Hoarder in the family : 5 Fear of the unknown

When the hoarder was dying, he kept his hands tightly gripped around the keys to the outbuilding, the keys to his shame. He was clasping the very last remnants of his control. All the years of bluster and movement, all the years of active bullying nearly behind him. Now he held on, knowing that soon everyone would know his secrets.

That’s what I imagine.

In truth, we have no idea what is behind the door of the garage, which once housed their tractor collections, the glass cabinets full of tiny metal toys. We don’t know why he nailed shut the outbuilding that once held the cats he would care for in a misguided act of kindness, of protection.

The pictures in my imagination hopefully more terrifying and gruesome than reality.

The widow has said that she has not been in the garage since his death, but I suspect she has been inside. The roof was repaired, after a winter collapse, a few years ago.

I think that the garage will hold a lot of garbage, probably bins of used cat litter. My heart knows that this cleanup will involve us, whether we want or not. Now or in 10 years time, it will come to us.

The shed though, that is creepy. That is a where the imagination takes the reins.

What’s the worst we will find? No human bodies. I don’t think the Hoarder had that kind of evil inside. His was the misguided evil, where you think you are helping, doing good, but are harming the ones you love. Holding them close so they cannot leave, controlling their movements to keep them safe. Safe from the outside, where danger lurks.

The cats in the shed lived sad repressed lives. No trees, no grass and garden holes to dig. No rooms to escape to. No vet appointments or spaying or neutering. Just existing in a crowd, in a small windowless building. The Hoarder visiting with food, changing the litter, disposing of the ones who didn’t survive, carrying on with his act of kindness until he couldn’t.

I don’t know what’s in the shed. Something is. Not gold or treasure.

I want to burn it down to give the tiny ghosts inside a well deserved escape, to see the sparks flow into the night. Freedom at last. I want to burn it and rake the debris and plant wildflowers, catmint and chamomile. I want to smudge the area and place a fountain in the centre. or a birdbath, a small concrete cat to honour these cats who never lived as cats.

Until these buildings are exorcised, the burden of the unknown weighs heavily on my heart.

This is what I fear is inside. This is my fear of the unknown.

Hoarder in the family : 4 Scars

We have established that the Hoarder in this story, was the husband of the Widow. His death stopped the accumulation of stuff, of papers and garbage, of cats and dirt. At the end of his life, as his cancer made him unable to function even in his own dysfunctional manner, he stopped allowing the Widow to clean – to tidy – to attempt any order. It became a free fall into chaos.

I can’t pretend to understand what made him into the obstinate, racist and emotionally abusive man that squelched the Widow’s spirit. I don’t know what he experienced as a child, but something had to have triggered the meanness that the Widow lived with for nearly forty years. Yet, even now, she speaks of him with kindness. She still mourns his death.

The scars from our childhood follow us all the way through our lives, and form the decisions we make. She had suffered sexual abuse as a small child from a farm labourer at a time when sexual abuse was inconvenient and not spoken of in public, never in polite circles. It was shameful and the victim was at fault. She was in the wrong place. She was a tease. She was wearing skimpy clothes. The widow was a child though, and after the farm hand was initially dismissed, he was rehired later because the farmer needed the help.

What kind of message would that send a young child? Not only was the abuser not brought to justice, but later was rewarded when his employment was reinstated. Who was more important? Obviously the man was.

She was ripe for a bully to enter her life.

I don’t think I know a woman from my generation who was not sexually abused, in some manner. Our protectors often were the abusers. If not, we were told that the incident was somehow our fault. Now, we quietly wait for them to die, and wonder how many women we caused to be abused, by our silence. Eyes meeting those of other women across the room, learning to avoid corners, self preservation.

I don’t know the history of the Hoarder. He grew up in a small town, and didn’t get along with his siblings as an adult. He didn’t get along with his neighbours, he didn’t like the Widow’s friends, he didn’t like family gatherings, and if pushed to attend, could be belligerent.

His other side, though was this massive kindness that could flow out of him if you needed help. He would do anything for you if you were in need. If you needed a place to stay, if you needed help with plumbing or moving. When we bought an old house in the late 1990’s, he helped us run a gas line to our stove. He lowered himself through a tiny hole in the floor located in a small cupboard which led to a half-full cistern of water under our kitchen. He ran the line, in this cold water, and got our stove working.

