My Mom Is A Hoarder. We Live On Trash!
Hi, I’m Nora. I’m 17. And, well... my Mom has been struggling with being a hoarder for more than 5 years. It sounds innocent enough, but believe me... it’s not.
It all started 5 years ago, when I was 12 and my brother Kaleb was 8. That year... our Dad died of cancer and... it was honestly really really tough for everyone, but especially for my Mom. She began hoarding stuff in our house. It was so dirty and filthy that it was IMPOSSIBLE to walk around in it without slippers. Just a few minutes with no shoes and our feet would be black from all the dirt.
Every room was full of boxes, newspapers, clothes, shoes, and furniture. It was so insane that we only had small openings to move through, and even then there was a lot of stuff on the ground. And Mom would always be bringing more and more stuff home. Our kitchen was so full with kitchen wares and unwashed dishes that Mom usually just ordered something so we wouldn’t have to clean it ourselves. The worst thing was the BUGS and... other living things. We always had cockroaches, mice, and rats.
To the outside world we were a normal family, but of course Mom never let anyone inside to see how it really was. I couldn’t wait until I turned 18 so I could leave to go study somewhere, but I knew I couldn’t... because of my brother.
You see, living in these conditions had affected him much worse than it did me. He was ALWAYS sick and had a ton of allergies. There was never a day when he wouldn’t sneeze bunch of times. I couldn’t just leave him like that, and well, my mother either.
Every time I tried to talk to her about throwing something away she would try to justify how IMPORTANT everything was. Oh, don’t throw this old magazine away, I haven't finished it. Don’t throw out this box, we may need it!
I couldn’t let me and Kaleb live like that anymore, so one week, when my Mom went on a short vacation and we were supposed to stay at our aunt Rose’s house, we decided to clean our house. Aunt Rose helped us hire cleaners and movers, and over the span of a week we were only able to clean up... two rooms. Yes, there was SO MUCH STUFF that in a week we didn’t even finish.
I never expected my Mom’s reaction when she came back... she was upset and angry and was rambling on about how everything we threw out had value and how we had to get it back... she stopped talking to aunt Rose and was upset with me for a long time.
Very soon everything went back to “normal” - and she found and bought more stuff to fill up the rooms that had been cleaned. It was painful to see how bad Kaleb felt in this house... so I had to try to talk some sense into my Mom again.
Needless to say, she didn’t want to listen to me or to accept that she had a problem, an illness. But then something happened that made things much worse…
When all of us were at work or school, a fire started in our house, and well... there was a lot of stuff that could burn. It spread quickly and soon firefighters arrived, and they lost a LOT of time trying to get into the house through all the STUFF. All hoarders’ houses are major fire hazards, and our was no exception.
After a long and dangerous process, they finally put out the fire, but several rooms of our house were burnt to a crisp.
I was shocked when I returned home and very upset at how my Mom was panicking basically because she lost all her stuff and not because it was dangerous and if any of us would've been at home during this time, we would've been seriously injured... in the best case scenario.
While our house was getting repaired we had to move to aunt Rose’s family house. To be honest... I liked living there. It was clean and neat and it was such a breath of fresh air... literally. The best thing was that Kaleb’s health was improving - his allergies had subsided and he was much more healthy. It was wonderful to see him being active and happy, while he was usually very passive. It’s like he was a completely different kid.
I can’t say the same about my Mom, though. She was being closely monitored by me, aunt Rose, and her husband. She was constantly crying and aunt Rose wouldn’t let her start hoarding stuff again, so I guess my Mom felt very uncomfortable and even trapped.
I was very angry at my Mom and one day I snapped. I told her how it was time to move on - Dad died five years ago and me, and especially Kaleb, needed her. I also told her that she had to STOP her hoarding because it was impossible to live in those conditions, and that I thought she would've realized that after the fire.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t even explain why she was like that, and at the same time she refused to get help.文本并非一一对应，且不完整，仅供参考阅读
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2015年2月8日
2019年9月16日
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