I understand this is long. I have to tell the whole story in order to feel comfortable with any feedback. My choices effect my life, hers, and her sons. I want to have peace in the family and I don't believe the hoarding is going away.

The first few times I met my boyfriend mother, Susie, she was very distant. She doesn't follow social norms when meeting new people. She doesn't introduce her self, won't look at you, and gives short answers to questions. I believe she does this because she doesn't trust people.

Her mother's boyfriend (whom she compares me to) kicked her out of their house when Susie was only 17. Then she went on to marry 2 alcoholics who abandoned their children. She has been wronged and now doesn't trust people.

Of her three children my boyfriend was the baby. Her other children were "dissappointments" they have sold her stuff, refused to help her move stuff, and not given her enough attention and help. However my boyfriend, Craig, has always been sweet and done anything to keep his mother happy.

I have always thought family should be close. She quickly warmed up to me. Then Craig and I went through a hard time while we were waiting for a house to come through. We couldn't rent anywhere because it was too expensive by the week and the house could have come through any day. She did all of the paper work for the house because Craig was intimidated by all the responsibility. Susie was wonderful during this time. She let us stay in the house she inherited from a friend (where she hoarded more stuff). She gets TONS of free stuff from Walmart like every week (gov program for her cat shelter) which she shared with us. It was everything from shampoo, to protein bars, to leather cleaners, etc. My car was also broken for about a month and she was helping me by giving me rides.

However it wasn't all take on my part. Very early in my relationship with Craig I went to help him clean his deceased grandmother's house. His mother mother was there the whole time. Apparently Craig's other brothers wouldn't help because she wouldn't let them throw anything away. They got frustrated and left before I even got there. We were getting along just fine, but I first noticed something was wrong when she asked me to pack a set of glasses. So I took newspaper and wrapped the glasses and put them in a box. She told me I had done it wrong and to unpack it. Then I started packing up paperwork and she got very agitated because she wanted to do it a certain way. Then Craig tried to convince her to put the 5 nail clippers in the good will side and she says you never know when you will need them. There was also a total of about 4 REALLY old keys and she wants to keep all of them to figure out what each opens. I also helped her move several more times and held a garage sale.

When we stay at the old lady, Tracy's,house which Susie inherited, it was littered with rat poo, it smelled awful, all of her free Walmart stuff cluttered the living room and kitchen, all of the Tracy's stuff now became Susie's.

I believe Susie is really lonely because she would sleep in that rat infested house with us even though she had her own home. We saw her everyday sometimes we would be in the bed ready to sleep and she would just keep talking. She slept in a recliner in the living room. I imagine her house might be worse because apparently there is "no room" for us there and she hasn't had anyone over in 10 years, but she was okay with us at Tracy's.

Tracy's legal binding dying request to Susie was that she would sell her stuff for $500 and her house and donate it to charity. Susie has taken this request really seriously and decided not to throw anything away and sell everything for its absolute value. She's way past the $500 now btw. She kept putting off the sale of the house because she believed they needed her signature on something before he could claim the house. So she just ignored their phone calls for a little while.

One day she got the phone call that the guy had purchased the house without her signature. He wanted to start doing repairs. We moved into our house the same week and I paid for my uhaul to also pick some of her stuff up and bring it to our new house. BIG MISTAKE! By the way there was also a completely full storage unit where I also picked up more stuff to bring to my house.

Right before we moved into the house I felt like Susie and I had a special bond. We talked all the time and helped each other. I did everything I could to make her happy even if it was ridiculously helping her with her hoarding.

Craig was hesitant to allow Tracy's stuff to come to his house. However I was grateful for her helping us get the house and I figured we would see her less when we moved out of Tracy's.

At first I had more patience with Susie because she was my boyfriends mother and I wanted to have a good relationship with her, but she is also controlling and harsh. When we moved into the new house she wouldn't let me decide how to arrange my furniture. It wasn't even a discussion. I made a suggestion> she would casually say her way is better>conversation over. She was also verbally abusive. If Craig or I made a mistake we would get a 20-40 minute lecture on how stupid we are and how there was no excuse.

Anyway my patience was running thin, 2 weeks in and she's still coming over everyday. One day we are having a party 24-28 year olds drinking, cursing, smoking. She shows up at midnight because "it's urgent she moves more stuff." I had no idea she was coming or why she was there. I am in awe as she just sits at the dining room table eating and starting at my guests with an emotionless face (remember how I said she is around new people). I feel totally uncomfortable. One of my friends goes on a rant about how it's weird she's there, another thinks she is babysitting to make sure nothing in the new house gets broken, and other is asking when she can leave so he can take of his "in front of parents etiquette."

