A number of years back, there was this guy that walked around town. He had one of those growths on his head that looked like an apple. So everyone always called him "the guy with the apple on his head". After the Post Office closed, you would see him going through the trash. If he was walking down an alley, he would stop and pick up a stick. He always had a sack with him that he was putting things in. This when on for years. No one really knew who this guy was. My dad and I were downtown one day and I saw him and he was carrying his sack. I mentioned to my dad about the "guy with an apple on his head". Dad looked where he was and told me "that is your distant cousin"
His name was Frank Clough. Dad also explained to me that he was a POW in Germany and managed to escape from the POW camp and made it back to the states. Once he was back, he was never right after that. When he passed away, his house was so full of trash that you couldn't get through it. Along with all of the trash, he had money stashed everywhere because he never spent any. According to dad, being a POW really changed him. And dad always told me "and don't go around telling people you are related to him"
From one day of knowing "the guy with an apple on his head" and being a hoarder that picked through trash, I had a new found respect for a man named Frank Clough.
It's odd as to why people do what they do. And it's sad as to why they do it. For a hoarder, if lucky, you can change them if all for the fact the safety issues that goes along with being a hoarder. I watch Hoarders on the tube, and really, I do not understand at all, what goes through their minds when the house is infested with cockroaches, bedbugs, mice, and rats, yet they are perfectly content in living that way. Hiding purchases from a spouse because they know they are doing wrong. And spending lifes money savings to keep buying.
I know that if we had a hoarder in our family and it was so bad that it was to the point of their life being at risk, you could bet on it that I would turn them into authorities to get something done. When it's so bad a paramedic couldn't get in the house, or a fireman get in to rescue someone, a human life takes precedence over a bunch of worthless trash.
Hoarding is a mental disorder. My parents were not hoarders but they looked at material possessions differently than I do. Everything they bought had value. Even after years and years, that item they bought years back, according to them, as long as it worked, it still had value. They didn't look at thing as depreciating in value. I think this all stemmed from growing up through the Great Depression. I don't know how many years they hung on to a portable black & white TV because it still worked. It had to be one of the last B&W's in the county. One year, many, many, years ago, my wife and I bought my parents a grill with a rotisserie. It was used one time, washed up and put down the basement. When my parents went into the nursing home(s) and we had to clean the house out to sell, the grill w/rotisserie went to the guy cleaning things out. It had set down in their basement for roughly 34 years. They never used it, but didn't want to get rid of it because we bought it for them. My mom and dad both ended up getting Dementia-Alzheimers towards the end.
My wife's girlfriend....her parents are full fledged hoarders. They started to fall and really couldn't take care of theirself, so they went into an Assisted Living facility. The wifes girfriend is stuck along with her husband of cleaning out the house. Nothing of use per se, but they hoarded newspapers mainly, along with some other things. Floor to ceiling and nothing but paths through the house with barely enough room to walk. They are also diagnosed with Dementia-Alzheimers.
So it makes me wonder if the two sort of go hand in hand, meaning ending up with D-A and hoarding?
My wife doesn't really hoard, but she likes to collect. Part of her problem was that she lost everything in a fire right before we got together. She became a Longaberger Consultant. There is not a room in the house that doesn't have Longaberger Basket in it somewhere. Plus a closet, well two closets clear full of baskets. I have been trying to tell her to sell them in one lump to some other collector, take a loss, and use the money to buy something she enjoys. Currently they are insured for $40,000. Her girlfriend that has always had a craft store or some side business, sells stamps. Rubber stamps that you can use to make custom greeting cards and so on. It's great, and her girlfriend has ones that she teaches classes to. So now my wifes collecting has shifted from baskets to stamps. She's worked all her life, so what money she spends is her money. I'd be afraid to take a guess though how much is wrapped up in that hobby. I guess in a way, I don't really want to know. But even to go along with that hobby, I had to put cabinets in her building for organization and storage for her addiction. Almost 24' of cabinet space clear full. I do have her talked into giving some of her baskets away to her niece and her sister. She was trying to sell some but she's asking a little less than retail for them and no one is going to pay that. It gets to be a touchy subject at times. I'm going to try one more time this Spring when we start getting things ready for summer and cleaning things up to make a list, and we have a good friend who is an auctioneer and having a go that route. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.
