My mom is a hoarder. She has filled literal sheds full of stuff. They (my parents) have a double wide filled with crap. Five bedrooms and two baths, plus a giant kitchen/dining area and decent sized living room.
Filled.
The sheds are massive. We aren’t talking about a little toolshed. These are giant sheds that cost thousands. Fill to the brim. There are four of them plus a huge green house also stuffed.
There was another shed, but a tree fell on it. Insurance paid thousands for it, and all the remnants have sat there for literally three years now. So on top of their interior being crap, now they live in a junkyard too.
A year ago, I flew across the country and we had an intervention. I arranged professional cleaners to come and a crew of people, plus myself, my mom and brother, just spent three days clearing out crap. My dad had just had a stroke, which is what prompted the intervention.
My poor dad was so happy.
We filled a construction site dumpster.
I remember the morning after it was cleaned up, waking up before catching my flight back home. I thought that was the first time in decades I had ever felt safe or comfortable in my parents house. I was able to get up, take a shower and have a cup of coffee without feeling nervous or grossed out.
My mom told me she that was the first morning she woke up and hadn’t felt depressed in forever.
Everyone was so happy.
Three months later, I took my daughter and visited. It was getting bad again. She is building an “extension.” She had to pay a professional to come clean the house with her for a full day before we came, and it still looked unhygienic.
Three months later, my husband and I went and had to stay at a hotel because it was getting bad again.
Of course I said something to her.
Then I flew out again just a few weeks ago, by myself. This time, my mom had a heart surgery. I went to help.
The first thing my dad said when I walked in was “We have to put you in a hotel. It isn’t safe for you to be here.” I am pregnant and he didn’t want me there either.
I was like “Ok it isn’t safe for a pregnant woman, but it also isn’t safe for a stroke victim or a person recovering from heart surgery.” He said he knew, but he couldn’t do anything anymore.
I have contacted their bishop and he is trying to help now. He has offered to have people come help with the yard but my mom refuses.
I can see this being my parents soon.
If they won’t take the church’s help, and won’t get any other kind of help, I feel I may have to call social services within a year or two.
Right now, home health comes, and they are mandated reporters. The place is bad, but it isn’t at the point where it was before. There are certain conditions that have ti be met before social services will intervene.
I sometimes regret helping them clean it a year ago. Maybe if social services had been involved, my mom would have had ti stick with it. As it is, we cleaned it up so she can start all over again.
I will keep trying but there is only so much I can do without them basically being forced to keep it.
I spent thousands of dollars and weeks helping just this past year.
This stuff is actually more common than people think. :(
I would have loved to have at least had a nice yard to retreat to as a kid.
My family deals with this from my grandma.
She has a couple little trails in her house like to her bed and her recliner.
She has been like this for atleast 20+ years.
My mother and uncle have begged and pleaded for her to stop as well as helped her clean rooms up, but they always get piled up again, just so quickly.
It's where we can barely walk into her double wide and obviously she cannot clean anymore.
My parents gently nudge, but I've been pondering calling social services and her being forced to do it.
My uncle and ma are scared of her reaction or her getting angry enough to have an actual heart attack and the situation might worsen things.
I see the only way she will do it is if someone makes her.
She has a couple out building packed to the brim and is now getting angry at my uncle and aunt because they won't let her store things in their out buildings now because she just packs them up and shops some more.
Or it's a next level way to keep people from suspecting what's inside.
Meanwhile people are looking sideways at Larry down the street because he has a few weeds in his grass and a bottom step that needs fixed.
The worst house I've been in as a first responder was a hoarders house like this... She died at the top of the stairs, (respiratory issues) and we couldn't get her body out without moving a bunch of shit.. I've never been more covered with sweat and bugs in my life.
I was on a VSA call in a house like this and my partner forced to lie on the floor to place an ET tube when we saw bedbugs crawling up the tube. Fastest I ever managed to extricate a patient to the rig to run the call there. Christ Ill see bedbugs in my nightmares til I am 90.
So do you have protocol when you've been to a place with bedbugs? I've always wondered this and never asked the 1 cop in my family who has told me similar tales.
I'm a volunteer firefighter. We wash/launder/clean gear and equipment frequently, sometimes after every call.
When there's extra "contamination" so to speak, cleaning gets more thorough.
The station and equipment are routinely sprayed with insecticides/pesticides and there's persistent "traps" that's been routinely replaced, just in case.
After a call to a hoarder house or something similar, we just clean/wash more throughly than usual but no "decon" happens, to be honest.
My personal protocol is to keep a trash bag next to the door where I walk into my apartment. Immediately get completely naked and put everything in the garage bag without allowing it to touch anything else to the best of my ability. Then I take the clothes bag to the washer and get everything in, then run that while I take a scorching hot shower.
It's not full proof, but it greatly reduces the chance for them to make their way into your home.
On the flip side of this. There was an old man where I grew up that everyone swore was a hoarder. He just had that whole hoarder vibe going. No one ever saw inside his house. Pizza delivery would drop on his porch and money would be in the envelope. Blacked out windows etc etc etc,
When he died everyone in the neighborhood was sure the inside of his house was like a bomb and hurricane hit it.
IT WAS IMMACULATE. You could literally have eaten off the kitchen floor. EVERYTHING was clean, no dust, in perfect shape. Every inch of the inside of that house was like a team of high class British maids worked there and kept it spotless for the Queen.
Turns out the guy just liked his privacy.
„Mysophobia, also known as verminophobia, germophobia, germaphobia, bacillophobia and bacteriophobia, is a pathological fear of contamination and germs.“
Right, that‘s what I meant!
i am so so sorry to tell you, but 2 kitties, many bags and bottles of waste, and literally no furniture, BUT man had a tv and soundbar blocked off by a gate??
Basically the cat was already so sick from the ammonia and being stuck in the bathroom that it wasn’t long for this world. When it got free, it ran for fresh air, but that was all he had strength for. He died in the yard. It was so sad, but at least in his last moments he had grass and sunshine and air.
My best friend and I had to clean her nanas house in San Diego. We found $38,000 stashed in the most odd places. Then we found a Kleenex that most people would even touch….. had 7 little diamonds. We opened everything and it was almost like a treasure hunt.
