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OK, I haven't been on this board in a few months, so some won't know me.
I have a brother who is a hoarder and is currently in charge of and occupying our family home. I do not live there but live about 1 hour away by car. I own half the property, ever since our mother passed away last year.
Several months ago my brother and I drew up before a lawyer a legal agreement by which he was supposed to get the house cleaned up. This involved the hiring of a professional organizer in case he didn't get it cleaned up in 30 days. Yes, I know it was ridiculous but it was all I could get to have a foot in the door with at least an organizer. This came after years of his drug abuse, including crack cocaine, and hoarding.
So what happened? Not only did he not follow the agreement, kicking and screaming so to speak about the organizer when it came time to hire them, but he fell in love with and brought another hoarder to live in our house without informing me, even though I am the other property owner! A woman and her THREE PIT BULLS!
We'll our little dog almost got killed. Two of the pit bulls flung her across our backyard at 2 AM in the morning. On more than one occasion these dogs got out. One came close to attacking a neighbor, who said he was about to get out his gun and shoot the dog.
On the plus side ironically this other hoarder managed to clean out my brother's mini-apartment above our garage, which was no small feat and the worst of the hoard at the time. It proved to be an interesting experiment, in that hoarders can clean out another hoarder's junk just as well as anyone else can. That place was filled for several years and she cleaned it out in a week.
On the minus side she brought in her own hoard--tons and tons of stuff.
Now, my mother's will lists a secondary trustee, someone outside the family who could take over the property by petitioning a court if incompetency is found with the primary trustee. So, what does that mean for me? Since the secondary trustee would likely sell the property, it means that I would lose my home, my family home that we have had since 1972, IN PART BECAUSE OF THE STUFF OF A HOARDER WHO IS A STRANGER WHO JUST MOVED IN WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT.
Well, you can figure out what has happened over the past months, right? What happens when you have a hoarder who is a former drug addict (and not truly recovered emotionally) bring in a girlfriend who is a hoarder who is also bipolar? Storm plus storm equals bigger storm, and I was caught in the middle of it all as our house suffered. Unbelievable stuff. A birthday greeting painted in large letters with blood red paint on a white wall. A garden hose turned on full blast and aimed at the other person to harass/assault them INSIDE THE HOUSE. Threats by one to unleash the pit bulls on the other and the other one saying they will kill them.
Yes, I had to repossess the bullets that went to our father's gun and buy a solid gun safety case that only I know the combination to (in my current living circumstances I am at a place that prohibits guns so I couldn't take it with me, and giving it to someone involves a lot of government red tape).
So fun is all this stuff that most families with hoarders don't have to deal with, huh? I have to deal with a family member either being murdered or becoming a murderer!
I am at my wits end. I can go a few more months with this, and that's it. Then I feel I will call the secondary trustee and say "Do what you think is best." He can act independently of me. I don't need to be a part of it.
But I so much want to avoid that. I so much want the house to remain in our family. The attempt with the other hoarder moving in has been a failure, and I guess she is moving out back to her own home and taking a lot of the stuff with her. There's probably overall less stuff there than there was the last time I saw it. He says the backyard is considerably clearer as so much of it was hers.
But he will fill it up again and make it even worse with endless going to estate sales, back alleys, etc.
He still wants to be in a relationship with her. One move I might try to do is show him that if he truly loves her then he has an obligation to at least try to get her professional help with her hoarding and bipolar issues. He doesn't see the need for help for himself, but knowing she is sick he could be told he then needs to look up information on these conditions and try to get her help. That might inevitably draw him into it. It's no longer an option alone for him to research and seek help; its an obligation. If he loves her, then its his duty as her man to begin looking to see how to help her. He is no longer just a hoarder; he's now joined the ranks of us loved ones of hoarders.
But here's another kicker. I have OCD. It's mostly been under control for the past 25 years. My day with it in treatment was long ago. And unlike hoarders everybody with OCD knows we know we have it. We can tell there is something wrong with us. That's one thing that separated hoarding from OCD in the DSM V. Hoarders often deny or can't tell they are sick, or at least have a limited understanding of the depth of their problem.
So, guess what? I obsess about the hoarding. Or rather, I ruminate about it. A doctor back in the day of my treatment said excessive thinking about real things is ruminating. So, how I do handle my ruminating. I can handle obsessions. They deal with nonsensical stuff that never happens. But what do you do when your worst OCD symptom is about a real, serious, even dangerous thing?
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