So, does the advice to store two years' worth of food & supplies encourage hoarding?

I need your Mormon hoarding horror stories. I'm a longtime reader of RFM/student of Mormonism, and I'm currently helping my hoarder friend pack up to move to a smaller place. My friend, conveniently for her, had a vacation scheduled a year in advance and has left me here alone to deal with it. She's also a nevermo but had a mother who was also a hoarder.

Last night I cleaned out a kitchen cupboard full of rotten, half-full bags of snack foods. The odor was appalling, but I thought I was dealing with it -- until I stopped for the night and brushed my teeth and triggered my sensitive gag reflex. A wave of overwhelming nausea hit me and was followed by the most violent vomiting of my life. I now know, firsthand, that there really is such a thing as projectile vomiting.

I need to hear stories that remind me I'm not alone. Tell me about dumping expired stored food, or cleaning out a Mormon hoarder's house. And do you think Mormonism inadvertently encourages it?

I've noticed that there have been several Mormon families on the hoarders shows.

Greyfort Wrote:
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> I've noticed that there have been several Mormon
> families on the hoarders shows.


How did you know they were Mormon? I watch the Hoarder series (but not regularly) and haven't noticed any outright Mormonism.

Hoarding of food stuffs but not containers of wheat for example.

I know one was for sure because there was a big fight over the family geneology work. The mom was the hoarder and told the daughter she didn't have it. The daughter found it during the clean up and a huge fight ensued.

Saw that one. Mormons, for sure.

I've been in mormon homes that were so full of garbage and filth that I wouldn't eat anything that came from that house. Really disgusting. Sad part was the kids. They all looked raggedy and smelled like that horrible mess they lived in. Heart breaking.

There was one Mormon house in Penn. with a large family. Dirty clothing was everywhere--the bathtub was full of smelly laundry. No one in the house bathed, so it stank like a bear cave. The father wore filthy suits to church with wide bands of sweat stains under the armpits. The kids couldn't understand why I didn't want to enter their home. It really is sad.

In Martha Beck's book, "Leaving the Saints," she talks about how embarrassed she was by the smelly piles of junk everywhere in her house. It's quite obvious, from her description, that the Nibleys were hoarders.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2014 07:49PM by fiona64.

I think the mother was chronically depressed and neither she nor her husband could handle that many kids in a small home.

He was showing me around. There was this HUGE storage room under the house. I think the thing that shocked me the most was a box of bras from the 1960s--labeled. His sisters had to clean out the house when they died. It didn't look like the houses on hoarders, but it was bad enough. They handed out old food storage. The dates on the food were also 1960s.

Anyone see Dr. Phil today? I got the vibe from them that they may be Mormons, but the mother was a dentist, so maybe not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2014 07:24PM by cl2.

Fortunately there's a channel here that rebroadcasts Dr. Phil a day later, and in the evening, so hopefully I'll catch it tomorrow night.

I know dentist's that are hoarders. It doesn't show at work, because they have people who keep the office over the top clean. It's when they get home that the piles of stuff grow. Garages, shops, rented warehouses full of stuff to the rafters.

I've know some very wealthy people that are hoarders. You don't have to be poor to have the problem.

this is true, My dad is VERY wealthy

my dads a hoarder! He doesn't hoard gross stuff though, he is very sanitary, but he LOVES his junk. It took us nearly a week to move him out of his last house he just had SO much stuff. I understand why he is that way though. He grew up extremely poor in a Mormon household with 12 kids they couldn't afford. So when he did well for himself, he went over the top.

Both of my parents grew up very poor, and they love to spend money, but they're also clean-freaks. My dad has a higher tolerance for clutter than my mom, so he has a workshop full of stuff, but my mom's stuff is all neatly packed in boxes. Neither one of them can stand filth, fortunately. (They're divorced and have their hoards in different places now.)

My friend's mother died in January, and they're still cleaning out her house, which was not just packed to the gills, but filthy and in poor repair. About once every ten years for the last thirty years, the kids have forcibly removed her from the house to have it professionally cleaned & rehabbed, but they never dealt with the psychological issues, so it didn't take long for the clutter & filth to reaccummulate.

As a teenager, my friend tried to keep the family home clean, but now I'm watching her turn into her mother. She's had a clutter problem for a long time, but she's clearly gotten worse since the last time I was here, almost two years ago. This is the second time I've moved her, BTW. The first time, three years ago, was pretty bad, but she's been in a place about twice as large as the previous one and I swear there's three to four times as much stuff in here. And this time -- actual filth.

