The Good and the Bad

My dad’s side of the family all suffer from hoarding OCD worthy of an Oprah show. We’ve also been having some health issues on that side of the family over the past couples months, so here’s one good story and one bad story that’s come out of it.

The bad.
About a month ago my grandfather passed away. He was the king of hoarders. He had two houses stuffed full of things to the point they could not be lived in. One of those houses he had actually moved from another location so that he could keep it and have it down the street from the first one – that is the icing on the cake of all hoarding – who literally moves a house? Because both his houses were so full he lived in an apartment. The apartment was about waist deep in stuff. He also had two 20×20 foot storage units stuffed full. And two motor homes stuffed full. We figure we’ll keep about 2% of all his stuff – that 2% being important documents, family photos, art, jewelry, china, crystal, and silver.

The good.
Over the summer my uncle found out he has bone cancer. Treatment is going well so far but he did shatter his hip and it isn’t going to heal until further into the treatment. About 8 years ago his house caught fire (large cluttery stack of old newspapers fell onto the furnace). Up until now he had never gotten around to repairing it – he just lived with his girlfriend. He’s uninsured and cancer treatment is expensive – but he can get some financial help once he’s down to $1500 in assets – and his house doesn’t count towards those assets as long as he is living in it. He hasn’t been living in it and work crews wouldn’t repair it because of all the clutter inside. He finally hired someone to clean out all the junk. Major progress for him because A) he’s finally willing to get rid of the stuff and B) he understands that he can’t get rid of it himself and needs the help. And he’s on track to be living in his clutter free house two weeks from now.

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