Board 8 > My dad has a major hoarding problem.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Today, I had to help him clear out stuff in a storage unit he owns. He spends 350 dollars per month renting out multiple storage units so he can store stuff he considers to be too important to throw out. I threatened him that if we didn't make enough progress, I would take pictures of his unit and post them on the internet for jackasses to laugh at. I must now make good on that promise even though it is obviously pointless. If you want to see 150 boxes of every paper my dad has ever written or been given at work (this is just the physical papers, not emails or anything), here you go.

https://imgur.com/a/BFVDwkc

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If he can't name what's in a box before opening it, it should be trashed

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how important could they be with the boxes looking like that

floppies? isn't the storage space on those like 25 mb or something

Peace___Frog posted...

If he can't name what's in a box before opening it, it should be trashed

Believe me, I've had this conversation with him.

kateee posted...

how important could they be with the boxes looking like that

floppies? isn't the storage space on those like 25 mb or something

He owns a floppy disk reader and says he'll transfer the info one day. He's owned that reader for like 10 years or something.

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Hows dadagram feel about being shamed?

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Get him on that Hoarders tv show. He doesnt appear to have anything on those guys though

kateee posted...

how important could they be with the boxes looking like that

floppies? isn't the storage space on those like 25 mb or something

Most floppies don't even hold enough for an mp3.

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Small floppies are around 1.3 mb, I think?

No idea about big floppies but I'm guessing those are even less.
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Drakeryn posted...

Small floppies are around 1.3 mb, I think?

No idea about big floppies but I'm guessing those are even less.

double density is 1.44MB

5.25 are 700ish KB up to 1.2MB i think

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Anagram posted...

I threatened him that if we didn't make enough progress, I would take pictures of his unit and post them on the internet for jackasses to laugh at.

Is his counter to post you doing a flip into a pool?

I think he wins

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maybe its actually a procrastinating problem

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Lucavi000 posted...

1.44MB

hahahahaha

But what if he throws them away and ends up needing them later? Better safe than sorry.

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*RING RING*
"Hello it is the government, is this Anagram's dad"
"Oh Hi government, yes that is me"
"Do you happen to have the boot disc for Moneyworks 1992"
"No it was stolen because the locks I bought didn't fit on my storage unit"
"Sir you are under arrest"

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I think this is more packrat-grade. Hoarder implies a much more debilitating problem than a bunch of boxes in storage.
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That's not that bad really.
But it is wasted money

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Peace___Frog posted...

If he can't name what's in a box before opening it, it should be trashed

That's a interesting idea.

Every time I see my parents I try to get rid of crap they have. Boxes and boxes of cords to random electronics that don't even work, rubber bands, nails, etc

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Brayze_II posted...

*RING RING*
"Hello it is the government, is this Anagram's dad"
"Oh Hi government, yes that is me"
"Do you happen to have the boot disc for Moneyworks 1992"
"No it was stolen because the locks I bought didn't fit on my storage unit"
"Sir you are under arrest"

I wish.

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KingButz posted...

I think this is more packrat-grade. Hoarder implies a much more debilitating problem than a bunch of boxes in storage.

This is just one unit. He has a second unit, a garage, an office, a bedroom, and a janitorial closet with more stuff.

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$4200/year that could have been going to his retirement.

If that argument doesnt sway him he is beyond help.

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Yeah I get that there's more stuff that you haven't shown, but it's still not hoarding (let alone "major" hoarding) until the clutter starts to affect his ability to live a normal life.

Hoarders have s*** piled up in their house to the point where they can no longer have guests or use their kitchen or whatever.
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KingButz posted...

Yeah I get that there's more stuff that you haven't shown, but it's still not hoarding (let alone "major" hoarding) until the clutter starts to affect his ability to live a normal life.

Hoarders have s*** piled up in their house to the point where they can no longer have guests or use their kitchen or whatever.

You're a hoarder before you get to that point. Those are just the most extreme cases. Being a hoarder just effectively means you have an inability to get rid of stuff to an abnormal degree.

Otherwise it's like saying you're not a diabetic if you haven't lost a foot.

