I am a hoarder and do not have pets. I do not let anyone come to my house for anything. I feel isolated and disconnected. In my area, there is not any help for hoarders. The show Hoarders would not take me because my family refuses to get involved and I do not have much of a support system.
I am trying to do this alone, using boxes, markers of Give Away, Keep, and Sell. I am having a problem with the Keep box. I am still keeping too much and have no where to put it. I have to ultimately sort through everything myself and I get overwhelmed with it all and become frustrated. I also have an inspection for Sec. 8 coming up and I am afraid it will not pass. I have no one to help me sort through this and no one to help me move, which will be costly. Help.

Hi Betty,
I am so sorry to hear your frustration. I am very happy that you chose to write on the board as that tells me you are accepting that there is an issue and open to at least learning about what help is out there. You and your husband both need to understand that you have a disorder. You both need to understand that your way of thinking and your decision making is not the same as it was many years ago. Because of this, you will need to learn to re-train your brain and that is not a quick process. I would highly recommend you contact a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist in your area. They can certainly help you if you are ready to accept it. Nobody will be able to clean your home and return it to a normal functioning household until you get the psychological help first. I hope you understand and don't think I am just saying you are crazy, you certainly are not. Hoarding is something that you can control but without the proper tools you will just keep failing and everyone around you suffers along with you. I agree, you should be able to have children, grandchildren and/or anyone else over to your house. You are missing out on so much and you definitely deserve more for yourself!

I know I am a hoarder. The problem I have is I can not afford to pay anyone to help me clean my home as I have thrown away all my money on stupid stuff. Both my daughter and daughter in law have said over the past few years they will come help me clean the house but they never show up.

When my daughter does come by it's only for a short time and my daughter in law hasn't been to our home in over 3 years.

My husband says he will help clean but he just wants me to throw everything away. Just bag it up and throw it out weather it is good stuff, new or what. That is my stuff, not his stuff. Don't touch it.

I have thought about trying to contact the show "Clean House" but you have to have pictures and I could take them but can't afford to have them developed and don't know how to put them on the computer to send.

I also think we have gotten "black mold" in out bathroom and don't know how to get rite of it. I try to clean the bathroom every other day but it doesn't seem to help and I can't get the ceiling and the top of the wall. When I ask my husband about it his answer was "it's just mold coming through the paint".
Please help me. I want to be able to have my family visit.