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Clutter

Okay, granted, I’m not the world’s greatest housekeeper. I come from a proud packrat heritage, in a family household where no flat surface will remain unused for more than a few hours.

But…nothing I or my family has ever managed to come up with even comes close to comparing to this house. Amazing…and a little disturbing.

Posted in Life.

7 Responses

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  1. Dad said

    Amazing!

  2. Mom said

    Dad said we weren’t in the running in this contest. I do like the dining room table on Mother’s Day photo as example of “any flat surface.”

    There was no photo to illustrate this entry when I opened it. How do I get the full effect and not just the words?

  3. Mom said

    I found it. The contrast wasn’t very contrasty, but I found it all by myself.

    Yea, Mom.

    WHERE did she acquire ALL those beautiful paper cases? I don’t think you had that many when you were working up here at Timeframe.

    Did you note the poster of Teklanika? OK, couldn’t see the picture, but the label was visible.

    And you said I needed to start working my way through our house because you wouldn’t ever have enough leave time to come get rid of everything — and that was before we started hauling half of my parents possessions to Alaska.

    And now I’ve got to hurry and get some work in because I spent my time exploring that collection of STUFF.

    Of course much of it is very valuable. That’s obvious to the casual observer!

    Mom

  4. The sad yet horrible truth is I know two people with houses worse that this. The people I know have their houses full of trash and newspapers at least in this house I do see some collectables. (One of the two is a relative) After I visited them in their NEW home just six months after they moved in, my mother asked me the color of the carpet and I said I didn’t know. She said how could you NOT know the color of the carpet? I replied I had to walk in 6 inches of dirty clothes and another 6 inches of newspaper in every room (including the kitchen) and at no time was I in a position to see any carpet. Not even on the STAIRS! Mom decided not to visit them. Nor did I ever go back. The stuff in this house is stacked in boxes, I’m talking about 40 or 50 bags of trash staked against the wall in the kitchen! Just the smell alone made me sick.

  5. Tara said

    Eww.

    My apartment is a mess, but nowhere near like that, as I had said.

  6. Science has recently started to make a finer distinction between OCD and hoarding behavior. The former is probably trigger by an biologically overdeveloped sense of disgust. They appear to be similar, but hoarders don’t appear to be afflicted by a need for cleanliness or order.

    There was a great Discover article a while back telling of research money coming in to investigate it as a separate problem, primarily because of the social-services issues. The article cites more than one person being found literally crushed under their junk.

    It’s been pointed out to me that my behavior appears to be drawing from both camps. I want to collect things, and then stack/categorize/analyze/correlate the heck out of them. :)

Continuing the Discussion

  1. Subzero Blue linked to this post on May 10, 2005

    Crazy Clutter

    I always thought my old bachelor appartment was the most unorganized place on earth. I had my clothes thrown all over the sofas. The tables had pyramids of empty takeaway boxes, soda cans, chips bags and what not. My shoes were scattered all around the…

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