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In seriousness, I've started speaking frankly with my parents about this. I've watched my father and his siblings suffer rifling through all their parents' old junk, and when I think to the future when my parents are both gone, a nightmare starts. I've just told them. "We're cleaning this shit up while you're still here to help." Lol. Not as morbid as it might sound. But basically make it clear it's YOUR problem too and it's unfair for him to make it your problem, is my suggestion.

He should just pay someone $350 to transfer the data from the floppy disks AND scan the papers. I'm sure all those can fit in, like, a 500 GB HDD.

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StealThisSheen posted...

You're a hoarder before you get to that point. Those are just the most extreme cases. Being a hoarder just effectively means you have an inability to get rid of stuff to an abnormal degree.

Otherwise it's like saying you're not a diabetic if you haven't lost a foot.

Here's the DSM on it. Anagram's dad does not fit the profile.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t29/#:~:text=Table%203.29DSM-5

A habit of accumulating things doesn't make you a hoarder. Hoarders need to be keeping things that can have no possible use, e.g. broken appliances, garbage, random fliers, waste.

Also, the fact that he is willing to work at decluttering his storage space is a good indicator that he is not a hoarder.
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He may not have a hoarding disorder but he does happen to be in possession of a hoard of useless items.

i mean, it's pretty clear people are using the term colloquially and not exclusively referring to the extreme/actual disorder. it's still enough of an issue that it at the very least, inconveniences others around them.

KingButz posted...

Here's the DSM on it. Anagram's dad does not fit the profile.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t29/#:~:text=Table%203.29DSM-5

A habit of accumulating things doesn't make you a hoarder. Hoarders need to be keeping things that can have no possible use, e.g. broken appliances, garbage, random fliers, waste.

Also, the fact that he is willing to work at decluttering his storage space is a good indicator that he is not a hoarder.

You don't have to have the disorder to be a hoarder. Half the reason people become hoarders in the first place is because nobody tells them early on that they have a problem, so they keep hoarding more and keep getting more and more obsessive.

Going "he's not a hoarder if he doesn't fit the profile of the disorder" is a dismissive take that doesn't really help anything, because in practice it just gets worse and worse if you don't stop it early. You've gotta acknowledge the problem early before it actually becomes an extreme case.

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kateee posted...

how important could they be with the boxes looking like that

redrocket posted...

$4200/year that could have been going to his retirement.

These.

I had to clean out my dad's house after he died. When he knew he had cancer, he actually began to clean out some of the items, so apparently it wasn't even as bad as I had to work with. However, it still took me over two years to finally get rid of everything in a manner that I thought was respectful to his memory rather than just dumping everything wholesale. (And I did go through four dumpsters.)

My dad didn't save exclusively papers. He had a million jillion parts and scrap repair supplies and he was a ham radio enthusiast who used to owned a store and continued to buy and sell out of his basement. Still, he did keep all of his tax records and a great many other things. They were the easiest items in his collection for me to dispense with. Anything more than seven years old can be thrown out indiscriminately. There will be no legal repercussions. (Unless he thinks he's going to get sued for sexual harassment and needs to present the old e-mails from his secretary, but c'mon...)

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Believe me, I've tried the money argument as well. My dad will spend an hour fixing a minor electrical appliance to save five dollars, but presenting mathematical breakdowns of how much money he's wasted storing this crap (it's literally more than 110000 dollars, and that is not an exaggeration) have no effect.

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The money argument is legit. But other than that, I don't see the problem - if he likes having the stuff, let him keep it. It's not harming anyone (it's not like he's hoarding cats or rotting food or something like that), so it's not your lane to "stop it" or "acknowledge the problem" or whatever. I mean, you've made your opinion known, he's an adult with a different opinion and it's his stuff, so yeah.

Though I do like Raka's suggestion of hiring someone to digitize the collection. You could go further and have them scan all the documents too. Keeps them safe from further degradation and makes them more accessible! It's win-win!
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Drakeryn posted...