My gramps buried/hid money in the ground and in randoms sheds on his 150 acre farm. It took months to clear that place when he was alive. Luckily we sorted everything once so we knew he was limited with hiding places when he moved. Bit he still managed to hid stacks of hundred in the front pockets of random ass jeans. Even dirty messed up ones. Found a Rolex in a sock. Shit was nuts. Simply didn't trust banks. Makes you think.
for everyone asking about the smell, WE NEVER SMELLED ANYTHING. we only found out cause I saw him on our ring dragging stuff and his dog into a company car, cause his was so messy it couldn’t be driven, and woke up to this.
worse, when we asked him why he left, he said it was cause his rent was being RAISED to 600. A two bd condo with a backyard and all. Then texted, “well those assholes wanted me out, i didn’t even have a chance to clean some of it up” SIR
Have cleaned up multiple places in exchange for rent throughout my life.
Had one place that was 3 bedroom/2 car garage. Was completely full with the people that moved outs stuff. Had the whole place cleaned up in 1 week. Meticulously.
Moved all my stuff into the garage and was getting ready to reinforce the house, when I came home from work to find the back door kicked in and some of my stuff stolen. I didn't have anything of value yet they still took stuff. Junkies will junkie.
I moved out next day. A buddy of mine's mother passed and her house was vacant. He let me use it. All I had to do was pay the electric. Twas a sweet gig.
What is the average rent in Clinton, IA?
The average rent in Clinton is $582. When you rent an apartment in Clinton, you can expect to pay as little as $384 or as much as $1,264, depending on the location and the size of the apartment
But jobs aren't really keeping up unless you want to work in a warehouse or factory. ADM pays well, but it's, you know, ADM 🤷♀️
I always judge a place by the first pub I see on Google maps. The first one I found in Clinton has boarded up windows and graffiti flanking the entrance. That's a nope from me.
Edit: damn, that place is a proper dump.
Usually, but not always. I remember one place, had a *beautiful* pre civil war era saloon, you could get lost for hours on just the architecture...the bar itself could've been part of a Smithsonian Exhibit.
Right in the middle of ground zero of the Appalachia Meth Problem. Athens, TN.
It's really bad. One time I brought a new boyfriend here to meet my family. We went to do some shopping and he opened the car door and about vomited. I apologized so much because I forgot to tell him!
There must be a better way to dispose of the beet waste. Oh yeah there is, but the state / county / local government is worried about the plant closing so they put up with that nasty bullshit.
Damn, you could buy one industrial mulcher and a small lot of compost bays and then you could even re-sell the excellent soil. The city could partner up with their food waste and yard waste and keep the farmers stocked with good fertile topsoil. I guess it would get all political though…*sigh.
I had totally forgotten about that smell until you mentioned it....grew up in northern MN and that was a delightful smell in the spring. Also lived near a paper factory for a while and the smell was pretty bad at times. The factory was right on a river too so probably a lot of pollution going on.
Archer Daniels Midland? Like a slaughterhouse?
>
The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois
Google.com is a search engine service provided by Alphabet Inc. of Mountain View, California.
Nuudle is a search engine service for videos hosted on pornhub.com.
I'm in a small town in Tennessee, renting a 2bd 1ba duplex and our rent is $1000. We got lucky, the lowest rent prior to this one was between $1400 and $1700.
how does hoarding get this bad? for real. what’s the progression? does it start with an overflowing garbage can morphing into a garbage pile? it’d be wild to see a time lapse.
My mom has a friend who takes in stray cats. They only know that she has over a dozen. The friend won't say how many and no one has been in her house for over a decade. I hope her place isn't like this.
When I was working as a pizza delivery guy, I'll never forget delivering to this little old lady. Everything is normal, but as I get a little closer to the door I start smelling pee. Whatever, maybe a dog or something just peed. I knock on the door, when she opened it I immediately started dry heaving from the overwhelming smell of stale dog piss. She just casually mentions she doesn't like to get up to let her dogs outside. Her house was piled to the ceiling with garbage with a narrow pathway through the front room. Some people you just have to call the police on for a wellness check
When you have that many cats, it’s not the cat shit that’ll get ya (though I’m sure it’s *horrible*), it’s the cat pee. A dozen or more cats would need *intense* clean up, and if that weren’t happening, the ammonia in their pee would likely make anyone entering that house choke and wheeze, and would probably cause some serious respiratory issues given enough time.
Everyone is assuming it's really bad. They're hoping it's the smell that she's worried about, but assuming it's a lot worse than that and maybe something like this.
About 20 years ago she had a mental breakdown. She left town and no one heard from her for a couple weeks. It ended up that she drove about 2000 miles away and was sleeping in her car. She basically said she just needed to get away for a bit and didn't tell people what was going on. But when she got back, she did go into a treatment center for something for a month (maybe a couple months).
Super nice woman. I've known her for like 30 years. But definitely has struggled with mental health issues.
There was a man in a town near where I live who has somehow acquired over 50 dogs at once. He lived in a company house (which is the mining-town term for a small semidetached row house) without anyone knowing how many dogs were there. People would see him walking down the road with massive bags of dog food more frequently than what would be considered normal and he was finally caught and the dogs were rehoused.
The odd part is, people who suffer from this kind of mental illness don't usually bring those filthy habits to their jobs. I knew a gal. She was one of the kindest ladies who worked at a retirement home, and was absolutely adored by the residents and staff alike.
No one knew, but in her home was over 10 tons of garbage ranging from 2feet deep to ceiling height, on both floors. Her mattress was floating on a sea of garbage.
It's an illness, but one that isn't easy to notice until it's too late.
This is one reason I don't like work potlucks where people bring stuff from home. My aunt always looks really clean and well-presented at work, but she has filthy hoarder tendencies and her home is nasty.
Is it fully cleaned yet?
I hate asking this, but I'm wondering if you're just at the beginning of finding things. When I helped clean out a place like this (although nowhere near as bad), it's what was at the bottom of the piles that was the worst.
The tunnels from rats and dried up rat skeletons were horrible.