Later that year he and husband worked together to replace our furnace. He was strong, he was tireless in those days and he wanted to help. He loved being needed.

A damaged soul, he also wanted to be a good person, and to be liked and loved.

Unfortunately, the bad often trumps the good when we remember people.

Hoarder in the family : 3 Boundaries

When I first heard of this situation, nine years ago, I was swept away with the activity of the family to help, to give aide to this fresh widow in a bind. The siblings might not have known the full extent of chaos, but I think some knew that things were not as they should be, not as they once were. The deceased partner had battled cancer for a number of years, and physically could not manage his stuff any more.

The widow, the sister, did not reach out during this time because he would not allow it. She could not touch his stuff, the piles, he locked up outbuildings and kept the keys with him until his death.

If the family had just pushed through a little further those nine years ago when the situation was realized, if the family had finished the job then, we would be in a less terrifying position now. We being two people, nine years older and much less driven to do the dirty work. Much less driven.

After my initial reaction – which was not kind, or helpful – I had to quickly reorganize my outward reactions, because I risked shutting him down and abandoning him to work through this alone. I couldn’t push him to force help from the siblings, because I could see that there was nothing coming from those directions. We are all nine years older now, and some are not able.

After three days of anger, frustration and fury at times – I realized that we needed to set personal boundaries. These would be rules we could fall back on to reign us in when the project began to spiral. It is bound to spiral, as we enter into the practical bits. The collections that will come to light. The money spent on these items, the emotional dreams that are attached to them. Whenever husband goes to visit her, he comes home with toys, which are sometimes squirreled away in our garage.

My boundary #1 : Monitoring energy levels. I will step in if I see signs of mental / physical strain. I will call ‘halt’, I will time him out. We will not be sifting though her stuff.

My boundary #2 : No stuff will enter out property. This includes the house, the garage, husbands workplace, our vehicles. No stuff.

When my sister died in 2018, I ended up with a cedar chest full of filled colouring books. She was ill with a lung disease and all she could do was read, watch television and colour. I recycled them. There were dolls as well, two of them, which went to charity. That is nothing compared to what is coming.

Once upon a time I used to sell things on eBay, and made a little cash. I was twenty years younger. Over the last nine years, while health was good, SIL could have sold stuff on marketplace, but she did not. Now it will somehow go. Somewhere. Not my house.

My boundary #3 : This project or endeavor will not infringe upon our travel time. We’ve waited many, many years to travel. We had four children and very little money. During the pandemic we purchased a comping trailer and during the summer love to camp. We are going on vacation for a week in April, to Lisbon, to walk the hills and stairs while we are able. Travel and vacations and adventure cannot be put off for a year, because we don’t know what next year will bring.

I talked to husband about my boundaries. I was sick with a cold probably exacerbated my stress, but we talked and he agreed that boundaries would help.

Husband’s boundary #1 : He will not use any holiday time to this situation. He has limited vacation time, and enough said, it goes with my boundary #3. Sometimes he will take a week and chill with a project at home, but that is his choice.

Husband’s boundary #2 : No physical work.

In years past he was the youngest in the family with energy to share. Energy to spare. Energy has to be coddled and loved. I know I’m making us out to be ancient beyond our years, but we know where we want to expend physical energy. Kitchen cabinet building left over from last summer. Model train layout goals. Gardening – and commuting to work. Again – not retired.

Husband’s boundary #3 : Financial.

I hadn’t even thought of this one. It takes money to pay for giant waste bins. It takes money to pay for people to take away stuff. The money will have to come from somewhere.

So, boundaries have helped to still the panic.

There will be more clarity in a weeks time after we view the property with our real estate agent. We will find out options, SIL will find out options.

Hoarder in the family : 2 Empathy

Or lack there of it.

We fast forward to now – January 2026. Nine years have passed, and sister in law wishes to move to a different province where another sibling lives. This is an excellent plan, but the challenge is now to get her from here to there without actually touching her stuff. Touching, sorting, tossing, organizing and so on is not in the plan.

