tape eraser and explained how it works, but he doesn't see the need! Very peculiar! Other than that, he's a perfectly lucid man! What's your stories?

Answer 1

My uncle used to hoard canned sardines and MRE's (meals ready to eat, from Army Surplus).
He also hoarded batteries and spark plugs.

Answer 2

I have a extreme pack rat example but it should help you out. I knew a girl whose parent's were reported to child protective services for obsessive hoarding. The parents did not throw anything away. The mom had the problem but the dad was too afraid to say anything.

Child protective services and the police showed up because neglect charges were filed and the minor child was going to be put in foster care. When the state walked through there was 4-6 feet of garbage strewn across the house with paths shoveled through as if the garbage was snow. The bathtub even had garbage in it and the family just showered around it. The strong smell of odor and decomposition resulted in the hazardous waste team being being called.

Investigators went through the house and found a potpourri of dead/petrified animal carcasses (old pets and rats), diapers, newpapers, and other garbage. They used the newspapers to age the garbage and some of it dated back to when the minor child (then 15) was an infant. Needless to say, the state did not need to prove its case before they took the minor child.

Answer 3

I worked with a very troubled teenager--he hoarded scraps of food and hid them in his belongings, clothes, anywhere he could. That had come from severe deprivation of all his early needs--and something that would stay with him the rest of his life. He became panicky when staff cleaned out his room. He compromised with them and they let him keep only things that would not spoil, simply dry up! Then, once a wk he compromised and they helped him clean his room and start again! The fear had turned into a pysiological response.