I'd be mortified, too, Mel, but he took it in stride. Find a way to take it in stride, too. And give a little extra love to him and his cats tonight--all three of them are helping you out! He knows you've been overwhelmed.

This summer I had a friend come to my house, hadn't seen her in a dozen years. I was well into my dehoarding when she came here. I'd cleaned my kitchen (or so I thought) and had gotten rid of scads of dishes, pots and pans, junk, stuff. I wiped down a the cabinets, used pretty linen napkins for shelf paper. The first morning that she was here, she got up at 4:30 AM and cleaned my kitchen. It sparkled. And she cleaned out the roundy-round cabinet that I hadn't touched. She made a big bag of the expired food and re-stocked it with cleaning supplies. The next morning she cleaned out my fridge--every shelf, door, etcetera sparkled. And I wasn't embarrassed and I didn't feel bad because she said, you are so busy and you don't have time and if you had the time, you would do it. And I decided to tell myself she's right. (Even though we all know that's not my issue). She also taught me some tips for keeping the kitchen clean. And I'm doing them every night.

So, your boyfriend knows you've been busy and overwhelmed so he did it. How nice. And do you know what, Mel? You deserve this kindness and understanding. You are wonderful and sweet and loving.

mel it's ok. You're doing it together. He's supporting you. His work does not diminish your work or your intentions. You are growing. You are changing. You are learning about working with someone. He's telling you you don't have to do it all yourself.

So there was this cabinet in my kitchen where the mice had clearly been partying it up for years. The stuff that was there was my grandma's and I never cleaned it out or did anything with it (so everything in there was at least 14 years old). In the last few weeks I threw away 90% of the stuff that was in there but when I was done I was going to go in there with wipes and a vacuum and pull out the paper lining so it would be much cleaner. My boyfriend wanted to store the pots and pans there so I was planning on working on it this week. He texted me just now that he cleaned it out and the garbage is next to the garage. I'm embarrassed and horrified, I can only imagine what he found in there. I feel like I've hidden some of how bad it was from him and now that he's seen it he's going to see me differently. Just really freaked out right now. 🙁

Wow, Mel! This certainly moved fast! I hope you and your boyfriend continue with the progress--do you feel less alone in your struggles? I recently have had help from my brother , which is amazing on many levels. He is mentally and physically ill and has a lot of struggles. He is suddenly very interested in helping me out. The last two decades with my brother have been hell on earth. I feel like my hard work in finding doctors and fighting Medicare and fighting for this and for that and finding safe and decent housing , etc, has paid off. First, it's great to see him feeling better and second , it's a relief to have some help. He was very good when I started dehoarding. We made it a project to go to goodwill together. It got him out of his house, it got junk out of my house, and he felt like he was contributing ( which he was). Now that he's added it up in his brain that we could have a better Christmas if we got rid of storage payment....well, he really can't be stopped. My sister (with whom I've been estranged pretty much since I was a teen) suddenly is appreciative of all I've been saddled with and has made many trips to help me. She has an entire waterproof shed on her property that she says I can put whatever I want in there. So I am lucky that people (and truly the most unexpected people) are here for me. My goal is to have very little in the storage shed.

And everyone here, you have started me down this road and continue to cheer me on. I am lucky.

Thank you all. Really touched by the support you provide me.

Wow, so much to catch up on in 24 hours, that's great! 🙂

Tillie, again a HUGE WELCOME BACK!!! 😀

Tillie, you're back!!! {{{BIG HUGS}}} I have missed you so much!!

I look forward to seeing more of your nature tales, your unwavering support and your excellent advice! 😀

Tillie !!!!!!! Great to hear from you! GREAT job on the tree! Congratulations! That is progress! Take good care of yourself today. I'm sure you are hurting all over. What dear friends you have! Dear Mr P. Dear Nate and Mrs Nate. Dear Tillie.

Some positive progress to report.
Yesterday Nate come here and cut down a tree for me.
Mr. Hoarder, who also hoards all the trees on the property, did not freak out and get nasty mean about it like he usually does. We arranged to have four of us here working on it so he had some peer pressure.
This tree was on the north side of my little yard/garden area and was more dead than alive.
It was over two stories tall with lots of large branches. We cut off all the branches first then cut down the thick heavy trunk.
When the trunk was down you could see that half the inside was hollowed out with rot and there was a large wasp nest in there.
I used a whole can of wasp spray & there were still wasps all over.
Mrs. Nate and I moved all the branches to the side yard and carried all the stove length logs to the driveway to be loaded into Nate's truck.
Then I raked the grass and got up all the little sticks.
Mr. P helped as much as he could but he is missing fingers and a leg from a car crash fire but he was a lot of moral support.
I am in a lot of pain but it was worth it.
Mr. Hoarder did nothing to help but at least he did not and has not fought me about removing that tree. 🙂

Dianne, when going through the old daily chat thread hunting for a page, I was reminded of something else.

