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Filled a 20 yrd dumpster just the start at my parents hm they couldn't throw ANYTHING away. They saved empty jars, had boxes of boxes, empty bags of bags, broken things to "fix" someday, bits and pieces of carpet, rags, etc etc etc. What is up with this type of hoarding? Why couldn't they throw anything away? When they moved to retire they UP sized. This is both my parents but mainly my dad. They were young kids in the depression but please this is loads of junk and broken items. What do you do with a broken & taped up 5 gal bucket?!! Junk mail not even opened from years ago. And really who saves carbon copy paper?!! This is just the tip of the iceburg. Can anyone shed light on this and tell me why all this junk was saved?

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We are in the process of cleaning out my parents house. The tub of batteries labeled used but good was but the tip of the iceberg.

There were concerted efforts during WWII to get folks to reuse and save everything. Shortages were much worse in GB; I wonder if any of our British friends could chime in on whether hoarding is prevalent amongst elders over there.
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My dad grew up in the depression and he is the same way! I'll throw away a take-out food container and he will pull it from the trash. The other day he showed me a receipt for shoes from 1970. Yes, he still has the shoes! His excuse is "I may need this someday". I assume the hoarding is from living through the depression and not having much.
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You know,come to think of it I don't remember any episodes of "Hoarders" that was focused on anybody but Americans.It would be interesting to know if this is happening with elders in other countries and cultures.
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Hoarding is a mental illness. Sounds like your dad was afflicted and, perhaps, mom just went along for the ride.

Some people are savers...especially people in their late '70's and 80's. That seems to me to be a leftover of The Depression. BUT there's a big difference between someone who saves rubber bands and empty jars and those who save garbage.

It's my understanding the compulsion is very difficult to treat...destroys families...creates real health hazards. Compassion but not enabling would be my solution, but no one I love has the disorder.
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The majority of hoarded 'stuff' will not be an issue for me, as I am the paid caregiver..but it is the hoarded food that drives me insane.... I have started throwing things away behind their backs... I have told the daughters what I am doing.... so as to not get in trouble, but I can only look at some of that stuff for so long without wanting to puke....He saves old toast !!!! Yes, you read that right... there is a bread bag on the counter with old toast in it..... I haven't even tried to find out why.... my parents were depression folks also, but were not hoarders... other than dad keeping receipts and cancelled checks that must have come over on the Mayflower......so I was grateful for that... but most of the families I have worked for are hoarders of something..... H saves all sorts of stuff.... but I do relate on one level.... I am a 'hoarder' of my art supplies.... I could open my own store, but would have a major panic attack if someone wanted something.... so, part of me understands, and part of me wants to throw that toast like Frisbees.....
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I think our elders who were small during the Depression were deeply affected by what they saw and lived. Both my parents weren't hoarders, but my mom still saves every empty box, bag and container if you let her. She wants me to give old, used, tattered clothes to charity, because "someone might be able to use it". It's a mindset that came from extreme poverty in childhood.

That need to save served my folks well, in that they started from NOTHING and amassed enough money to take care of themselves well during their lifetime, while leaving a nice nest egg for me too. So I respect that desire to save!
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There's a difference between saving from living through the Depression and WWII vs. hoarding foods and living in filth.

Perhaps you might try to read more about what it was like during the Depression - living in cold houses because you couldn't afford heat, standing in bread lines and being embarrassed because you were so poor.

The cold weather is especially difficult. If you live in a cold area, try turning off your furnace for a few weeks this winter and see what it's like. You'll begin to search your house for blankets and anything to keep you warm. Then imagine that people who survived the Depression had to do this for more than a few weeks - it was all winter.

Have you ever gone to a food handout for poorer people? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for people to stand in line to get food?

Remember the social safety nets that are available now didn't exist then.

If you didn't save something, you might never be able to afford to buy it again.

The Depression and the compromises necessary during WWII are events that formed survivors' outlooks for the rest of their lives. Younger people today often can't even begin to comprehend the sacrifices that had to be made during those earlier periods.
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There was a saying during the depression that went something like "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." It became a mindset for our elders who grew up during that time. My mother's father always had a job, so they were better off than most, but she told me of neighboring families that lived all winter on the produce from their gardens, dining mostly on potatoes and potato soup. Meat was seldom included. Maybe the food hoarding comes from those memories. People just can't bring themselves to discard food.
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AKDaughter raises a good point about food. If you've ever been starving, that horrible experience could seemingly create an obsession with collecting and keeping food. In fact, that's the best explanation for food hoarding I've seen - it really makes sense.

