You might be surprised to read the words “neat and tidy” in the same sentence as “hoarder.” When we hear the word “hoarder,” we usually think of extreme clutter, an unlivable environment mired with chaos, filth, fire hazards, roaches and rats. Within our imaginations, we plop in a disheveled, depressed looking person wallowing in the mess.
I bring this topic up because there is a segment of the “clutter community” which may be in denial about their hoarding, in part because of how they store and manage their excesses. I’ve seen enough professional organizing videos to recognize how this “neat and tidy” hoarding evolves. As well, I’ve watched plenty of suspect interior designers who showcase their own homes. It’s easy to detect their high-level hoarding, though very few would ever self-identify it as such. One designer boasts of having an entire basement, organized with containers for all her Christmas decorations. She decorates her home for the holidays as if it were a shopping center.
With regular hoarding, such as the poor souls featured on the Hoarders reality show, we see how this disorder compels people to save random items. Those random things may be very ordinary (not unique or valuable in any objective way), they may be broken items, and they may be completely useless items such as the packaging from fast-food meals. With this disorder, there is an unhealthy, and indiscriminately sentimental attachment to all the garbage.
The “neat and tidy” hoarder presents in a completely different way. In fact, this might be a successful person with a high-powered job, along with the demands and fulfillment of friends and family. Their dark secret comes in stages over time. People close to the neat and tidy hoarder may not even know a problem exists. This is because the neat and tidy hoarder may have much of their stuff hidden behind closet doors, cabinets, the attic, the basement or the garage. In fact, those who are invited into those areas might even marvel at how the neat and tidy hoarder has organized all their stuff. They use stylish containers and everything is labeled. They can find anything they have expertly stored. Surely, those are not the indications of an out-of-control hoarder, right?
Sometimes the hoarding disguises itself as “collections.” Many of us have a touch of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and it can manifest with very specific items: clothing, shoes, baseball caps, cosmetics, thematic decor, fine dishes, vintage items, books, pillows, food, nutritional supplements, plants or anything in excess that does not seem to be justified based on usage or value.
These collections should not be confused with items that may in fact be necessary. For example, someone who does Arts and Crafts may have a space in a closet (or a room) where they maintain the supplies they need for projects. That room might look like a miniature Hobby Lobby or Michael’s craft store and that is okay. As well, if you are a chef or baker and need to have umpteen kitchen gadgets, I would not call that “clutter” or hoarding as these are the tools you may need, even if only occasionally.
We also overlook the wealthy, opulent hoarder, who may own forty hats or a hundred purses, but she lives in a mansion with a department store-sized clothes closet. And in her defense, people in the media and entertainment often need to have a huge wardrobe for work and social reasons. No one in that orbit wants to be photographed wearing the same thing from last year, God forbid. One humorous exception is actor Daniel Radcliffe. Apparently, he wore the same clothes in public for several months, in order to frustrate the paparazzi and undermine their ability to sell new photos of him to tabloids.
Over the decades, I have had only a handful of feng shui clients who could star in a Hoarders episode. But I have surveyed many homes where there is semi-controlled clutter, even in the “neat and tidy” realm. One client had a whole closet filled with brand new, elegant comforter cover sets. With her downsizing efforts underway, she offered me several to take for myself!
Another client has a room in her house completely dedicated to storing clothing she no longer wears. Several hundred plastic boxes fill the room from floor to ceiling. She justified keeping them for years, hoping to one day open a used clothing store, with a jump start on inventory. It almost made sense, except for the fact that there was nothing else going on in her life to indicate she could realistically start a business. In her case, there was a mixture of hoarding “styles.” The clothing storage was meticulous. However, the clutter in her kitchen looked like a bomb went off. And she would not be the first client to add more square footage to her home, in order to store the clutter.
One area where most of us are reluctant to give away something is if the item was pricey. We feel guilty throwing away such possessions and donating them still stings because of the money wasted on the original purchase. One professional organizer suggests that the pain felt in donating these items helps one learn a visceral lesson and to avoid future impulse buys.
Another technique is to place certain items in a temporary “give away” container. The items in limbo can be stored for another six months, out of sight and hopefully out of mind. The goal is for the person to eventually realize they did not use or miss the item(s) and then make it easier to eventually discard.
These suggestions can work for the neat and tidy hoarder. The neat and tidy hoarder often has the means to replace items if they end up regretting parting with them and this type of hoarder has not completely gone off the deep end, as their public living spaces may still be immaculate. Many parts of their lives are still functioning quite normally and the OCD behavior may have been compartmentalized.
Sadly, it’s with the hard-core generalized hoarder where self-reflection is traumatic or insight into the illness may be non-existent. Often, these folks don’t have any other gratifying things going on in their lives, so they need the assistance of professional clutter experts and therapists to make those monumental changes, if they can make them at all.
Ultimately, it’s good to approach these issues with humor and tackle them with the conviction that you can and will transcend your past compulsions. In writing this article, I had a look around my own home and office. Is there anything that I “collect” or anything I am especially emotional about? I know that I don’t like to run out of things, mostly because I just don’t want to shop when it’s inconvenient. I don’t think that having three tubes of toothpaste on hand would classify as “hoarding.” Many of my own purchases revolve around practical storage and things I will use up quickly or eventually, such as a pantry that includes things I won’t have to replace for a few months at a time.
If someone didn’t know the background story, they might assume that I collect shawls, where I have a half dozen on display in my guest bedroom. And there are more inside drawers. Truth is, I’ve only bought myself one or two shawls in 40 years. Where did the rest come from? Gifts. Including one friend who gave me three. I guess because I vibe like a hippie meditator, friends have assumed I’m wrapped in a shawl every morning in prayer. They are all pretty, so I enjoy the shawls on display as textile art.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Tao of Organizing Blog Series
