Messages By: suebonnetsue

     The first year it was a county service.  Now, she gets a bill.  She refused to pay it, so the city turned off her water.   She changed her mind and pays the bill. 

     Do you remember Jeff Foxworthy's joke "You might be a Redneck if . . .?"  Well, the first year  the fire department cleaned up her yard, they found a whole pickup that she had reported stolen.  No, I am not kidding.  It was that bad!  She was surprised to finally find that pickup. 

    In our county, you can keep one car without tags on your property.  That pickup is now underneath a tree on the front yard.  The car actually runs.  It is a neighborhood giggle.  It got so loaded with trash that she couldn't get in and drive anymore.  So, she gathered up bags of garbage from the inside.  I don't mean one or two, I mean bags and bags. 

     The odd thing was, she wouldn't put it on the curb for the garbage men to pick up.  No, she put the bags on the driveway with her other junk. 

You are a hoarder.  You know it and you consciously hide the fact by keeping people, acquaintences, police, repairmen, etc from inside your house.   You know it is wrong and you know it is detrimental to your children.  However, when threatened by any authority, you can be motivated to clean up.

Is it a sickness or is it a conscious choice to place blame on everyone else and turn yourself into a victim?  If you can clean up under threat of consequences, why can't you clean up for the sake of your children?

None of you get this. It's NOT awful. I know more people than you realize who live like this. Do they like it? NO! But, many times, no help for it. Not one of you mentioned priorities. If you only have 16-18 hrs a day to complete all you have to do, you have to prioritize. Do I do my dishes today, or water my lawn? No time to do both. Typing this treatise is taking away the time I should be using to feed my invalid husband, who by the way, is sleeping in a hospital bed in the middle of my living room. The furniture it pushed out is on the back porch in the weather and in my office, which has reduced me to the "clear path rule". All 3 bedrooms are maxed out, and the mail has piled up for months. Blame I.D. theft for that. You can't throw away junk mail any more unless you open it first to remove the shreddable stuff.  I had to buy a second shredder. I confess to being a product of the depression, when you HAD to save everything, so plastic silverware and cups get washed and reused.  I totally sympathize with the guest, inasmuch as I too, can't bear to throw away plastic containers. Solved that by not buying anything that isn't cardboard. (Cardboard  and styrofoam I can pitch.) When Dr. Phil told her he had a truck pulled up to her house, I was the one who almost had the heart attack.  My kids have threatened that...so, I won't go out of town, in case they follow up on their threats. Now, as I said in the beginning, I'm not alone. I apologized to a service person recently about the condition of my house, and he replied that mine was nothing compared to some he'd seen. One of these days, when I no longer have to work to eat, I can retire and spend time cleaning my house. In the meantime, I guess it will continue to be low on the priority list. By the way, I also drink and drive.