Reply to Frugal hoarder relatives constantly pushing used items

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Read up on hoarding--this is pretty classic behavior, including the asking about items she gave others, because of the severe attachment to things. I recommend, "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things."

If you are ever going to convince her to give things to charity or anything else, you'll need to do it through the lens of her own distorted thinking, not logic as it seems to you. And that's very, very hard. You might find that it's not worth the personal emotional cost to dive that deep into her way of thinking--it may be better to simply say no and even to limit visits to her house with the kids rather than be involved in the situation.

What's the long term outcome here? You say she has storage on someone else's property...is there a deadline? Is there anything of actual financial or emotional value to salvage? Because it seems unlikely she will complete the task on her own--and there are companies that specialize in hoarding clean-ups. Realistically, if she's legally required to get her stuff out of a place she doesn't own, that's where this is headed--and she may face paying thousands for it (or else the property owner will).[/quote]

OP - on the long term outcome since she knows that she will incur thousands in fines and she can not stand to spend money on anything, I think that eventually she will get rid of it. She has plenty of money and she could rent an actual storage unit off property to keep everything. She can't bring herself to pay for a storage unit though and says that she is getting rid of everything unless she can find some way to get around the code violation for which there really is no way around it. Its pretty clear that her units are not on her property and she does not have the space to move them onto her property.She did get an extension but that should run out by the end of the month.

We have been clear that she can not move her storage units and stash to our property. We have been clear that we will happily help her take things to Goodwill or the dump but will not take any of these home. She has been trying to sell things to other relatives and gives some things away to relatives that she perceives she wants something from or who she perceives does things for her (ha, ha lucky us).

She perceives that these items and storage units are worth over 100K. This is completely delusional. An old bra that you probably got at a garage sale or thrift store 30 years ago is not worth $60  because the full retail cost of a new one from a higher end brand is $60 -but this is how she thinks. She wants $60 for it or $60 worth of some favor in return which is I guess why she keeps rejecting efforts to get it all to a charity and be done with it.

I'll just keep declining and offering to take it to Goodwill. It is not a good idea to pretend we want it and then throw it away or donate it in secret. This will only bring a avalanche of stuff along with extreme anger when she finds out what we did. She will look for it. She'll also see these gifts as coming with strings. I'm more than happy to help a relative throw things out and chip in the physical labor to do it.  I'm not OK having to maintain a huge facade that we somehow have this stuff hidden somewhere in our small house and that we are now in debt to her for all these things. [/quote]

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