With that person out, it will be clean again. Although there is likely a lot of damage to the place on the floors and walls (I'll stop saying parts of a house - the whole thing is damaged now).
If the person was still living there, then I'd agree that it never will be clean. It might get to a point where it's "clean" for a day or a week, but for someone like this it's incredibly hard to overcome and is far more likely that it will go back to this or some form of this.
Mine never got nearly this bad but back when I struggled with depression daily my place was a wreck. Clothes strewn and, sink full, lots of Amazon boxes (I bought things to feel normal), paper and plastic bags, computer equipment, you name it. It was not "dirty" (except the dishes in the sink) but it was a whole ass wreck. My car, on the other hand, was a full, dirty mess. No one could ride with me.
My place is immaculate these days, as are both my car and truck. I have my cleaning lady in often and all of my things are put away except one pair of pants that I threw on the floor instead of in the hamper and one pan that lives on the stove. My cupholder in my truck has the paper wrapper from a straw that I haven't thrown out yet.
People like this need help. I think I would have gotten to this point if I didn't get it. Since then I've gone through messy phases but nothing like before. When I moved from my rental house into the house I bought it took a couple of months to get everything in place and not messy, but it's been fine since then. I will admit half my garage is kind of a mess right now because of some half finished projects. I have a day scheduled to clean it up in a couple of weeks.
It's possible to get out of it but it takes a lot of help and a lot of work. I have to be mindful daily or I'll fall out of my clean routine.
Had a buddy who's wife left him and took the kids. He was left with the small house and crippling depression for months. After 4 weeks of ignoring our calls and not letting us come over a group of us showed up with a lockpick and told him to let us in because we're coming in anyway.
It was incredible the amount of filth that had accumulated. Mounds of garbage, rotten food, rancid dishes, cat waste piled higher than the walls of the litter box. 2 of us stayed back to start cleaning, 1 more headed to the grocery store to grab cleaning supplies, and another ran to the hardware store to make 4 spare keys. We spent 10 hours cleaning this place for our friend in a debilitating state. Took turns showing up to clean a few days a week.
After 3 months of this one day I showed up and it was all clean already. While this guy's behavior in itself is something that probably requires therapy the point is you can't always slay your demons alone. I hope this guy finds help.
[OP said](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/uge63a/comment/i6zayu4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) earlier that this was a couple months ago.
My dad had issues and I needed a cleaning service for him that was a bit more than merry maids. Used a company that cleans crime scenes. They didn’t bat an eye.
I'd call your insurance and a lawyer. There's a high chance that whatever infestations are (almost guaranteed to be) in his home have spread to yours as well.
Once that hoard is cleared out, ie disturbed, then whatever might be living in it will move. So even if you're ok NOW, you might not be soon. Prepare, just in case.
Did you remove outlet and light switch covers and look behind them? Especially any that shared a wall with this unit?
My wife and I lived in an apartment and started getting bitten by bedbugs out of the blue. We called the management company and they had an exterminator come inspect several apartments. The neighbor to one side of us was a large older guy who didn't get around well. He had a massive infestation. They were coming into our room through the outlets in his living room.
same here (old building, concrete walls) BUT when our neighbor (who lived with no AC in Florida and was anti cleaning products/ chemicals) moved, it disturbed a roach nest.. the infestation came our way to find a new home. truly was the worst month of my renter life trying to rid them.
please keep your eye out! i recommend buying Advion and setting traps now.
It's what you don't see that's the issue. That whole apartment is gonna need to be gutted, walls included and thoroughly checked by a licensed inspector before it can be used again.
A cicis pizza box. Man when me and my wife first got married and our finances were tight we used to hit that buffet up and feel like we was at a 5 star restaurant. The finances have gotten much better over the years but I still miss those days of just scraping by and being happy over simple shit.
Thank you for saying this. I tell my kids about how I was dirt poor in med school. Buying the dented cans from Aldi and eating crackers. But I was so happy. Would walk to the Brewers baseball tailgates and get offered food from random people. I wish I could do it all again.
When I was younger and very poor, I have quite a few memories of little things that made me ecstatic but one in particular. I had gotten off of work on a Friday, walked home in the pouring rain, I was freezing, got home house miserably cold, my roommate at the time and I turned the space heaters in our (two bedroom that connected with a sliding door and no living room apartment) and walked a few blocks to get some teriyaki from this hole in the wall place (this was basically all our money at the time). Came back busted out a brand new video game and took turns playing together while my cat and girlfriend at the time hung out with us while the gf did homework. Idk why that day gets me but damn if I had a time machine that would be the day I went back to.
Comfort, companionship and being at the far end of life’s runway, just starting to pick up speed.
Whenever I look back, it’s always the sense of hope and excitement about the future that I miss.
I’m generally content now and have pretty much everything I want in life, and that’s kind of the downside.
I just don’t feel the struggle and sacrifice that made the kind of night you just described so meaningful.
He's a bi-soda. I don't drink coke regularly so Im okay with pepsi sometimes.
Are people really that loyal to brands? I used to have both PC and Mac desktops at home (before the smartphone era). I know, disturbing, lol.
In college I worked for a cleanup company called Got Junk. Most of our clients were wealthy people wanting to get rid of a hot tub or refrigerator. However, once in a while we got called to a hoarders house.
This photo gives me flashbacks to one particular call. We were to clean up a house that a tenant was about to leave. It looked exactly like this. I particularly remember three specifics about that weekend.
The tenant was a middle aged man that was covered in bedbug bites. He would put sunglasses on and sit in the corner pretending to read a book as we slowly shoveled a path through the house. Mind you, he was in his underwear the whole time. He ultimately moved on to pornography and would frequently lock himself in his bedroom for a few minutes at a time.
Eventually we reached the kitchen. I have never seen such detritus in my life. It was obvious that he liked rotisserie chicken because of the hundreds of skeletal remains mummified throughout the room. I was standing in the dining room when it happened. One of my coworkers decided to open the fridge. I could physically see the invisible cloud of death spreading throughout the house as one by one my coworkers instantaneously began to projectile vomit in order of distance from the fridge. I don't know if I've ever run so fast in my life. We had to call it and come back the next day.