I'm trying to clean up her mess but also think longer-term about how to help her change, which means convincing her to seek professional help. She has seen therapists on & off since her late teens, so she doesn't object to therapy in general, but I'm afraid convincing her to address this problem specifically is going to be difficult.

I don't know any hoarders, mormon or not. Btw, it's one year of food storage not two. Even one year of food though, IMO, is hoarding.

Still, I really don't think food storage and hoarding like you see on tv are related.

Back in the 1950s it was 2 years supply. Now they call for 3 months, but most people still refer to their year's supply.

one of my fav episodes of hoarders is the one featuring the Mormon family. The daughter went absolutely apeshit about a folder of geneology her mom forgot about. It was epic.

My grandpa had a huge box of oysters from the late '70's and fed them to the wild cats on his property... They were never seen alive again. Also, they had powdered country time lemonade that was so old it was brown and he insisted we make and drink it, do not ever try this at home!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2014 07:56PM by brandywine.

I'm laughing, but I do feel sorry for the feral cats. Death by turned oysters? Ugh.

Cat got your tongue? Nope, because bad oysters got them. The sad thing was my grandpa couldn't figure out why the cats didn't come back,and my cousin that lives with him wasn't sure what to say. I think it was shortly after that they got him a pet cat. Luckily the new cat is still alive 12 or so years later.

My parents are borderline hoarders. They had a lot of kids like the brethren counseled, and for some reason they were always poor after paying tithing and all of the bills that go with a large family. We used things until they were totally worn out, but even then my parents wouldn't always throw things out. The last time I visited, I noticed my parents still had the worn out shoes I wore in the mid 90s. Books and papers piled on most of the counters and tables. Food storage in the basement, along with broken toys and worn out clothes.

I don't know what role, if any, Moism plays in the hoarding. They do clean up when the home teachers visit (move the piles around), so it isn't all bad.

Compulsive hoarding is a mental illness. Doctors have recently identified it as a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder, although there are some who disagree with that classification. Still, it is widely recognized as a mental disorder. No religion "causes" it.

Having said that, though, some mental disorders can be brought to the forefront by the environment. Anorexia nervosa is an example. The Mormon church has many elements that could bring out hoarding tendencies.

What other religion literally tells followers to stockpile food? If your way of life is modeled on 1800s pioneer/farm life, you'll keep everything because anything could come in handy. If you have 5 kids and might have 3 more, you'll hold onto baby clothes. And if you're broke, you might be afraid to throw out something you can't replace.

None of this "causes" hoarding, but it could sure bring it to the surface.

Father is a survivalist hoarder. His motto: "never get rid of anything because Murphy's Law says you will need it again".

I have spent the past 15 years of my life moving and shifting dad's endless amount of hoarded crap from one residence and storage unit to another. When he ran out of places to put it, he would spend thousands more on building supplies to build places to put said crap. And bought a semi-truck to haul said crap 1/4 way across USA. Finally, just bought some shipping containers. And filled those. And built more storage sheds. And barns. And then rented a storage unit.

Thought the world was going to end one year and cashed out retirement funds to buy 7+ years of food storage. Filled two entire rooms floor to ceiling with buckets of wheat and potato pearls.

Hoarding is traumatic.

Grandma was as TBM as one can get and she was a hoarder.

The oldest of 13 children, a single mother of 5 in the 50's and 60's because Grandpa left her for another woman.

She had a good job and was able to take care of herself after the kids started leaving the house, but still couldn't bring herself to waste anything. It wasn't too bad when I was younger and would spend a week or two with her in the summer. The last time I went to her house there were boxes stacked floor to ceiling in every room and a neatly kept pathway through the house. It took the family TWO YEARS to clean it out.

Hoarding: a true story

Many years ago, my TBM dad and stepmonster came to Florida to visit me. I took them to a nearby National Forest and we drove around, checking things out. We found a trailhead, parked the car, got out and started wandering around. Well, in North Florida, we have these Longleaf Pine trees that drop enormous pine cones. Huge pine cones -- like 8" long. Well. My stepmom spotted huge pine cones all over the place and her little RS crafty eyes lit right up. She started digging through the trunk of the car until she found a couple of plastic grocery bags. She handed them to my dad and I and instructed us to go collect as many as we could fit in the bags.

I was rolling my eyes because this was like collecting dandelions or crab grass to me. We were picking up KINDLING as far as I was concerned. My stepmonster has some significant hearing loss, so dad and I didn't have to wander all that far away before we were out of earshot. We were kvetching and mumbling to each other.

