Reply to Parents are hoarders, don't understand why I don't want their junk

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just take it and throw it out immediately. Don't even bring it in your home. Unfortunately there's not much you can do to change them.[/quote]

+1 Both my parents were/are hoarders but of different things.  (My dad came of age in the time of The Great Depression, so he hoarded everything…rubber bands, cottage cheese cartons.  Mom is a Costco and garage sale hoarder, and anything like furniture a neighbor gives away or wants to sell)

A hoarder cannot throw away their hoard.  It's like a squirrel knowing where every nut is hidden.  Every piece is special to them, and tagged for who should get it, and if that person doesn't want it, then who Person B is who should get it…etc.

So you take it and throw it out.  Say "thank you; my friend Larla will love this!" or "I'll put it in my (imaginary) storage unit until February!!" blah blah  then throw it out.

If they come to your place, they actually might not ask you about it because once a piece is out of their hoard in a way that is acceptable to them, they relax about that piece and actually may forget that it's supposed to be at your place.

So while I agree with the general sentiment to keep your boundary and say no, in this situation if you want them to downsize, you've got to say yes.

However; be forewarned that it might be better for them to move to the smaller place FIRST, rather than get rid of their junk to move into the smaller place.  This is because you can clear out a whole room and make it look fantastic, and when you come back the following week they've gone out and brought in more stuff to clutter it up.  The empty space causes anxiety in them so they go fill it.  I once spent an entire summer turning my mom's condo (that she had moved out of) into a space worthy of a bed-and-breakfast situation, only to return two months later to see that she had brought in a piano and two desks; you couldn't even open the windows…

And OP what this situation does help with is my own resolve that I will never foist this problem on my own children![/quote]

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