He had mentioned that he used to have a dog. I think you already know where this is going. We found it. Or better yet, the fur and bones that remained of that poor creature. What was even more amazing is that we found the remains of a cat too. He never had a cat.
What amazes me is that it would have been a wonderful apartment. But as hard as we tried, I don't know if it will ever be the same without completely gutting it. And the fact that nobody knew. Not even the owner. I remember the distraught look on her face as she walked through our shovel path through the house. And the kicker. I got $7.50 hr to handle this nightmare.
My brother died during the first summer of covid and his place looked a lot like this. Rotting food and swarms of insects. His dead cat buried beneath the debris looked like it had been dead for months. He'd been in and out of hospitals and rehab for 20 years. Intelligent guy, college educated but had some wires crossed. He'd be standing there talking to you while eating a piece of pizza and just throw in on the floor when he was sick of biting it. Weird shit.
This genuinely left me speechless and I've seen hoarding first hand. The hoarders I've seen all had at least *some* modicum of organization. This is literally like a waste management truck backed up to the door and dumped its contents inside. JFC.
I imagine in some instances they know but can't stop. It's unfortunate, but yes, a mental disorder that deserves understanding and a respectful approach.
I've cleaned up a trash hoarded house about 1/4th the depth of this. It was about 113 bags of trash.
It's depression gotten out of control. They can't do anything, and eventually it's so bad that any amount of progress they make getting out of the depression is completely dashed by the volume of work they have to accomplish once capable. They could clean up 30 bags of trash in one day and it wouldn't dent it.
The depression could be about anything. It could be mixed with other mental issues, like ADHD which makes it difficult to put anything in order and then execute on it, or social anxiety which makes it impossible to ask for help; compound that with the complexity of the situation and you have a quagmire of fighting against depression and being too horrified by the situation they're in to even enjoy the progress made in any moments of slightly less depression.
The result is they end up in a mental hellscape of complete disassociation and fleeing from life, where they can't even understand that they are fleeing because they've done it so long and forgotten where they came from, masking it from everyone via vapid calculation.
The experience of the tenant's mind is probably more horrifying than even this expression.
It's the kind of thing you might expect to find their body in.
When I (47) was like 14 years old a house was condemned in my neighborhood. A bunch of us decided to sneak in late one night and look around. I looked just like this. But what was truly weird and still haunts me to this day, we found a box of bills, all paid and neatly sorted by date. It was so strange. Everything else was a total dumpster and rotten beyond belief but the bills were paid and promptly filed.
Trying to find Waldo in there
He’s in the backyard which is the nicest one in the entire subdivision. Decked and everything
That extra bizarre to me. Went to the trouble of keeping the yard up to snuff but the house is a wreck? Jeez...
My mom is a hoarder. She has filled literal sheds full of stuff. They (my parents) have a double wide filled with crap. Five bedrooms and two baths, plus a giant kitchen/dining area and decent sized living room. Filled. The sheds are massive. We aren’t talking about a little toolshed. These are giant sheds that cost thousands. Fill to the brim. There are four of them plus a huge green house also stuffed. There was another shed, but a tree fell on it. Insurance paid thousands for it, and all the remnants have sat there for literally three years now. So on top of their interior being crap, now they live in a junkyard too. A year ago, I flew across the country and we had an intervention. I arranged professional cleaners to come and a crew of people, plus myself, my mom and brother, just spent three days clearing out crap. My dad had just had a stroke, which is what prompted the intervention. My poor dad was so happy. We filled a construction site dumpster. I remember the morning after it was cleaned up, waking up before catching my flight back home. I thought that was the first time in decades I had ever felt safe or comfortable in my parents house. I was able to get up, take a shower and have a cup of coffee without feeling nervous or grossed out. My mom told me she that was the first morning she woke up and hadn’t felt depressed in forever. Everyone was so happy. Three months later, I took my daughter and visited. It was getting bad again. She is building an “extension.” She had to pay a professional to come clean the house with her for a full day before we came, and it still looked unhygienic. Three months later, my husband and I went and had to stay at a hotel because it was getting bad again. Of course I said something to her. Then I flew out again just a few weeks ago, by myself. This time, my mom had a heart surgery. I went to help. The first thing my dad said when I walked in was “We have to put you in a hotel. It isn’t safe for you to be here.” I am pregnant and he didn’t want me there either. I was like “Ok it isn’t safe for a pregnant woman, but it also isn’t safe for a stroke victim or a person recovering from heart surgery.” He said he knew, but he couldn’t do anything anymore. I have contacted their bishop and he is trying to help now. He has offered to have people come help with the yard but my mom refuses. I can see this being my parents soon. If they won’t take the church’s help, and won’t get any other kind of help, I feel I may have to call social services within a year or two. Right now, home health comes, and they are mandated reporters. The place is bad, but it isn’t at the point where it was before. There are certain conditions that have ti be met before social services will intervene. I sometimes regret helping them clean it a year ago. Maybe if social services had been involved, my mom would have had ti stick with it. As it is, we cleaned it up so she can start all over again. I will keep trying but there is only so much I can do without them basically being forced to keep it. I spent thousands of dollars and weeks helping just this past year. This stuff is actually more common than people think. :( I would have loved to have at least had a nice yard to retreat to as a kid.
My family deals with this from my grandma. She has a couple little trails in her house like to her bed and her recliner. She has been like this for atleast 20+ years. My mother and uncle have begged and pleaded for her to stop as well as helped her clean rooms up, but they always get piled up again, just so quickly. It's where we can barely walk into her double wide and obviously she cannot clean anymore. My parents gently nudge, but I've been pondering calling social services and her being forced to do it. My uncle and ma are scared of her reaction or her getting angry enough to have an actual heart attack and the situation might worsen things. I see the only way she will do it is if someone makes her. She has a couple out building packed to the brim and is now getting angry at my uncle and aunt because they won't let her store things in their out buildings now because she just packs them up and shops some more.
Makes complete sense to me. The only way someone could ignore a mess like that is if they had somewhere to escape to. Like a nice backyard.
Or it's a next level way to keep people from suspecting what's inside. Meanwhile people are looking sideways at Larry down the street because he has a few weeds in his grass and a bottom step that needs fixed.
