Hello Bethincarolina

I empathize with your dilemma. But probably not that unusual with certain hoarders. I think this goes beyond a lot of stuff.

Anyway hoarders are like many addicts and will try to hide or minimize their addiction for as long as they can. They become good actors and learn how to play/fool certain people.

The hoarder here had several rooms for locked up tight when visiting for years. You knew something was off but didn't question then several years ago her hoard spread to the rest of the place. Throw in stuff left in others homes, storage unitS for over a decade it wasn't a leap to figure out what she was. Before you know it she was getting cited(suffering legal consequences).

Just like the addict they have to admit they're an addict and want to change. The big thing is try to stay clear of their situation and offer them help if they want it. But one can enable a hoarder too which we've been accused of here simply by helping them clean up.

Help the person, don't get involved with their stuff.

Good Luck!

I have an older brother who I've had a falling out with a number of years ago, we both just went about our own lives. We kept in contact some but that faded to where we haven't even spoke the past few.

Yesterday a cousin of ours asked me about a company he had started the last I'd known and I didn't have the information so I google searched it. The site was down and couldn't find really anything so I scrolled a bit more and a link caught my eye. I thought it was something about the company but instead it was about my brother and a house he had rented at some point.

It had a long story written then a link to photos and video... everything was posted four years ago...

My first instinct was to be grossed out and then angry. My next was my stomach sank and I can't help but wonder how he loved like this.

He's been renting a one bedroom apartment and was getting evicted for non payment. The landlord found the house destroyed... there was trash left behind all over the living room, everything coated in urine. There were litter boxes overflowing, there were just bags of litter dumped on the floor for the cats to use on the floor. The bedroom had random trash and clothes and a dirty mattress on the floor, the closet was full of feces and trash on the ground. The bathroom had feces human and animal on the floor, on the toilet, on the sink, on the walls. TJte landlord said there were just rags on the ground like that's what he cleaned himself with as the bathtub was just in horrible shape. Water was left in the kitchen sink, counters had cat droppings, fridge had rotting food, thefloor was as bad as everywhere else.

The internet is a tricky place but I knew it was him. I reconginized things he'd left behind that he's collected, I knew the water bottles everywhere reeked of him, the mail boxes because he used to buy and shop on eBay all the time as one of his other businesses at the time. I knew the 3d puzzle he left on a table broken.

My mind just tried to imagine how this happened. How would he let a place get that bad, how would he have animals live like that, how would he live there eat there sleep there? How could he use the floor/walls as a bathroom and think that's ok? I thought about our mother in heaven and wondered how he could do that with that in mind. I wondered how could he come home to this and just be okay with it.... just walk around, sit around all of this.... even if he didn't stay there all the time just anytime at all should've been enough to know it's not ol.

He had never been the cleanest person but never in a million years had anything ever been that bad. Not growing up, not when I'd ever visited him when he'd moved out on his own, not when I lived with him before for a short time.

I could recognize things like the bottles everywhere and the boxes but this was another level.

He's always been the golden child, he was great in school, he's had many jobs where he's just always had tons of money and knows how to move up everywhere. He's owned several of his own businesses over the years. At this time when everything in this house was going on he had two jobs, very sociable jobs. How did no one notice I wonder? He was throwing endless events at clubs and social gatherings.... how would he do all that then come home to filth?

I saw him once six months after this had apparently happened. I had scrubbed my house top to bottom and felt intimated lettinghim meet my family and see our small house. He came with his very accomplished VETENARIAN girlfriend who he'd been living with for basically since that video had been taken and seemed happy. They were together years after this until just recently they broke up according to our dad.

I have no idea if this was like some one time really bad thing that happened, if it's been going on before and after or even now. I don't know who to talk to. I don't want to tell our family because that's embarrassing and we aren't close and he doesn't talk to anyone either. In their minds he's done nothing wrong ever. I don't want to shatter that. I don't want my friends to know. I have no idea what to even say.

I don't know if he needs help or did or who you would even go to for this or how to start some conversation about it. We haven't said a single word in so many years now. Maybes it's all in the past but it's something I just learned about and I'm feeling lost and confused