Finally, I said, "This is so ridiculous. You and I both know she is never going to do any crafts with these things. Ten or twenty years from now, all y'all are going to move house and I will bet you that you will move these stupid pine cones, where they will sit in a bag or a box in some closet somewhere, amirite?" Dad rolled his eyes and laughed because he knew I was totally right and we were completely wasting our time with the pine cone collection.

Fast forward about 10 years. Dad and Stepmonster have sold their house and are moving. Dad calls me from his cellphone as he's moving the last load over to the new place.

"Well, I'm moving the last load. We're almost done!"

"That's great dad! I can't wait to see the new place. Say, tell me..."

"Yeah?"

"Um. Did you move the pine cones? I know they are still there. You moved them, didn't you?"

A few beats of silence.

"Yeeeaaah, I moved the damn pine cones."

And then we laughed ourselves silly. That was at least 5-10 years ago and I PROMISE you, those stupid pine cones are STILL in the house somewhere. I visited a couple years ago and my stepmom happened to be having a garage sale that day. I carefully inspected all the tables and wares she had on display, but I did not see the pine cones.

My friends keep encouraging me to go get some more and make some glitter-covered craft monstrosity and SEND IT TO HER FOR CHRISTMAS, which my dad and I would find hilarious. Every time I think about it, I go clean out a closet or something. ;>)

I remember the first time I was in a hoarder's house. A sibling was about to get married and I was visiting with them at the soon-to-be parents-in-law's house (who are TBM). The area where we sat was 'normal' but I remember passing a room shortly after entering the house; the door was cracked open just enough that I could see piles of stuff - literally a foot from the ceiling - in that room.

When I asked my sibling about it afterward I thought maybe they'd just moved and hadn't gotten around to unpacking yet. I was told they'd been in their house for over 20 years. Their case has been fortunate in some ways - I think because of one of the spouse's insistence, they do manage to keep the kitchen, powder room, and a few couches and chairs totally clear for occasional visits from friends or family - as well as their bedroom ('somewhat' is the report). However, apparently all the other rooms in the house (and the garage) are packed to the gills and completely unusable. The mother-in-law occasionally has garage sales but nothing much has changed in the decade plus since my sibling married into that family.

I discovered a few years ago that my TBM mom is a borderline hoarder. I had to convince her - gently - why she didn't need to keep the dozen or so boxes crammed in one closet of their house. They were filled with neatly organized bank records going back 20 years, for accounts that had long been closed, as well as other completely useless documentation like stubs of electric, telephone and water bills that had been paid each month for houses they'd lived in 10, 15, 17 and over 20 years ago (my parents moved us a lot growing up).

Luckily, her hoarding tendencies haven't gotten out of control and she's pretty organized. But those boxes were a bit of a wake up call and ever since then my siblings and I try to keep an eye on how much 'stuff' she keeps that she doesn't need to.

Both my sibling and I who are aware of our mom's hoarding issues and who know about the in-laws' hoarding make it a point to go through our 'stuff' every year and if there are items we haven't used in at least 2 years and that do not have deep sentimental value, we donate them.

The brand of mormonism I grew up in definitely encouraged hoarding. We were constantly told that when Jesus comes back there will be no food in the shops and nothing else to buy. You had to store it all up in advance. I used to hate driving past closed stores on Sundays - it triggered a fear of impending doom in me (which is precisely what the cult wants you to feel).

My TBM parents have no hoarding tendencies, but my in-laws, who went through some very tough times in WWII and its aftermath, hate to throw things away because they might be needed in the future. I think going through hard times - poverty, war, disaster - makes it more difficult to throw away items that might come in handy. An old chair might be kindling or be traded to a neighbor for food...

I know others with parents who survived the war in places that were bombed, with similar effects.

It would be funny, if it were not so depressing .
BF and I cringe laughing anyway because most of this stuff sounds so familiar....
But to be serious ya we know these hoarding tendencies especially in my family who had faced the aftermath of war. So here comes 2 unhealthy things together.

In my parents' case, I believe it was growing up poor during the Great Depression and World War II that triggered the hoarding. As children, they were taught to make do with anything they had, and to save everything because it could possibly be of use at some point.

The LDS Welfare Program was started in 1936.

Hoarding is a sign of mental illness. From what experts have seen, it is usually triggered by some sort of loss or fear of loss/catastrophe.