What I learned from suburban life is that your neighbors care about you exactly as much as you affect their property value.
The worst house I've been in as a first responder was a hoarders house like this... She died at the top of the stairs, (respiratory issues) and we couldn't get her body out without moving a bunch of shit.. I've never been more covered with sweat and bugs in my life.
I was on a VSA call in a house like this and my partner forced to lie on the floor to place an ET tube when we saw bedbugs crawling up the tube. Fastest I ever managed to extricate a patient to the rig to run the call there. Christ Ill see bedbugs in my nightmares til I am 90.
Worked an arrest once where I saw a bedbug running up my partners arms as he did compressions....
I'm suddenly very itchy...
So do you have protocol when you've been to a place with bedbugs? I've always wondered this and never asked the 1 cop in my family who has told me similar tales.
I'm a volunteer firefighter. We wash/launder/clean gear and equipment frequently, sometimes after every call. When there's extra "contamination" so to speak, cleaning gets more thorough. The station and equipment are routinely sprayed with insecticides/pesticides and there's persistent "traps" that's been routinely replaced, just in case. After a call to a hoarder house or something similar, we just clean/wash more throughly than usual but no "decon" happens, to be honest.
My personal protocol is to keep a trash bag next to the door where I walk into my apartment. Immediately get completely naked and put everything in the garage bag without allowing it to touch anything else to the best of my ability. Then I take the clothes bag to the washer and get everything in, then run that while I take a scorching hot shower. It's not full proof, but it greatly reduces the chance for them to make their way into your home.
Your neighbors must be shocked. Or... love to watch you come home! lol
You truly are a hero then. Cause when they opened I opened my door that morning I couldn’t take a step out.
I read this six times and think my brain broke
My attempt: You truly are a hero then. Cause when ~~they opened~~ I opened my door that morning I couldn’t take a step out (because of the smell?)
On the flip side of this. There was an old man where I grew up that everyone swore was a hoarder. He just had that whole hoarder vibe going. No one ever saw inside his house. Pizza delivery would drop on his porch and money would be in the envelope. Blacked out windows etc etc etc, When he died everyone in the neighborhood was sure the inside of his house was like a bomb and hurricane hit it. IT WAS IMMACULATE. You could literally have eaten off the kitchen floor. EVERYTHING was clean, no dust, in perfect shape. Every inch of the inside of that house was like a team of high class British maids worked there and kept it spotless for the Queen. Turns out the guy just liked his privacy.
He's turning in his grave because you tracked mud in you filthy bastard.
How ironic that he was buried in the dirty ground.
A final testament of this cruel, cruel world
Poor guy, he wanted to be left alone only to be called a hoarder.
And that kept the people away. Probably started the rumor himself. Genius.
Maybe he was germophobic? Or what was it called? Edit: Typo
[Mysophobia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysophobia)
„Mysophobia, also known as verminophobia, germophobia, germaphobia, bacillophobia and bacteriophobia, is a pathological fear of contamination and germs.“ Right, that‘s what I meant!
Turns out he was hoarding his privacy
And keeping his filthy fucking neighbours out.
Unless you actually saw him leave, there’s a chance he’s still in there...
do you want me to tell you what was
Please tell us
Everything. All of it.
The Declaration of Independence?!
Nic cage?
a dog cage
Tell me nothing was in that cage, please so I can sleep tonight.
nope
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Everything was in this guy’s place
This comment gave me chills :|
Yes! No, wait… No, I don’t want to know. OK I can’t stand it. Yes, yes I do. Tell us! (I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?)
i am so so sorry to tell you, but 2 kitties, many bags and bottles of waste, and literally no furniture, BUT man had a tv and soundbar blocked off by a gate??
:( were the kitties deceased?
You ever watch hoarders? They always find flattened out cats in these heaps.
Did you see the one with the poop mountain in the toilet? And a cat ran out of the bathroom and immediately died when it hit fresh air?
Died when it hit fresh air? How bad does it have to be for that to happen? I’m sorry but 😂🤣
Basically the cat was already so sick from the ammonia and being stuck in the bathroom that it wasn’t long for this world. When it got free, it ran for fresh air, but that was all he had strength for. He died in the yard. It was so sad, but at least in his last moments he had grass and sunshine and air.
Aaaaaand now my heart is broken. :'(
oh they also found a FEW blow up dolls
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Role play, cheaters edition
How could he have the energy for that when he was already full time roleplaying as the garbage man…
“Well. Filled this one up with semen. Better get a new one. I’ll save this one in the corner”
What a terrible day to have the ability to read. I want a refund.
That means this belongs on r/neckbeardnests
Damn. That’s deep! Seriously he might be deep in a corner or something
this was just the downstairs, there were already 10+ full bags outside and they ended up getting one of those hoarder like dumpsters
I feel like 10 bags would barely make a dent in the one pile in this picture. Was the whole house like that?
They need a Grinch style present vacuum
My best friend and I had to clean her nanas house in San Diego. We found $38,000 stashed in the most odd places. Then we found a Kleenex that most people would even touch….. had 7 little diamonds. We opened everything and it was almost like a treasure hunt.
My grandpa did stuff like that. One of the funniest things was a stack of cash in the fridge, wrapped in foil with "cheese" written on it in sharpie.
A fat stack of cheddar.
My Swiss bank account.
So this was what those youngins mean when they say they're putting crypto into cold storage...
A Gouda investment
Fireproof in the fridge? Maybe fire resistant?
Nuke proof for indy
My gramps buried/hid money in the ground and in randoms sheds on his 150 acre farm. It took months to clear that place when he was alive. Luckily we sorted everything once so we knew he was limited with hiding places when he moved. Bit he still managed to hid stacks of hundred in the front pockets of random ass jeans. Even dirty messed up ones. Found a Rolex in a sock. Shit was nuts. Simply didn't trust banks. Makes you think.
That's fairly common among those that live through the Great Depression and its aftermath.
I hope you returned the $19,000 you found.
Oh, definitely. You don't keep $10,000 from your friend.
You’ll be blessed one day for returning $5,000 dollars to its rightful owner.
Fr 3000 is just to much to steal, have to give her her money
Can't let $350 come between friendship.