I doubt if Depression Era PTSD has been explored as a specific malady, but I think it certainly exists.
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I have a hoard of an entire attic, up steep narrow stairs filled with used Christmas paper, magazines, old shoes, clothes. Filled with furniture my parents drug home from other family deaths. What was weird is that when any children or grandchildren asked if they could have a bed or table that was upstairs....they could not have it....

My mother, the guardian of the hoard, passed away 7 years ago. She loved her junk! I havent had the "energy" or heart to start in, but I have to get it done this winter.....not looking forward to it! Yes depression era and WWII to the core....still found a book of ration stamps from 1940's!
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Ration stamps - I remember reading a letter written about my mother on how she managed to maximize ration stamps for gas. She and other base wives pooled their resources so that several of them could accomplish with one trip what today we would do alone.
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That should have been 'written BY my mother..."
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My Mom's thing is junk mail. To many folks her age mail was exciting and important. She thinks she has to carefully open and read all the junk mail and says she'll get to it all one of these days, but of course she never does. It just piles up every where so I sneak it out when I can, leaving a little here and there so she won't haveva fit.

And she saves the flimsy little plastic sleeves the newspaper comes in. Has bags and bags of the damn things. In case I ever see that guy, he can reuse these. No sense throwing away perfectly good stuff! The paper comes at 6 am. Mom hasn't been up at 6 am since the Truman Administration.
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timbuktu, on the Discovery Channel there is a UK hoarding show called "Hoarding: Behind Closed Doors", which is quite interesting.
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Used to be food, old bills and official paperwork dating back to the days of T rex, cloths, old pots & pans, and anything that didn't look totally useless. There was nowhere to live, no kitchen or dining room. It was stuff stacked up to the ceiling. Now it's just clothes and old pots and pans. Oh, and sheets. Those are the hoarding strongholds that I can't break through.

One really bad thing about hoarding is that furniture can get full. The solution is not to get rid of the hoard, but to buy more furniture. This takes up all the wall space in a room. It's a horror to try to clean. And painting... forget about it. Each task takes 1000% longer because of the hoarding.

Remedy for hoarding: Big bulldozer to push the house down and start again.
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My Father is 90 and always talked about (even when he was young) his Mother made him and his brothers go pick up coal from the train tracks that was dropped from the trains during the Great Depression so they could use it for heat. Think that the Depression has a lot to do with it. All my uncles said that they were dragged up and not brought up. More stuff you have harder it is to clean the house. My father doesn't even get rid of envelops from junk mail. Very hard situation I know.
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When I read this post i had to laugh. I just threw out carbon paper and my dad told me it was still good! Had to be 30 yrs old. Told him we have a new inventions called computers and printers so he wouldn't need that snymore. His response to me "smarta**". I just laughed. Anyone save used tea bags? That was a daily occurrence in my parents house.
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Uncle.....will be 101 in October........if you drive him somewhere....still wants you to shift care into low gear when going downhill to save the brakes......haha
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Remember, in those days things could actually be repaired or parts could be utilized elsewhere. Those go-carts in old movies really existed, you young whipper-snappers, all made from scavenged things.

Remember too the children starving in China, India, Africa and all the naked little children. Waste not, want not. That's what I grew up with, penny drives, food drives, clothing drives. That is powerful conditioning.

There was a woman at my church who went to thrift stores on 1$ bag day and emptied the store. She shipped it all to Central America, to people in her village. I don't know where she is now but I'd like to give her my stuff.
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I have one good answer. Their houses get hoarded because they bought them and never, ever moved. So they ended up with 70-80 years of stuff that might be useful again one day.

