Dealing with a hoarder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the hoarder sibling your brother/sister or your aunt/uncle? Are you putting the house on the market? Set a deadline and handle the donation bags yourself.

Thanks.

Parent is still alive and owns the house but lives somewhere else. Hoarder is sibling.

Yes, parent wants to sell.

OP

Sibling doesn’t want to get kicked out so is stalling all this. What’s the plan for the sibling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the hoarder sibling your brother/sister or your aunt/uncle? Are you putting the house on the market? Set a deadline and handle the donation bags yourself.

Thanks.

Parent is still alive and owns the house but lives somewhere else. Hoarder is sibling.

Yes, parent wants to sell.

OP

Does sibling also live there?

Nothing to add, really. My SIL is a hoarder, my brother works a lot and basically ignores it. I asked him last week if she still shops as much as she used to and he said no. Which means that, say, the 20 boxes of cereal crammed into the bathroom closet must me 10-15 years old. When I visit once or twice a year, I sleep on the couch. I peeked in their guest bedroom last visit and pile of clothes on the bed nearly reached the ceiling. I wonder when the kitchen cabinets are just going to fall off the walls because of the weight, but it's been enough years I guess they are well bolted to studs. But the shelves all sag. There is zero counter space (yet she does cook a full dinner every night, there's no separate dining room, you just push the stuff on the table out of the way.

My brother (TBI) is a hoarder but is somewhat agoraphobic and retired on disability about 8 years ago. So he doesn't acquire stuff, but he keeps junk mail, things like empty frozen pizza boxes, ragged shirts. I cleaned out a mountain of junk mail some years back. Had to check every piece which took an entire afternoon. Also got rid of the canned goods that were more than 5 years old. Just those tasks were arduous.

I also know elderly extreme hoarders. There is now a tax assessment against their house due to cleanups the city did on the exterior a few years ago. They can't afford to pay the assessment. Come June they will be receiving a notice of tax foreclosure. I've tried helping them, but 3 hours to fill 2 boxes with old phone books and duplicate 15 year old copies of a local free newspaper only to see the old man resist them being removed, can't do it. Plus their recycling bin is filled with steel bearings he's saving. So they save recyclables to take to a local recycling business (penny a pound for paper, doesn't pay for the gas), which can take months to accomplish. Going to be the city's task to deal with it.

I'd say, see if your parent can give you a POA then hire someone. Or maybe just hire someone, hoarders are not good at carrying out tasks like challenging an action in court.