Day One Tackling Mumsie's Hoarder House

Beyond a doubt, I owe Reese SO much. I mean I have no idea how I can possibly repay her kindness. There is NO better friend than someone willing to jump in and tackle a hoarder house for a mere $10 an hour (which pays for our protective gear, lunch, and gas and that’s it.)

My mother’s house was SO bad that there was several inches of debris even along the very narrow path that was used to get between rooms. Doors were stuck halfway open because of all the crap. Piles were over 6 feet high in several places. Ironically, due to the piles, cupboards and closets and trash bins were usually EMPTY. You couldn’t get to them to put anything away! It was nearly impossible to get in the front door and the smell… oh gods the smell! We wore masks and I opened windows and managed to put box fans in them to get some fresh air moving through the house.

Our only goal for today: Make a path all the way to the floor so we could better reach the rest of the house to clean.

It was difficult. As soon as we moved some things (mainly getting obvious trash into bags to take outside) the massive debris piles would start to s–l–i–d–e down, or even just get unbalanced and crash. So, we were carefully re-piling some things just to stop shit from re-covering floor that we were attempting to uncover.

As it was, police and medics had not been able to easily get in to help my mother when she fell, so a basic path was essential. Also, without it, we could go no further. So… we just got big, black trash bags and started filling them. It was obvious by the empty trash cans that no one was actually throwing anything away, both my mother and sister were just dropping used things, including food and dirty dishes and containers and tissue… onto the floor. There was very little sorting through actual belongings.

I got my sister to work on making a path from the hallway into her room, and gave her trash bags to fill. She was cooperative and I was grateful that she wasn’t whining about being made to clean.

Here’s a couple of pics to illustrate what I mean…

The living room pile. It actually goes to over 6 feet high against the wall to the right of this photo.

The path I made from the front door to my mother’s easy chair where she sits and watches TV or reads.
And the old lady seated there is my poor, crazy, hoarding mother. I was amazed she let me do this…

The kitchen piles that made it impossible to use the kitchen at all. Reese tackled the kitchen.

Sadly, these pics are AFTER Reese and I had made pathways on DAY ONE of cleaning!
I almost forgot to take any because it’s hard to explain how awful it was before we even did this much.

However, this meant that I had to bob my head up and down as I kept reaching for things to put in bags, and soon my NMH (Neurally Mediated Hypotension) kicked in and I got more and more sick as my heart rate and blood pressure went nuts… crashing and then going up too high… Between the dizziness and the odor I was soon sick as a dog!

Reese told me to sit– got me a chair and had me hold bags open. But I was so determined to get that darned path done before we left that I kept getting up to do one more thing, and then another thing.

We couldn’t go much longer than 4 hours. We peeled off our white protective coveralls and headed out. I was so sick at that point, and I paid for my foolish stubbornness for the rest of the evening. Just sitting and watching TV or talking, I kept retching and rocking in absolute physical misery. It was difficult to endure being stuck in a body that was so ill. I got a nice dose of PEM (Post Exertional Malaise) that took over on top of my blood pressure and heart palpitations being all fucked up. I know I can’t go back until Tuesday the 13th. Reese is working over the weekend anyways… but I’ll need several days to recoup before tackling Mumsie’s Hoarder House again!

Despite the negative physical issues, I felt oddly triumphant. My mother didn’t interfere (yet–!) and my sister cooperated. I spoke to Dorla briefly and she was on board. Reese and my mother got along well, and so did Reese and Dorla. (We actually met for a lunch to go over things and promise to keep one another in the loop. Dorla seemed relieved to have me involved again, but also slightly mistrusting still! But okay, so am I of her, so I guess that’s fair.)

FUCK! That’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life! It sucks so hard to clean that kind of a place, and yet… it has to be done. At the very least it needs to be more livable while my sister lives there, but I wish she didn’t. It’s so awful and disgusting!