Are they still holed up in their well-guarded compounds, living off their hoarded groceries and toilet paper? Or are they back in the supermarkets with everybody else?
Hoarding happened everywhere during the early days of the pandemic. It wasn't just Utah. People were afraid, and supply chains were disrupted. I live in Maryland, and if you went to Wal-Mart, entire aisles were wiped out. At first it was toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Then it was staples like pasta and soup. After that, it was fresh meat.
Thankfully now, things are more or less back to normal. The only thing that is still in short supply are disinfectants and cleaning supplies.
Right. There's a difference between prepping, hoarding, and what we experienced this year, panic buying. Hoarding is a psychological problem, a dysfunction, just keeping things for the sake of keeping them. Panic buying is short-term, the fear that toilet paper won't be available. It then becomes a vicious circle, sort of a self-ulfilling group prophesy. Prepping is the fear of serious cataclysm (environmental, economic, political, religious...)
Ultra rich buy land in New Zealand, Some buy retired missile silos and reconfigure them. There are all sorts of styles and degrees of prepping for disaster--and RfM has had threads on them. (Tip of the hat to DavetheAtheist.)
Hoarding is a bit more than keeping something just for the sake of keeping it. It often stems from a trauma but not always. Hoarders often keep things for sentimental reasons such as a child, spouse, parent who has died and they feel that a connection still exists if they keep all their possessions or a fear that they will forget about the loved one if they throw away their things. Another reason is the belief that everything has value. A stick might be needed for starting a fire someday so they keep all the twigs in the yard. An empty coffee can might have a use for storing odd objects like screws or material scraps. Remember some people have been through periods of severe poverty or deprivation at one time or other. And collecting things because one remembers how much they paid and they know they won't get the same price for it if they sell it so they keep all used things even if they no longer work. It's a psychological fear syndrome that goes a bit (or a lot) out of control and they go too far. This is a complicated disorder.
My mother had a hard time getting rid of canned goods. She seemed to believe that once something was canned it was good forever. I found canned goods she had saved from when her mother died and she still thought they were edible. I opened them just to see and they had all turned to black goo. I only knew what they were by their label. Strange because in our family she's the most sane of any of us. Now you have a better picture of ME!
It was occupied by an elder parent who became intransigently "independent" as he aged. All sorts of stuff. Beth--would you like a 1930 edition of "Poultry" magazine in readable condition? How about glassware given out by gas stations with fill-ups from the 1960s--remember those?
Plus clutter, clutter, clutter. And yes, Pooped, pantry shelves with long-expired canned goods. A barn full of well-seasoned lumber and old tools and implements. A mid-1960s Ford tractor like I drove when I worked on a farm!
Lots of this stuff has collector value. I'm encouraging my son (it's primarily his purchase) to set up an eBay business. How do we determine the value of boxes of 1920s and 30s saved mail with old STAMPED envelopes? These are addressed to "John Smith, (Town), (State). No street address!
We'll go through this stuff carefully, as there's no telling if there's a stash of old stock or bond certificate, cash, collectible coins. Who knows?
I saw a pick-up loaded with Costco TP, I think the driver was visiting his red-neck buddies that day; I wonder: who has room to store mass quantities of TP? I don't!!!
I have friends in eastern Oregon. When somebody goes into Boise, they buy for family and neighbors. There's a difference between stocking up and prepping.