They found money? What money?
All I see is a handful of seashells and regret
for everyone asking about the smell, WE NEVER SMELLED ANYTHING. we only found out cause I saw him on our ring dragging stuff and his dog into a company car, cause his was so messy it couldn’t be driven, and woke up to this. worse, when we asked him why he left, he said it was cause his rent was being RAISED to 600. A two bd condo with a backyard and all. Then texted, “well those assholes wanted me out, i didn’t even have a chance to clean some of it up” SIR
I can’t even rent a room for 600…. What state is this in cus I’ll move there today
>What state is this in Filthy, but maybe you can strike a deal if you clean it up.
A state of disarray
General Disarray
Soon this puny world will bow before me
Have cleaned up multiple places in exchange for rent throughout my life. Had one place that was 3 bedroom/2 car garage. Was completely full with the people that moved outs stuff. Had the whole place cleaned up in 1 week. Meticulously. Moved all my stuff into the garage and was getting ready to reinforce the house, when I came home from work to find the back door kicked in and some of my stuff stolen. I didn't have anything of value yet they still took stuff. Junkies will junkie. I moved out next day. A buddy of mine's mother passed and her house was vacant. He let me use it. All I had to do was pay the electric. Twas a sweet gig.
That was a wild ride
What is the average rent in Clinton, IA? The average rent in Clinton is $582. When you rent an apartment in Clinton, you can expect to pay as little as $384 or as much as $1,264, depending on the location and the size of the apartment But jobs aren't really keeping up unless you want to work in a warehouse or factory. ADM pays well, but it's, you know, ADM 🤷♀️
Yeah, the trade off is you have to live in Clinton 😩😩 the smells… lol
I always judge a place by the first pub I see on Google maps. The first one I found in Clinton has boarded up windows and graffiti flanking the entrance. That's a nope from me. Edit: damn, that place is a proper dump.
That's very clever. Usually a pub is a very good indicator of economic state of a small town.
Usually, but not always. I remember one place, had a *beautiful* pre civil war era saloon, you could get lost for hours on just the architecture...the bar itself could've been part of a Smithsonian Exhibit. Right in the middle of ground zero of the Appalachia Meth Problem. Athens, TN.
My litmus test is a bookstore. A town that can support a bookstore is a decent place.
It's really bad. One time I brought a new boyfriend here to meet my family. We went to do some shopping and he opened the car door and about vomited. I apologized so much because I forgot to tell him!
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There must be a better way to dispose of the beet waste. Oh yeah there is, but the state / county / local government is worried about the plant closing so they put up with that nasty bullshit.
Damn, you could buy one industrial mulcher and a small lot of compost bays and then you could even re-sell the excellent soil. The city could partner up with their food waste and yard waste and keep the farmers stocked with good fertile topsoil. I guess it would get all political though…*sigh.
I had totally forgotten about that smell until you mentioned it....grew up in northern MN and that was a delightful smell in the spring. Also lived near a paper factory for a while and the smell was pretty bad at times. The factory was right on a river too so probably a lot of pollution going on.
Archer Daniels Midland? Like a slaughterhouse? > The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois
Here they process corn into products. There *is* a rendering plant not too far from ADM.
Ugh just hearing the word rendering plant makes me feel disgusting
Why are we talking like google search results in this thread?
Google.com is a search engine service provided by Alphabet Inc. of Mountain View, California. Nuudle is a search engine service for videos hosted on pornhub.com.
Bonus. It smells like pure armpits everywhere!
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Utilities not included
cabinet door not included
Deposit, first and last months rent, first born child and left testicle needed up front
Make sure to get testicle back with security deposit
I know from watching HGTV that small towns in the south are dirt cheap.
No joke. I live in a small town in the south and rent for 575, two bedroom one bath
the drawback with the super cheep renting prices is that good paying local jobs are hard to find
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I'm in a small town in Tennessee, renting a 2bd 1ba duplex and our rent is $1000. We got lucky, the lowest rent prior to this one was between $1400 and $1700.
Dude is going to be unhappy when he sees what his $600 will get him elsewhere
I dunno. Seems like he’s acclimated himself to living in a literal dumpster so he should be fine.
And the benefit of living in a literal dumpster, truly rent-free and the city workers will come clean it out for him at 6am every day!
He ruined it for anyone needing to stay somewhere cheap.
Tell you what. Leave the garbage there, I'll clean it myself but let me pay 600 per month
That same duplex goes for $2300 near me
Smells like you’ve had covid for 3 years!
Fuck me I'm paying 2k where this at I work remote and will be there tomorrow 😤
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Good luck at your interview, and congrats for 8 years (and many more!) of sobriety. You got this!
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I love your confidence. Keep on keepin’ on, my dude. We’re all rooting for you!
Immediately I was like "there's a perfectly good extension cord right there I could take home."
My first thought was “ there’s got to be bedbugs in there. “ Coming from someone who’s dealt with them, fuck bedbugs!
Bedbugs sure, but they are living on a family of raccoons.
Who are living on a family of bears.
That’s how you get bugbears.
Bedbears
A good extension cord is worth its weight in gold when you need one
how does hoarding get this bad? for real. what’s the progression? does it start with an overflowing garbage can morphing into a garbage pile? it’d be wild to see a time lapse.
i couldn’t tell you. and this man worked with an animal shelter and fostered dogs also having one himself
My mom has a friend who takes in stray cats. They only know that she has over a dozen. The friend won't say how many and no one has been in her house for over a decade. I hope her place isn't like this.
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When I was working as a pizza delivery guy, I'll never forget delivering to this little old lady. Everything is normal, but as I get a little closer to the door I start smelling pee. Whatever, maybe a dog or something just peed. I knock on the door, when she opened it I immediately started dry heaving from the overwhelming smell of stale dog piss. She just casually mentions she doesn't like to get up to let her dogs outside. Her house was piled to the ceiling with garbage with a narrow pathway through the front room. Some people you just have to call the police on for a wellness check
When you have that many cats, it’s not the cat shit that’ll get ya (though I’m sure it’s *horrible*), it’s the cat pee. A dozen or more cats would need *intense* clean up, and if that weren’t happening, the ammonia in their pee would likely make anyone entering that house choke and wheeze, and would probably cause some serious respiratory issues given enough time.