Most of the people on the Hoarders show had a need to collect to make them happy, to control others, or hold on to something they lost/might lose. It is a really twisted, inefficient way of control.

In Mormonism, EVERYTHING about your life is controlled from ChurchInc. Mormonism BREEDS fear. Fear of being alone, hungry, sick, or unworthy. (Funny how no one fears being unhappy, poor, or micromanaged!)

I think Hoarding in Mormonism can manifest out of fear or out of trying to take CONTROL of their lives.

I have seen Hoarding in LDS homes come in a few form.

*Really bad Food Storage. Afraid to use anything "incase something happens" and afraid to throw it out..even if it could make you sick or kill you!

*Years of Ensign Magazines. Because you never know when the urge to read a 1982 talk on the prophet will hit you.

*Stocks of fabric. Because in a disaster quilt making will be paramount.

*Shoes. This was just for practical reasons of having 5 kids. Sadly, most of them were horribly worn out and most of the kids that got the handmedowns developed foot issues.

*My ex had a thing for hoarding food, tools, garments, anything with BYU on it (even tho NOT alumni) and any newspaper clipping regarding CHURCHINC. (even if he never read it!)

I would toss the old food, dispose of his old/nasty garments THE RIGHT WAY, and "lose" the clippings. When we divorced, half of our garage was boxes of this stuff. He had moved out 3 years prior to selling the house. I asked him for 3 years to clear out his stuff in the garage. It needed to go and he kept finding ways to not deal with it.

So, one day I opened the garage and dragged it all out on the driveway. I called him and said..weather forecast said it looks like rain in a day or two. He freaked because he said he had no where to put the stuff. Not my problem. He had to face dealing with it or it went to the dump.

He was livid and threatened to call the police on me! I told him, please DO. Another empty threat. He ended up coming over and loading up 3-4 carloads of stuff and dumping the rest in my trashcan, screaming and moaning the entire time. I am sure it was very stressful, because hoarders fall apart with decisions like that, and NO ONE HELPED HIM.

Also, when all that stuff was cleared out, I found two dead and smothered RATS where boxes had shifted and flattened them. Tons of his stuff was destroyed by the rats. I swept out a BUCKET of poop. All his stuff was blocking an area in the garage where the rats busted a screen and came in for the winter. I cleared all the ex's stuff out because I saw evidence of rats breaking into the food storage of the ex.

I cleared out the garage, fixed the vent MYSELF, and got it all neat and clean for sale. He never acknowledged that I was doing this for health and sale reasons..it was just all about him and his sacred collectables.



RMM

You don't need to be Mormon to collect stuff. My dad used to go around to where old houses were being torn down and bring home to our one acre place piles of used lumber. my job was to remove the nails and straighten them out for re-use. Our house was built with this material, although my bedroom did have new sheet rock. My brother carried on the tradition and when he died an industrial size dumpster had to be used to carry away metal desks, mahogany doors,old tar paper, used cardboard boxes,paint cans, and travel trailers. all of this junk was either purchased, or picked up by the side of the road. he could not pass by a piece of plywood.
My apartment has no extras, and it could all fit in one small pickup truck on the way to landfill when I depart.

I know hoarding is not exclusive to any group, but I often wondered if Mormonism feeds hoarding. Both my MIL and FIL were hoarders...and I know MIL did the food storage thing for awhile (replaced by other hoarded items). DW says only MIL was a hoarder, FIL was just a slob. Bull$hit, I say. Well, neither one of them brought all that $hit to the grave, and my crazy MIL, who disowned her family when they wouldn't enable her, wound up with all her precious possessions thrown in the dumpster by the stranger who bought her pre-foreclosed house.

I have hoarding tendencies.

My mom was raised in the Great Depression (she was 49 when I was born) and raised me as such. My father was a class B hoarder.

However, I realize my issues and actively deal with it by getting rid of stuff. I donate/give away as often as I can, but my trunk would tell you otherwise.

I have learned to "hoard" things that are small and can be contained in boxes. Also, I hoard things of genuine value (sterling, gems, good crystal etc). I never understood hoarding newspaper.

Also, my bestie keeps me in check, sometimes with great language.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2014 11:51AM by Levi.

I'm heading in this direction. I have a Paper Problem. Piles of papers everywhere. I do move them out of sight a few times a year (when I entertain.) But do I go through them? NO. I really need to do something different, or I will be in the same boat as some of these hoarders. It's so hard for me to throw things away! With paper, especially, it's not so much the throwing-away part, but the decisions that I have to make to sort and organize.