Though I do like Raka's suggestion of hiring someone to digitize the collection. You could go further and have them scan all the documents too. Keeps them safe from further degradation and makes them more accessible! It's win-win!

You guys realize that would take hundreds, if not thousands of man hours, right?

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I have this problem too. You know what - it's cheaper than a coffee habit.

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does it take that long to scan documents? idk at work we have one where you just put a stack of papers in the tray and it scans them all into a pdf, it's not like you have to individually tell it to scan each page

maybe I'm underestimating how much is in those boxes though
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Drakeryn posted...

The money argument is legit. But other than that, I don't see the problem - if he likes having the stuff, let him keep it. It's not harming anyone (it's not like he's hoarding cats or rotting food or something like that), so it's not your lane to "stop it" or "acknowledge the problem" or whatever. I mean, you've made your opinion known, he's an adult with a different opinion and it's his stuff, so yeah.

I mean at some point it very well could turn into his problem specifically, and if it just gets worse between now and then, it becomes a bigger and bigger problem. And even before that, it could become a problem with the dad if money ever became an issue in the future and he's still paying for storage units of trash. Or if his hoarding tendencies grow, and so on.

"They like the stuff, just let 'em do what they want" is one of the worst possible approaches you can take with somebody that is showing hoarding tendencies because hoarding can blossom into a number of bigger problems.

EDIT: Now it's not Anagram's lane to trash the stuff himself, that much is true. But not speaking up and trying to take steps to get his dad to get rid of the stuff himself would be irresponsible.

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I still think that's presumptuous if there's no sign of it being an actual hoarding problem. Like, I have stuff that I don't strictly need (old consoles/games, books that I'm probably never going to re-read, etc.) but whatever, it's fine. If someone was like "you know, you don't need all that stuff" I'd be like "probably not, but oh well." But if they started getting pushy about it, that would be out of line - they're my things and I can do what I want with them.
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Drakeryn posted...

I still think that's presumptuous if there's no sign of it being an actual hoarding problem.

I'd say spending $110,000 on storage units for papers and stuff on floppy disks he doesn't actually need is a definite sign of an actual hoarding problem. Especially since it's multiple storage units and apparently multiple rooms of his house.

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metaIslug posted...

Did you put an extra zero or something? Because if that number is true that's tragic. You could have bought a house for that much

No extra zeroes. Talking to him mathematically is infuriating.

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HashtagSEP posted...

I'd say spending $110,000 on storage units for papers and stuff on floppy disks he doesn't actually need is a definite sign of an actual hoarding problem. Especially since it's multiple storage units and apparently multiple rooms of his house.

Wait,
It's 350 a month
That would be 26 years of paying that price.

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I can definitely see $110k for that over some decades. It's actually a lot more because if you just took that money and steadily bought into an index fund, I think you'd probably be looking at more like $300k.

But I mean, you can make the same argument with a lot of stuff. If I cut out XYZ expense and invested the money, I'd have a lot more money now. That's the nature of savings.

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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

Wait,
It's 350 a month
That would be 26 years of paying that price.

Makes sense considering the floppy disks.

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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

Wait,
It's 350 a month
That would be 26 years of paying that price.

He originally had a more expensive unit, but he transferred the stuff to the new unit because it was cheaper.

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Drakeryn posted...

I still think that's presumptuous if there's no sign of it being an actual hoarding problem. Like, I have stuff that I don't strictly need (old consoles/games, books that I'm probably never going to re-read, etc.) but whatever, it's fine. If someone was like "you know, you don't need all that stuff" I'd be like "probably not, but oh well." But if they started getting pushy about it, that would be out of line - they're my things and I can do what I want with them.

Drakeryn is a hoarder, confirmed.

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I can't imagine paying as much for a storage unit as you could get a cheap apartment for unless it was, like, super easy access and climate controlled and considerably more space than the implied dirthole studio apartment. Then again, I can't imagine paying for storage units at all, unless you've got special circumstances.

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an apartment for $350 wtf

I pay $1100 for a small one-bedroom with a long commute and I thought that was pretty decent

(though it's true, I can't imagine myself paying for a storage unit absent special circumstances)
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