hoarding -part-2 

         well it seems as if this condition not only affects our family but has affected others also and it is nice to see on occasion someone who is far worse than we ever thought we could be. this is on a state route outside of salineville . and yet  i dont believe they are relation but may possibly be. but when looking through my picture archives i came across this photo to show the extremes of hoarding. there wasn't a piece of earth at this place that wasn't subject to being trampled on, oiled , or trashed up so no living thing could possibly think about continuing here. this is hoarding at its extreme.
       grandma was never like that. in fact she was fastidious about saving. although she saved everything and threw away little she kept everything in piles or boxes or in neat rows . grandma saved everything from the plastic strips that came off gallon milk jugs when you peeled the safety seal off. these were tied to a string and were in the basement as that was probably where she had opened the milk in the first place. a whole string of useless plastic strips all tied neat and proper. empty boxes upon boxes , stored within each other awaiting mementos of grandmas life that would never come as she soon forgot where the empty boxes were.
      magazines and newspapers , some of which we still have stored in barrels in the barn and also just stacked in the house from the second world war on dating to 1942 as far back as i could tell. these were being stored at our farm up north here till we moved in in 1962, then they were placed in barrels and stored in the barn. after 1962 all papers  were stored in the house along with magazines , creating huge piles . these were kept out of our sight when we were young as grandma would move these piles relentlessly to different corners of the house. eventually even she found it fruitless to continue moving her stash of saved objects opting instead for closing off a room of the house or forbidding us to venture into certain areas of her stash kingdom.
     grandpa seemed powerless to stem the tide of growing stashdom and he himself  was relinquished to having an area around him. here he would  have his own stash of empty tobacco juice spit cans which would pile up and eventually be knocked over by a grandkid. thus releasing their foul stench.  paths were hewn out of the house and room after room became unavailable to anyone except grandma. at fist the piles in the remotest spots of the house were as tall as she  could stack. stuff that one might need for a rainy day like a good depression might bring on.eventually the stacks became smaller as her shoulders would hurt from lifting to high.  it became an obsession to her to save everything she could.convinced we would need it later in life. grandpa not so convinced ,but would allow her to continue unabated in her quest to squeeze them out of their house.
     she always kept the front room of the house spotless though as that was where the facade of living normally began. she carefully placed items that had significance to the family and kept her plastic covers on the new furniture ,as if  forbidding the possibility of anyone spoiling her one perfect room to accept company.  or diminishing her dream of being perfect if only for a moment.
     this continued as long as grandpa was alive , and when he died , i must say things became worse. little things grandpa would not  let her save were now accumulating, as she went into overdrive convinced that now more than ever her things were that much more important to her. room after room fell into non use as they began to be transformed into time capsules of grandmas life. christmas presents with the original christmas paper and ribbon were placed into these rooms and silently forgotten unused and in new condition as grandma would choose to use up whatever she was using till it trash. by then she was forgetting where she had left things in the house. this is a large house and contained at least 10 rooms and a full basement and required a lot of memory to just find the everyday things she used.
     outside the house was always neat. she would have her baskets of wormy apples she would pick up and cut and peel into tiny pieces to make apple sauce with. she tended a garden as long as she could . the yard was always mowed , and things gave the appearance of being normal but once inside , it was a different story altogether. she began turning off lights to save money and this led to her cutting off this appliance and another till she was left with hardly anything running in the house. her refrigerator quit and she refused to get a repairmen out to fix it as she had to clean up a spot to get him in. she had a refrigerator in the basement as well as a stove and would trudge up and down the basement stairs to use these appliances while her other appliances sat unused and broken in her kitchen. she refuse to let anyone do anything for her including cleaning or fixing broken appliances or whatever till later on in her life. years went by and even i as close to grandma as i was had no idea of how hard she had made it on herself. refusing to allow anyone into her inner sanctum behind the living room doors. i firmly believe the monster of her own making which was this house full of junk was an embarrassment that no one but her could understand why it was the way it was and she choose to not let any of our family see the real mess she was in. but somewhere along the way she got old and it was time again for family to help and little by little she let us in. she knew she was up against it and that she needed the help. more next time.