What was Laura's verdict on Reddy Fox et al.

d surgery.

There must be some kind of joke I can make about moving from studying exterior results to interior parts, but I I can't put it together right at the moment!

Mel99 and others.

We can put those lists in a thread in the cleanup section at some point. I'm just not satisfied that the ideas I expressed at this point are complete enough or focused enough for that now. Make any comments you care to make.

Dave, when I looked online, said if it runs but does not heat, could be breakers, which are ancient, or the thermostat. I did flick the breakers back and forth, not sure where the thermostat is, might be in manual that is filed somewhere!! Thanks for the online suggestions. I did get kindling chopped, clothes on line, wood for fire on deck, painted more of wood shed, spiders are not thrilled, brought paint inside that was all over, so doesn't freeze. Very windy so did not get plastic up. Feels good to be back on the board and catch up with all of you. I worked at a job Thursday from 6am to 5pm with just a 15 min. break, at a friends job, who was not able to get back in time for work. I had never worked in surgery before so it was a little stressful, and exhausting, but sooooo interesting.
Tomorrow I can get more pre freeze work done around here. Thanks Tat for welcoming me back!!!!

Ps to all, thank you for your kind words. It means a lot to read so many nice things. Right now I'm giving mom a break. The last go-round took it out of her mentally. I did notice last night when I stopped by to groom her cat, that the place really does look so much better and I was able to focus on that rather than how much more I wish she'd let me do.

Hi everyone, good to see so many posts!

Dave, really nice putting together those lists. I find it so heartbreaking when people come and post here who are so clearly desperate. I want to do something to help, but as you said... it takes time and money and labor. It's not something that just happens. Thanks for going through and writing that stuff up.

Tatoulia, congrats on all that progress! It must feel so awesome!

Dianne, thanks for sharing so much about your thought process. So many things that are so familiar to me too. The site where you can light a candle and set your intentions is really nice too! I do think it helps to have a routine to help get you started.

I read a book a while back that suggested sorting your music into playlists for various things - for example, one for concentrating, one for relaxing, one for powering through stuff that you don't feel like doing, etc. I love music so I love this idea but I just haven't gotten myself around to doing this yet.

My boyfriend is now mostly moved in. I kind of had this idea that I was going to have a little more time and he would mostly move in toward the end of the month, but once his car was working again, he moved in all his kitchen stuff (and has already been cooking and cleaning in there). I absolutely have to finish cleaning out the second bedroom. There's nowhere he can store his clothes right now and there's a ton more storage in that area. I think I'm going to try to work on it in the mornings after he leaves for work but before I do.

The kitties are moved in. They were a little traumatized the first day but are improving. I've never lived with cats before so it's a little strange for me. I caught a couple more mice right before they moved in, which I was quite pleased about, and I'm hoping their presence will drive away any others.

I hope everyone had a good and productive weekend!

Hello everyone! I confess that it makes me happy when I see that someone has posted! Good to read Bitsy's posts. Thank you for your encouragement, Dianne and Dave! Diane!!!!! It's been too long. I miss you so much. You have a lot if projects in front of you and wish overate there to help--but I have a feeling I'd be more of a hindrance!

Also ended up seeing brother today and he has offered to help me with storage place again this week. I font know of I'll have time/energy to do after work this week but my sister will be going with me Tuesday.

Dianne, the dolls were pretty easy. I kept my madams Alexander ones to see if my sister wants to sell for me. History has taught me that I will not sell anything so for me to out in a "to be sold pile" is akin to hoarding. If she does not want to do so, then I will likely take to goodwill and let someone enjoy a good find. If that ends up bring the scenario, then I will keep one. And I know which one.

I still have a lot to go but my brother would like me to see about making this the last month I pay for storage, as opposed to the last month I pay for the big space. The oriental rug is the sticking point. But let me keep my eye on the prize and keep on it. No need to look for obstacles!

Thank you all for your encouragement and hope and help. I miss Tillie and Mel and Roxie and Bitsy and LR and everyone else.

diane,
It was nice to see a post from you. (Thank you for your kind words.)