There's a lot to be said for moving, even if it is only to clear the clutter.
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It is a mental illness somewhat related to OCD according to many accounts. These people get tremendously invested in EVERYTHING, even trash. It's a nasty and isolating illness. As I understand it, it is very difficult to treat. Often seen in conjunction with animal hoarding

Very sad.
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One good thing is that when it comes to pots and pans, other utensils, knick-knacks, vintage women's and children's clothing in good shape, old costume jewelry and furniture, these can be cleaned up and sold via Craigslist, Etsy or eBay for some nice dollars that can then be used to enhance the elder's comfort today. Big market for these sorts of items. Probably a market also for the ration stamps to a collector of WWII memorabilia!
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Please don't mention how much money it is worth if you sell it on line, that is part of the problem!! To those with a tendency to hoard it is all valuable stuff and they are going to have a yard sale "some day"or post it on line "when I figure it out". And if you think donating it is hard just try to mention getting a dumpster!
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If I had a nickel for every time my mom says "use it up, make it do, do without" or "waste not, want not", I be a very rich woman. Mom and dad very depression babies - dads family did alright but my moms family were very poor. Mom saved all the stuff mentioned in other posts plus more - nothing was ever used just once with the exception of tp. It made me nutz - but on the plus side she now has enough money to keep her in a nice place and I'm able to purchase for her anything she needs without worry.
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Now that I can roam through my parents house [before it felt awkward to snoop around] I am glad they weren't hoarding. But I noticed some of the new clothes I bought for my Mom she had in a box in her closet and she prefer to keep wearing her old things, holes, stains and all around the house. Oh well, guess we all have a favorite old pair of jeans or comfy sweatshirt. Once Mom went into long-term-care I bought her some new things to wear.

Just within the past year or so, Dad has started paper piles and he wanted to read everything.... cut the article out and put it into a 3 ring binder so he can read 100x again. As Mom aged [both in their 90's] she finally gave up trying to keep Dad under paper control. I would joke with the Caregivers asking if they found any newspapers or bills from the 1950's in that mess :P
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Oh, and don't forget the ecology and landfill issues. The guilt I feel throwing anything out because of landfills is huge. Throwing away food, don't even go there.

I bought a bee-hive composter for my back yard, so I make dirt with my paper and food waste. It eases the guilt. I don't know what I'll do in an apartment.

I mean there's humor in it, and there isn't. Part of Hoarder's is that the Executive part of the brain is having a problem deciding what is trash, what isn't, and what to do with the trash, and maybe it isn't trash, maybe someone will want it... It's pretty rough going to find your way back to normal.
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I mention humor because with the right delivery you can make things funny, but one of the NOT funny situations with some hoarders is the hiding of cash (in the usual and unusual places).
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OMG the cash, you don't dare throw out any book or envelope without checking it first. Not to mention valuable documents, jewelry or family heirlooms mixed in with all the rest!
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There's a difference between hoarding, especially the publicized kind exploited by tv medica, and saving because you never knew if you would ever have the money to buy it again. I wrote this earlier but since this thread has been resurrected, I think it's worth consideration again.

There are so many fail safe mechanisms today that it's difficult to conceive of how desperate times were during the Depression and WWII. And it's absolutely disgusting how much is wasted and ends up in landfills or oceans and not recycled. There are so many people with no concept of limitation of resources, whether those resources are water or fuel.

I'll never forget the look on my mother's face when she told us of the time when they had no coal to heat their house in the winter. Today some houses are so large there are 2 furnaces. My father was embarrassed to stand in bread lines to get bread for the family. Today people feel bread to squirrels and waterfowl.

And there are unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid and other safety net programs.

There was a sea change of perspective in the 1970s when OPEC action threatened to curtail fuel exports. A lot of talk and consideration was given to how to save on fuel, home energy, and the concepts of earth sheltered homes and rationing were not beyond implementation.

Now cars and computers notoriously become obsolete the moment they're sold, although that's a bit of an exaggeration. There's more social pressure to upgrade than there is to use, adapt and recycle. And there's just so much pathetic waste.
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GardenArtist, I agree 100% with all the waste. Ads making one think they have to have everything new in their house. Well, I know no one is going to break into my home if they peek through the patio door and see that old 25" RCA tube TV sitting there, and a 1990 white refrigerator with the freezer on the top.... and there's a 20 year old Jeep in the garage. Nope, pass this house !!

And today I had to get out the tin snips to break into a heavy plastic cover that was housing a simple PAID rubber stamp.... go figure, like who's going to steal that from a store?

Old apples/pears, old pita bread go out for the squirrels, and anything else they like to eat, even broken corn chips :)
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