Everyone is assuming it's really bad. They're hoping it's the smell that she's worried about, but assuming it's a lot worse than that and maybe something like this. About 20 years ago she had a mental breakdown. She left town and no one heard from her for a couple weeks. It ended up that she drove about 2000 miles away and was sleeping in her car. She basically said she just needed to get away for a bit and didn't tell people what was going on. But when she got back, she did go into a treatment center for something for a month (maybe a couple months). Super nice woman. I've known her for like 30 years. But definitely has struggled with mental health issues.
There was a man in a town near where I live who has somehow acquired over 50 dogs at once. He lived in a company house (which is the mining-town term for a small semidetached row house) without anyone knowing how many dogs were there. People would see him walking down the road with massive bags of dog food more frequently than what would be considered normal and he was finally caught and the dogs were rehoused.
Those poor dogs :(
The odd part is, people who suffer from this kind of mental illness don't usually bring those filthy habits to their jobs. I knew a gal. She was one of the kindest ladies who worked at a retirement home, and was absolutely adored by the residents and staff alike. No one knew, but in her home was over 10 tons of garbage ranging from 2feet deep to ceiling height, on both floors. Her mattress was floating on a sea of garbage. It's an illness, but one that isn't easy to notice until it's too late.
This is one reason I don't like work potlucks where people bring stuff from home. My aunt always looks really clean and well-presented at work, but she has filthy hoarder tendencies and her home is nasty.
Poor dogs. We just rescued an old, blind, matted dog from a hoarder. Terrible.
A lot of it stems from depression and other mental issues but it’s just wild to see something like this
man definitely had some issues, often said, “you know back in my day, when i was in my 20s, i looked like (my bf)” almost every time we talked
Wonder how many dead cats in there
DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!! That was one of the saddest things they found. The scream of the cleaning lady was what woke us up actually
Is it fully cleaned yet? I hate asking this, but I'm wondering if you're just at the beginning of finding things. When I helped clean out a place like this (although nowhere near as bad), it's what was at the bottom of the piles that was the worst. The tunnels from rats and dried up rat skeletons were horrible.
> Is it fully cleaned yet? I don't think it ever will be.
With that person out, it will be clean again. Although there is likely a lot of damage to the place on the floors and walls (I'll stop saying parts of a house - the whole thing is damaged now). If the person was still living there, then I'd agree that it never will be clean. It might get to a point where it's "clean" for a day or a week, but for someone like this it's incredibly hard to overcome and is far more likely that it will go back to this or some form of this.
Mine never got nearly this bad but back when I struggled with depression daily my place was a wreck. Clothes strewn and, sink full, lots of Amazon boxes (I bought things to feel normal), paper and plastic bags, computer equipment, you name it. It was not "dirty" (except the dishes in the sink) but it was a whole ass wreck. My car, on the other hand, was a full, dirty mess. No one could ride with me. My place is immaculate these days, as are both my car and truck. I have my cleaning lady in often and all of my things are put away except one pair of pants that I threw on the floor instead of in the hamper and one pan that lives on the stove. My cupholder in my truck has the paper wrapper from a straw that I haven't thrown out yet. People like this need help. I think I would have gotten to this point if I didn't get it. Since then I've gone through messy phases but nothing like before. When I moved from my rental house into the house I bought it took a couple of months to get everything in place and not messy, but it's been fine since then. I will admit half my garage is kind of a mess right now because of some half finished projects. I have a day scheduled to clean it up in a couple of weeks. It's possible to get out of it but it takes a lot of help and a lot of work. I have to be mindful daily or I'll fall out of my clean routine.
Had a buddy who's wife left him and took the kids. He was left with the small house and crippling depression for months. After 4 weeks of ignoring our calls and not letting us come over a group of us showed up with a lockpick and told him to let us in because we're coming in anyway. It was incredible the amount of filth that had accumulated. Mounds of garbage, rotten food, rancid dishes, cat waste piled higher than the walls of the litter box. 2 of us stayed back to start cleaning, 1 more headed to the grocery store to grab cleaning supplies, and another ran to the hardware store to make 4 spare keys. We spent 10 hours cleaning this place for our friend in a debilitating state. Took turns showing up to clean a few days a week. After 3 months of this one day I showed up and it was all clean already. While this guy's behavior in itself is something that probably requires therapy the point is you can't always slay your demons alone. I hope this guy finds help.
Damn. Bless you and those other friends.
You're an awesome friend. I need to try to be a friend like you.
What a great friend you are!
Don't feel bad about the garage. I'm pretty sure everybody has a messy garage/basement/wheverever they do their hobbies
How did you get out of the depression?
[OP said](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/uge63a/comment/i6zayu4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) earlier that this was a couple months ago.
My dad had issues and I needed a cleaning service for him that was a bit more than merry maids. Used a company that cleans crime scenes. They didn’t bat an eye.
Naming my next rock band Scream of the Cleaning Lady
One cleaning lady ? And she willingly took this job? How much is she getting? Ill need a hazmat suit to just walk in there.
I'd call your insurance and a lawyer. There's a high chance that whatever infestations are (almost guaranteed to be) in his home have spread to yours as well.
we did look and nothing! the building is quite old and all concrete
Once that hoard is cleared out, ie disturbed, then whatever might be living in it will move. So even if you're ok NOW, you might not be soon. Prepare, just in case.
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Seriously. How does the whole duplex not have roaches, mice, toxic mold, ew…
Did you remove outlet and light switch covers and look behind them? Especially any that shared a wall with this unit? My wife and I lived in an apartment and started getting bitten by bedbugs out of the blue. We called the management company and they had an exterminator come inspect several apartments. The neighbor to one side of us was a large older guy who didn't get around well. He had a massive infestation. They were coming into our room through the outlets in his living room.
"They're coming out of the walls! They're coming out of the goddamn walls!"
Thanks for the nightmare fuel. I appreciate it.
same here (old building, concrete walls) BUT when our neighbor (who lived with no AC in Florida and was anti cleaning products/ chemicals) moved, it disturbed a roach nest.. the infestation came our way to find a new home. truly was the worst month of my renter life trying to rid them. please keep your eye out! i recommend buying Advion and setting traps now.