In nine years, SIL’s health has declined and she has been diagnosed with COPD. She might have had the ability to sort even two years ago, but now she can’t. One sibling is in Alberta. Another, the eldest, also physically challenged, is four hours away. The third sibling is in the process of packing up her own house, to get remarried in March. This leaves my husband, the youngest, the only one still working full time, to figure this out.

I am quite apprehensive. I have a fairly neutral relationship with these four siblings-in-law. Over many years I have withdrawn my interaction, as they have. Husband maintains contact, I find out what’s up through him. I know I have to trust him to maintain his own life balance and set his own boundaries, It’s very difficult for me to give up control regarding my life periphery. I am also very aware of how this sort of project could snowball and become a beast that could eat half or all of our year.

I’m thinking of me while saying I am thinking of us. I’m thinking about how fragile health is and how quickly we can lose our mobility, our strength, our sense of adventure. At work I see how fast people can age, how rapidly they decline. That will, eventually be us, and we have no guarantee that we will age at the same rate side by side. There are no guarantees.

Where did my empathy go? I have it for my children, for my sister who lost her granddaughter to cancer, for my brother-in-law who just lost his wife, my eldest sister. Maybe I have given up on some unsuccessful relationships and feel my empathy is better served elsewhere.

Although I feel I am spinning in a whirlwind of survival energy, I will strive to be the calm voice in the sea of chaos for my husband. I think my empathy needs to be directed toward him, to help him navigate this shit show.

Hoarder in the family : 1

What makes a hoarder? I know it’s a mental illness. I’ve watched the shows, I’ve seen the experts come in and talk to the hoarder, to help the family, to encourage the hoarder to part with one can of expired corn or one book or one pile of soiled adult diapers, to no avail.

Husband’s sister is not like this, at least she wasn’t nine years ago. We think that her husband was the hoarder, and she was brought along on the ride.

In the 1980s, they were married, and soon after began to collect stuff. From what I remember, it was Kinder Egg toys, and possibly DVDs, camara equipment. They had no children but a love of toys. So many people were collecting Beanie Babies, dolls, plates, they did as well. Their house was small but really cute. Her husband made some good renovations early on. Everyone loved visiting them in those early days. He was not always nice to her, he was a bully. She was submissive. Nobody wanted to rock the boat.

Time passed. People visited less. Her friends didn’t visit at all. We were all busy with babies and toddlers. When we came to visit, nothing seemed to be out of control.

They built a massive garage in the 1990s to house the lawn equipment they now owned. It also housed her Camaro, which didn’t run anymore, but she couldn’t part with. It had shelf units to hold all the toy tractors they were collecting. They would go to toy shows and buy these tractors. All sizes.

My husband’s toy Tonka trucks were taken from his childhood home for their collection. Too valuable for small children to play with.

Years passed and as they do – they blend. When did the siblings stop visiting? When did the collecting stop, and the hoarding begin? When did the amassing of toys turn into the amassing of old pens and pencils? When did the collecting of Pepsi cans go from squishing them to recycle, to filling the basement because you couldn’t be bothered to squish them anymore?

It all came to a head in 2017. Her husband had been ill with cancer and died that October. In the aftermath one sister discovered the secret. No one had been to visit them in years, and the sister came to help. She found the cats. She found the garbage.

She dealt with the cats. How many I don’t know. She called on us, and we helped. We filled three dumpsters full of garbage and containers full of used cat litter. Carpets. Papers.

Over the course of a month the siblings restored her main floor to a clear and clean area. The twenty year old alcohal from her wedding, tossed out. Boxes of paystubs from the 1970s and 1980s. The room of paper piled to the ceiling, cleared out.

The upstairs was touched upon. It was semi-cleaned, somewhat cleared. Not well, so much mouse dirt. Dressers of beautiful linens ruined. Then we ran out of steam, she said she wanted to sift through stuff and sell it. We were all happy to leave her with it, feeling somewhat bruised from the experience.

We left her with one cat, a functional main floor.

Somewhat relieved, but always aware of the dark cloud looming.

Someday, someone would have to tackle the outbuildings.

Someday has come.