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I set up a non profit for my Mom, she is a "cat rescue". She has her cats fixed, and has vet checks. As I said...it was bad...on the cats...until we talked and now she "self limits" to Ragdolls only. She runs the cat rescue, as a licensed business, and takes cats to Petco by her home. So, I turned that situation around.
I'm glad to know you are helping your Mom and making sure the cats are all fixed so they can't reproduce. That only adds to a problem when they aren't fixed. Make sure you count them all and she doesn't have more than her limit. If she gets enough cats she might be able to make it an non profit organization but a rescue and licensed is good enough and hard work.
My SIL has tons of ragdolls too, I think that is what they are. They could be ragamuffins? They are usually black and white with long beautiful fur and big fluffy tails with fur sticking out from between their toes. Oh and long like whispy ear hairs. So many strays at the shore now. She tried to get them all fixed but they moved away and couldn't get the Tom who pregnated nearly all of the females. I hope someone picked up where she left off.
Hoarding is nothing new. Giving it a name and a label is. I don't think that's a bad thing though. It's a lot easier than describing it any time it needs to be referenced.
I personally know one hoarder and he is in complete denial. In his case it seems to stem from parents who were not very well off, and were extremely stingy. They worried and obsessed about money all the time. The idea that anything is or could be disposable was an anathema to them.
Their son saves everything. He's not a harder of disgusting things, but of things that were once costly, and books. Not a library, but multiple books about certain arcane subjects. Also, magazines and anything in print, at a time in history when having all of this printed material is absolutely unnecessary. He becomes extremely agitated when his wife attempts to throw something away.
My heart goes out to this woman. She is isolated and imprisoned by her husband's "stuff"
I think the first recorded case of hoarding, or the first one that was sensationalized by the media, was that of the Collyer brothers of NYC.
They were two singel men, from a wealthy family who lived in a townhouse that was literally busting at the seems. I believe that one of the brothers was dead for a while.
If you google "Collyer Brothers" I'm sure there's an entry.
Don't even get me started on this! My Mom is a Major hoarder, of stuff, and animals. She easily is worse than any of the folks I have seen on tv, on Animal Planet, or TLC. She has always been this way. She keeps everything, and it has been worse, as she gets older, I have noticed that. Especially with the cats. There seems to be a "trigger" moment, where they lose complete touch of reality, and have their own "reality" of where having 100 cats makes sense. And having a house full of stuff is meaningful...she keeps EVERYTHING...
I have learned how to work effectively with hoarders though, from my experience with my Mom. Never throw their stuff away, help them, for example, work on one space, like the table, hand them each piece of paper, discuss what it is, let them make the decision whether it is trash, filing, or immediate action. So, there is a trash can, a file box, and a small file folder, each item goes in one of those three places, if it is paper. And just keep working...usually they are overwhelmed, so set the goal, for "cleaning off the table" and work on that goal. Then, help them work thru the file box, and small file.
As for animal hoarding, I got my Mom to self limit, to rescuing only Ragdoll cats. She was rescuing every cat, but now she self limits...she still sneaks in a few others...but she does not keep every cat now.
Thank goodness your Mom has you! I think that is wonderful how you are helping her. It takes patience for sure.
If she is worse then the people on TV you surely must have your hands full. One paper at a time has to be a very slow process.
Hardly. I got fed up with her. When you try to help a hoarder, it is on "their" terms. Which is beyond frustrating. They procrastinate, perseverate, and even goad you into a fight, so that the focus is no longer on their "stuff", and then they blame YOU for leaving! It is like trying to get an alcoholic to quit drinking. They make it about "why are you such a *****?!"... A family member really can't help a hoarder. It is embedded, behavior. A hoarder only changes in response to external pressure--Adult Protective Services, Animal Control, threat of having their home condenmed, or children taken away. Just like many addicts, they have to hit rock bottom before changing.
Just like many addicts, they have to hit rock bottom before changing.
Or hit a point in their dementia where it's no longer an issue. Mom's only lasted as long as the mild stage, which lasted for years, and then it stopped.
My sister in law is a hoarder too. As I understand it it started when her husband died when she was pregnant with their second child. She woke up one morning to find him laying dead in the bed next to her. I'm sure it had to have been a very traumatic experience and judging from the hoarder shows that seems to be a common cause of the hoarding behavior. In many of the cases there seems to have been a loss of someone close to the hoarder.
I've never actually seen my SIL's house. Nobody in the family has except for one nephew who has described it as being packed. Sadly she has two children who has to live in that. They spend a lot of time at their grandparents' house though and when they have sleepovers and stuff like that with friends they do it at the grandparents' house. It's sad that they feel so uncomfortable in their own home.
Unfortunately my husband's whole family are afraid of any kind of confrontation so they just pretend like the problem doesn't exist and never bring it up. As a result the SIL and her kids have received no help and probably won't either. It's just sad for everyone involved.
Not today...I run a company called rent a friend...it's a joke in my hood..as for giving some mamma's boy a slap or two...Not really in the business of being an enforcer...to mercenary for my liking...Yah- my slap comment was honest...You look at the faces of some of these hoarders on television...the first instinct is to think...How could anyone be so damned stupid?
The people that come in and try to help them are just as hopeless...The most difficult thing to except in life is the cold fact that some people are just to stupid to understand and are beyond salvation.
You know, Oleg, while you're ranting about stupidity, please try to remember that some of these hoarders we're discussing are parents and other family members. My parents were both hoarders and far from stupid and having just lost my mother, I find this hurtful in the extreme. I never heard either of them call anyone stupid, not even indirectly. And they were both good spellers.
Hoarders are not stupid. That is for sure. My Mother is OCD, to the point of wanting things so perfect that because cleaning won't be perfect enough, she gives up. More like failed perfectionism. She has an MBA. Sure, the ones you see on "Hoarders" are mostly lower class, "trailer trash" types...My Mom lives in an upscale area, in a large home. She keeps her yard perfect.
jasper12...Thanks for sharing more about your Mother's situation...I must have some OCD traits too. When I "clean" it's always been hard for me when things start to get messy or "dirty" again. (Or out of place etc.)...I can get cranky with loved ones. (Which I don't like!) So I had a tendency to let things "go" so I wouldn't go through so many feelings or get cranky etc...I never became an "extreme hoarder" and I never let things get "too bad." But I dreaded "cleaning" due to how I might feel afterwards when things started to get messy again!...Finally (late in life) I tried to work through things on my own. When I do housework today I tell myself that a "little bit" is better than "nothing at all." And I have relaxed my "perfectionist standards" quite a bit. So I'm more inclined to "clean" on a regular basis now because I don't put myself through "hell" during the "cleaning process" or afterwards like I did in the past...Anyway thanks for bringing-up OCD. I admire you for taking the time to try to understand your Mother and all you've done to help her with the "cat rescue."
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