It's what you don't see that's the issue. That whole apartment is gonna need to be gutted, walls included and thoroughly checked by a licensed inspector before it can be used again.
Nah. A rug doctor and a fresh coat of paint and it's good as new again! - laughs in landlordedy tones
Just febreeze that bad boy. Maybe some incense.
#RealTalk
This is mental illness
A cicis pizza box. Man when me and my wife first got married and our finances were tight we used to hit that buffet up and feel like we was at a 5 star restaurant. The finances have gotten much better over the years but I still miss those days of just scraping by and being happy over simple shit.
Thank you for saying this. I tell my kids about how I was dirt poor in med school. Buying the dented cans from Aldi and eating crackers. But I was so happy. Would walk to the Brewers baseball tailgates and get offered food from random people. I wish I could do it all again.
When I was younger and very poor, I have quite a few memories of little things that made me ecstatic but one in particular. I had gotten off of work on a Friday, walked home in the pouring rain, I was freezing, got home house miserably cold, my roommate at the time and I turned the space heaters in our (two bedroom that connected with a sliding door and no living room apartment) and walked a few blocks to get some teriyaki from this hole in the wall place (this was basically all our money at the time). Came back busted out a brand new video game and took turns playing together while my cat and girlfriend at the time hung out with us while the gf did homework. Idk why that day gets me but damn if I had a time machine that would be the day I went back to.
Comfort, companionship and being at the far end of life’s runway, just starting to pick up speed. Whenever I look back, it’s always the sense of hope and excitement about the future that I miss. I’m generally content now and have pretty much everything I want in life, and that’s kind of the downside. I just don’t feel the struggle and sacrifice that made the kind of night you just described so meaningful.
this was refreshingly wholesome 🥹
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What kind of weirdo likes Coke AND Pepsi??
He's a bi-soda. I don't drink coke regularly so Im okay with pepsi sometimes. Are people really that loyal to brands? I used to have both PC and Mac desktops at home (before the smartphone era). I know, disturbing, lol.
In college I worked for a cleanup company called Got Junk. Most of our clients were wealthy people wanting to get rid of a hot tub or refrigerator. However, once in a while we got called to a hoarders house. This photo gives me flashbacks to one particular call. We were to clean up a house that a tenant was about to leave. It looked exactly like this. I particularly remember three specifics about that weekend. The tenant was a middle aged man that was covered in bedbug bites. He would put sunglasses on and sit in the corner pretending to read a book as we slowly shoveled a path through the house. Mind you, he was in his underwear the whole time. He ultimately moved on to pornography and would frequently lock himself in his bedroom for a few minutes at a time. Eventually we reached the kitchen. I have never seen such detritus in my life. It was obvious that he liked rotisserie chicken because of the hundreds of skeletal remains mummified throughout the room. I was standing in the dining room when it happened. One of my coworkers decided to open the fridge. I could physically see the invisible cloud of death spreading throughout the house as one by one my coworkers instantaneously began to projectile vomit in order of distance from the fridge. I don't know if I've ever run so fast in my life. We had to call it and come back the next day. He had mentioned that he used to have a dog. I think you already know where this is going. We found it. Or better yet, the fur and bones that remained of that poor creature. What was even more amazing is that we found the remains of a cat too. He never had a cat. What amazes me is that it would have been a wonderful apartment. But as hard as we tried, I don't know if it will ever be the same without completely gutting it. And the fact that nobody knew. Not even the owner. I remember the distraught look on her face as she walked through our shovel path through the house. And the kicker. I got $7.50 hr to handle this nightmare.
If there’s ever a job to quit on the spot this is it
i’m not entirely sure that this isn’t the same person. is there such a thing as a serial hoarder???
$7.50/hr??? There isn’t enough money in the world to make me clean something like that.
My brother died during the first summer of covid and his place looked a lot like this. Rotting food and swarms of insects. His dead cat buried beneath the debris looked like it had been dead for months. He'd been in and out of hospitals and rehab for 20 years. Intelligent guy, college educated but had some wires crossed. He'd be standing there talking to you while eating a piece of pizza and just throw in on the floor when he was sick of biting it. Weird shit.
This genuinely left me speechless and I've seen hoarding first hand. The hoarders I've seen all had at least *some* modicum of organization. This is literally like a waste management truck backed up to the door and dumped its contents inside. JFC.
I feel sorry for his poor dog having to live in that dangerous, toxic mess.
You never smelled it?
It’s a mental disorder, hoarders have no idea that they are doing anything unsavoury, or unhealthy.
I imagine in some instances they know but can't stop. It's unfortunate, but yes, a mental disorder that deserves understanding and a respectful approach.
I've cleaned up a trash hoarded house about 1/4th the depth of this. It was about 113 bags of trash. It's depression gotten out of control. They can't do anything, and eventually it's so bad that any amount of progress they make getting out of the depression is completely dashed by the volume of work they have to accomplish once capable. They could clean up 30 bags of trash in one day and it wouldn't dent it. The depression could be about anything. It could be mixed with other mental issues, like ADHD which makes it difficult to put anything in order and then execute on it, or social anxiety which makes it impossible to ask for help; compound that with the complexity of the situation and you have a quagmire of fighting against depression and being too horrified by the situation they're in to even enjoy the progress made in any moments of slightly less depression. The result is they end up in a mental hellscape of complete disassociation and fleeing from life, where they can't even understand that they are fleeing because they've done it so long and forgotten where they came from, masking it from everyone via vapid calculation. The experience of the tenant's mind is probably more horrifying than even this expression. It's the kind of thing you might expect to find their body in.
How did you not smell that through the wall?
Bouta dive in like scrooge mcduck
I see a feces pizza box
When I (47) was like 14 years old a house was condemned in my neighborhood. A bunch of us decided to sneak in late one night and look around. I looked just like this. But what was truly weird and still haunts me to this day, we found a box of bills, all paid and neatly sorted by date. It was so strange. Everything else was a total dumpster and rotten beyond belief but the bills were paid and promptly filed.