The type of items that I own the most of are definitely clothes. There are a few reasons for this, the first of which being that I haven’t bothered giving away any of my old clothing that I’ve gone through since I was about 12. As I’ve outgrown clothes and moved through different phases with my style, I’ve simply bought more clothes and not gotten rid of the old ones. Also, I think that I do have a bit of an issue at the moment with buying clothes that I don’t really need. If I have money, one of the main things that it will go towards is clothing, and I am annoyed with myself for this because it would definitely be better if I saved the money for when I really needed it. And yet, I still buy the clothing. What this results in is an accumulation of these items, on top of my preexisting stash of old clothing from middle and high school. I guess the combination of the sheer volume of these items that I possess and also the fact that I compulsively keep buying more even when a big part of me doesn’t want to and it stresses me out, could pose a compelling argument for hoarding. However, I don’t think that that lens completely captures the essence of the issue, because I would have no problem giving away the old clothes that I don’t wear- I just haven’t worked up the initiative to sort through them and take them somewhere to be donated. I honestly think that my desire to keep buying new clothes and reworking my wardrobe is rooted in a need to continuously work towards a superficial type of “self improvement” that I substitute in for doing more difficult work on myself, and then when this doesn’t work I just try again and buy more stuff. My understanding is that this is a very common issue in capitalist America, as we are constantly bombarded with messages that buying certain products will make us happy. I don’t think that this is my “fault” or the “fault” of anyone else with this same mindset, but it is certainly a large societal issue which leads to a lot of waste, and which I myself have to actively work on. Maybe all of that is just an explanation for the underpinnings of something that could accurately be described as hoarding behavior, but the clothes that I own aren’t taking over my space or making my space messy or unlivable, which I understand to be a crucial element of hoarding. So, I do think that it is a different thing, that could possibly (hopefully not) progress into a type of hoarding if left unchecked.
Category Archives: Hoarding and Cleaning
Hoarding
After searching through my place I’ve realized that I have a lot of sandals. Each summer I add to my sandal collection because I try not to wear the same stuff. Currently I have about 20 pairs but I’m missing the other pair from a couple of them. I have so many pairs of sandals that if I wear a different pair every day it would take me 20 days to get back to the pair I first wore. I wouldn’t consider myself a hoarder because I wear my sandals but just in the summer. It may take me a while to wear them all but I like to switch things up. People may think I’m a hoarder because they only switch between two or three pairs but since I have more it could seem like it’s too much, which it is.Having all my sandals is not a result of a bad cleaning habit, it’s just because I like to change up my style. Also when I think I lost a pair, I end up buying another pair.
Hoarding
In my space now I am actually lacking a lot of my usual clutter. Back home my bookshelves are overflowing with books and knick knacks from all ages and stages of my life. I like to call it my personal museum. Without the clutter that I have collected though it has allowed me to start new collections which have yet to grow very much. So far the thing I have found myself filling my space with the most has been food. Last year the dining commons and I didn’t get along so this year I have an overabundance of non perishable foods like snacks and microwave meals stacked and in boxes all over my room. That and cooking items.. So many pots, pans, spices, bowls etc. But the only thing that makes it a bigger deal or more of a clutter is it being in a space that it normally is not. If all of my items were in a kitchen I doubt someone would even really notice that they existed.
Am I a newspaper hoarder?
One of the benefits of my Pedal People routes is that I encounter many customers who still subscribe to paper media. I regularly ‘harvest’ from their paper recycling bins magazines and newspapers, which I would never buy. (How is $60 a year a good deal?) Incredibly, many of these seem to be barely touched, like a household that seems to have an almost unopened New York Times Sunday edition every week. I don’t care about the news of course, since it’s already really out of date, and we get a free digital subscription. But I pull out the sections that aren’t time sensitive which would be fine to read whenever, like the magazine, arts section, and book review. I do this almost every week, but I don’t read them at this pace. And they seem to be piling up. I’ve thrown them all on one shelf on a bookcase, at least to keep them somewhere contained.
