Edmund falls asleep before my evening starts and he wakes up when I am deep in my sleep. He wakes up at 3 am and he catches some nice shows on cable.
He introduced me to the tv reality show Hoarders. It’s on Biography Channel (BIO).
I couldn’t believe how some ordinary people could accumulate broken computers, old mattresses, dolls, bottles of ketchup, old tires, expired medicines, empty plastic bottles, empty cartons, and just about anything and everything that they could buy or salvage from the street. Some even collected other people’s garbage.
They filled their homes with things they feel attached to. One guy collected broken washing machines, junk cars, broken and rusty bicycles and other broken machinery believing that he could fix them and turn them into new and reusable stuff. Some women are addicted to shopping. There’s this woman of Indian decent that hoarded thousands of Sari gowns and dresses. All the four bedrooms in their house, including their kitchen, family room, toilets, attic, garage, driveway, backyard, sideyard, frontyard, ceilings, are full of clutter they can’t let go. They just keep on buying; bringing objects to their home. They don’t even open the shopping bags. Some are facing bankruptcy due to their hoarding.
A woman from New Jersey had more than 3,000 pieces of handbags. When the city workers came to her house to clear the clutter, she threw a fit when she couldn’t find her Louis Vuitton handbag. Three charity workers came to buy handbags they could donate to charity, but they found most of her bags as knock-offs, except for a few hundred.
If you don’t live in a palace, it’s not advisable to have thousands of pairs of shoes.
These people suffer from some obssessive compulsive behavior, or in other words psychological disorder.
A white woman and her brother from Utah inherited a 32 acre farm when their mother died. They got a million dollar each from the sale.
That’s when her addiction to shopping started. She couldn’t handle the enormous wealth that landed on her lap. She just kept on buying and accumulating things she never got to use. In two years, only $200,000 was left out of the million dollars. She also didn’t care to open the mails, even those that she knew contained checks- refunds, coupons, trust fund interest income and a $20,000 check from her brother.
The show makes me conscious of how my bathroom is beginning to look like. I have no more space for my shoes. It’s not that I have a lot. I am not one who accumulates shoes. Months could pass without me buying even a pair of shoes.
I have about a dozen boxes that I refuse to throw away kasi nahihinayang ako.
More empty shoe boxes
Empty-empty
Even empty shopping bags, nahihinayang akong itapon
Siguro I only get to wear 5% of what’s in my cabinet. I wear the same clothes over and over again. Kasi the 95% accentuate my disfigured figure.
Edmund said I should give them away. Pano yun, marami I haven’t even worn. They’re waiting for me to lose weight.
How do I discard thee?
I bought this cotton blouse in the US 3 years ago and hasn’t worn it even once. I bought it although it hugged on my stomach hoping that someday my stomach would shrink. Parang nakakahinayang namang ipahingi.
Compulsive hoarders are like that. They can’t let go of their stuff and junk.
(ABC News)
Hi, Ms. Annie. When you dispose of things you don’t need or haven’t used for so long, the feeling afterwards is so good. You will feel lighter. Especially everytime you see the empty clean spaces around you. Definitely beats the sad feeling of “sayang” and of being separated from stuff we have grown attached to:)
Good morning Ms. Annie! I also hoard things like boxes (of shoes, gadgets, kitchen appliances), bags(paper and plastic lalo na yong mga presentable), old clothes na ni ayaw ko nang isuot kase uniform o kaya lumang-luma na sa gamit, even the old toys of my kids, mga cute bottles, etc. Mas na ipinamimigay ko po yong seldom na ginamit kesa old kase nakakahiya naman sa pagbibigyan :). Pero nong binaha po ang Davao, my mom called me to send her old clothes daw or to give away (ewan ko po sa nanay ko me bahay naman sya pero sa akin niya ipinapadala mga gamit nya) daw sa mga gustong kumuha. Ginawa ko naman po ang kaso andami pa rin. At ayaw ko na marinig ang complaints ni mister tungkol sa dami nang mga naka-imbak sa maliit naming bahay na lalong nagpapaliit dito. Hopefully wala akong lakad this weekend magbabawas nga po uli ako (inspired!).