If you have an electric dryer-We have an old Maytag electric dryer. It has broken a few times and I have been able to get ideas about what was broken from online research. there is an eBay vendor named Supplystuf that I have purchased belt, bearings, and a motor from. I was able to find a repair site that had pictures about how to take my particular dryer apart. I've also replaced the timer switch up on the console. I bought that from a guy in Canada who rebuilds them. I think I can find his current eBay selling name if you need it.

Washing machine or gas dryer would be another story-don't think I would be comfortable trying to fix them.

WOW Tat that is AMAZING work!!!! Getting rid of so many books and especially the dolls from your childhood! Was there any desire to try and sell them or were you just able to let go?

Your excitement is contagious, makes me want to get busy here! 😀

!!!!!!!! W T G !!!!!!

The rug won't fit in her vehicle. Autocorrect said Mr He Rig. Oops. Hope everyone is well.

Hello everyone! Today I went to my storage space and made measurable progress!! Very excited! My brother took Christmas stuff and put it in his closet, and then I got rid of six boxes of books, a large container of clothes, some pottery, some dolls from my childhood and other things and took to goodwill. So excited! I also met with someone at the storage place who showed me a much smaller space (1/4 size of current unit) and it's my goal to be in a smaller unit by end of month. I still need a spot for one of my mother's otiental rugs til my sister can pick it up. It's huge. Sister is coming this week to get desk and several boxes. Mr he rig won't fit in her current vehicle.

Very hard work today. Hard work and very satisfying. My goal is to get rid of everything and not bring any of it into my house. So far so good!!

I wanted to make a repost of an old post of Tillie's I saw today.

Posted: 11 June 2013 - 03:20 PM
"Stepping out of squalor" "take one step at a time" is for hoarders and messies ONLY.
People who are not a hoarder or messy should not post there. But reading there is very motivational and encouraging.
I am tolerated there because I seldon post and NEVER give out any advice.

Cory's message board here, "HOARDING CLEANUP" is the only online site that is for everybody.
Hoarders, messies, people who know a hoarder, children of hoarders, people who want to work with hoarders and neat & tidy people who live in a squalorous hoard with a hoarder.

Cory's message board here is so very important to me.
It gives me encouragement when I want to give up.
Seeing you all work so hard to declutter gives me hope that some day maybe my hoarder will get on board too.
🙂

I know. When I first came here there were few enough posts that I easily read every one to get an idea of how things worked and where I fit into it. Now with tens of thousands (hundreds?) to go thru it's daunting.

Your organization for those *posters in need* is definitely going to help others. They can refer to it quickly and read how the original posters dealt with the problem.

Dianne,

Thank you. At the grocery store I see something called free range chicken. We seem to have a "Free Range Hoarder" site here, honoring the Diversity, Creativity and Independence of Hoarders and Those Who Support them. As a result information gets scattered about.

When I saw the diversity of information in some of those threads, I wondered if I could facilitate "poster helping" speaking to "poster in need" with some of those old posts.

I hope it's helpful to someone.

VERY helpful post on Cleaning Help section Dave!

That was a lot of work you did, thanks!

This will take you to the home page of a site called Stepping Out of Squalor.

http://takeonestepatatime.proboards.com/

Bitsy, I can't do links. But if you google stepping out of squalor it should come up. Hope you're feeling well.

thank you all for your posts. for your honesty. for your understanding. for your compassion.
Dianne can you give the URL of the other hoarding site?

Mrs. Dave is a fortunate lady indeed!! 🙂

What a nice surprise for her to see the clean kitchen areas first thing in the morning. How clever of you to be listening for just the right timing with that dryer door. 😉

There!
It's done except for a few plastic bottles to clean and a little bit of fruit to discard. I can do those things tomorrow. The working spaces that are supposed to be clean are clean and I even helped Mrs Dave hang up a few clothes from the dryer! (After I heard the dryer door close several times, I went and asked if she was done and she said she wasn't. I guess you can decide whether I waited too long or not long enough. 🙂 )

I am taking a break. (If I was being my independent self, I would be stopping. Since I'm looking for the support, I'm taking a break.)

This is going to be very nice. I have 3 counter corners and 3 stove burners that are ideally cleaned off once a day. Sometimes goes to every 2 days or in a really bad situation, 3 days. The time they are clean is usually in the middle of the day so Mrs Dave never gets to see the clean spots (unless she does the cleaning). Tomorrow morning when she comes to the kitchen she will see the little flow through working areas clean.

I have two of the counter areas and the all the stove areas cleaned. All the remaining dishes are piled where I can see them on the last counter area.

Ok, I am not stopping. I am going back to the sink.!!!!!!!!!!