I can't take it anymore. I tell Craig to ask her to leave. I want sure if any other moment would feel like the right time. It was going to be hard no matter how I did it to tell her "you cannot be here all the time." And I new as long as she can store at my house she will be over all the time. I decided to set a boundary. (Craig didn't have the guts to say mom you have to go he said Mom Claudia wants you to go)

She completely over reacted. She made it seem like because she helped us get the house it was ungrateful to ask her to leave. (Even though I had seen her EVERYDAY for like 4 months). She also believes that I was sick of her. Which I was but I would be with 90% of other people too. I like to have privacy. And I would have been happy to see her once a week for 1-5 hours.

She starts telling her siblings and sons about how we mistreated her and she isn't going to Christmas. Everyone starts freaking out and it turned into a big family drama. I spoke with other members of the family in order to explain my side. (I now realize that was wrong it was done out of anger and I that they are HER family not mine).

At first Craig's uncles take Susie's side. When I explain how intense everything had been they agreed. They usually don't want to talk about her hoarding. They know she has a problem but don't feel like Susie will change. So they support keeping her happy even if it's at Craig's expense.

Nobody has been to Susie's house in 10 years. We've seen her car. It's almost like a fluid container. The trash fills the bottom of a car leaving no gaps. Craig said there were 30 cats in his house growing up. She loves cats more than people and has a cat shelter that she also uses for storage. She doesn't work and is in debt with cat services. I went to pick up my cat once. We used her bill because she gets a discount. She owed that 1 cat shelter $2,000. She goes to more.

When she sold Tracy's house she had no where for her stuff to go. She took her time getting stuff out of the house. The uhaul was not able to get it all. The house was literally owned by someone else. They kept telling her to move her stuff and she kept it there until they started throwing stuff away. She was doing the same thing to them that she was doing to us. Coming over everyday, organizing her things, and telling them what they can and can't do with her stuff. This scared me big time. If she was willing to do this with strangers what would she do with us. After we had gotten into a fight she didn't want to bring more stuff and desperately paid her neighbor to store on his front porch. She hadn't spoken to Craig for about a month until the new home owners started throwing stuff away. She ignored his texts, but now "her stuff" was in danger. We now also had a washer and dryer to store.

She doesn't say if she's going to Christmas until Craig calls her. She says there is no way she can be ready soon. She knew what time Christmas was. I think (1) she wanted to punish (2) She wanted to see if Craig would wait on her. We end up being 3 hours late and everyone acts like normal.

I tried to explain, but there was no way she would communicate with me. She felt betrayed by me for asking her to leave.

Now she never comes over and I have all the stuff. I start going through it to see what is in there. There's a whole lot of junk. Boxes and boxes of towels, tub-a-ware, a really old fat tv, etc. I sold things that Craig said were not sentimental and at his suggested price.

She is never going to go through the stuff especially now that we are not talking. When we invited her over for dinner after months of not speaking I suggested bringing some stuff out to go through and she kept saying "not now." That's the thing she never has time. Especially with all her cat responsibilities. There is one stray cat that she can't trap that she goes and feeds everyday.

Those things are worthless when you have too much. They stay in boxes and get forgotten about. Whenever I've spent time organizing the stuff or moving boxes I get tired. She is old there is no way she can get to the box in the back on the bottom.

I'm not going to let those boxes take up my biggest room for the rest of her life. So I decided to help her by getting rid of the junk. Either by donating or selling and giving her the money. The problem is when she sells something she wants it at its full value. Selling even valuable antiques takes a lot of effort. You have to find special buyers. If you sell something cheap someone will actually buy it. So I have her the money and even added a little bit extra from me for the items I donated.

So FINALLY my dilemma is this. She is furious with me. Because I went through the jewelry to find their value and separate the gold from not gold. She mad because some of the envelopes had writing on them and I did not put the jewelry back in the envelopes they were in. Totally my fault I should have considered maybe that information was important. Now she doesn't know which jewelry was her Dads, when she was thirteen years old.

So she is mad and wants me to get everything back that I sold. Mostly she wants her desk. Which she can't fit anywhere. I don't want to get it back just to put it at my house. Craig and I even offered to buy her one whenever she moves her cat shelter (which is not even in the planning phase or going to happen anytime soon).

However I keep reading how forced clean outs are terrible for hoarders. Is there an exception if the clean out is at my house?

She keeps texting and calling everyone in the family telling them what happened and demanding for her stuff back.

Thankfully this has pushed her to decide to get a uhaul and pick up all the stuff at my house. So if she does we shouldn't have even more problems. I can't help but feel that our relationship is broken to the point of no return.