Ethan’s bookshelf, with the lower level filled with collected newspapers and magazines
What’s happening here? Why am I holding onto these, some of which are over half a year old? And I keep adding to the pile, even though I know I’m not keeping up? This seems to fall into the DSM 5’s diagnostics of hoarding: “The difficulty discarding possessions results in the accumulation of possessions that congest and clutter active living areas and substantially compromises their intended use. If living areas are uncluttered, it is only because of the interventions of third parties.” The only reason I really have them on this shelf is to minimize the amount my roommates may complain. Is my difficulty with getting rid of them based on my “perceived need to save the items and to distress associated with discarding them?” It’s not like I’m going to get to these eventually at this point.
In contrast to the DSM, Herring makes the argument that hoarding in this sense has a particular cultural history. For centuries meaning only gathering of wealth, hoarding as a concept that now seems commonsense emerged in the 1940s. Key to this is not just that many materials have been gathered, but they are disorganized. That brings our attention to what the assumed ‘proper’ form of order is, which is culturally specific, often bound with unacknowledged class and racial assumptions. Psychology takes over from there, equating a messy domestic interior with a messy psychological interiority. The ‘disorder’ in my house is assumed to be the result of a ‘disorder’ in my head.
I’m not sure if this is a lack of cleaning on my part. If anything, one could interpret it as a sign that I’m trying to clean. Everything is contained on this shelf. The papers are laid fairly neatly. And they’re even mostly organized reverse chronologically! (Although to be fair, that’s just because I keep placing the newer ones on the top of the pile.) So I’m inclined to think of this not as a mental disorder, as the DSM would have us believe, but as a social construction of this thing called hoarding, which as Herring showed has a specific historical origin, despite the DSM’s claim to universal science. But maybe I’m just trying to avoid admitting I have a problem (which is listed in the DSM!).
Regardless, I should probably check in with my roommates about what they think of my collection.
Hoarding
I have PRODUCTS! Soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, creams, ointments, serums, gels, man i’m insane. I have beauty and hygiene products I don’t even use, that I haven’t used in months. And I’m always buying more. This must be hoarding, this is definitely hoarding. The thought of parting with them makes me anxious. And some of them aren’t even good for me. The macadamia-nut body butter gave me hives! But I buy them because they’re all so pretty, they smell so good, and they make ME feel all pretty. I know their dirty little liars, and I know beauty is a made up idea rooted in white supremacy, so why do I still have them!? Because I want what they promise. They promise me they’ll make me healthy, and pretty, and acceptable, lovable even. And it’s harder to stand all alone.
I would say I have a cleaning routine but it can’t be all that efficient if I still have all these damn products. My routine doesn’t often extend to my things: my products, my clothes, my books, my papers. I take it for granted that they belong. That’s something I can change! Every couple of months I can go through my belongings and clear out what I’m not consistently using. But the things I can’t donate, or repurpose, or gift, will be thrown in the trash. And there’s gotta be something else I can do! Something other than that.
Hoarding and Cleaning – prompt
Something in my immediate environment that there’s a significant amount of is clothing. Clothes to me are a way to express myself, so having that variety gives me something to look forward to, and it’s just fun. Even though I do wear all my clothes, an argument can be made that it’s a form of hoarding. A few times in the past I’ve held onto certain articles of clothing knowing I wasn’t really going to wear them. For example, being given clothes that I was very optimistic about and didn’t want to get rid of, in case they’d ask about it. Many people hoard clothes and it accumulates so much that it impacts their everyday life, and that is a more concrete example of clothes being hoarded. The ways we get clothes can also be problematic. Normalization of ‘shopping hauls’ and not wanting to be seen with the same thing twice is a societal issue we all engage in. Fast fashion additionally contributes to these unhealthy habits making us believe it is something we need, and unethical environments for factory workers. We should aim to get clothes we know for sure will be worn many times, as well as urge others to shop reused clothing.
Hoarding and Cleaning
When reading this prompt, I am immediately transported to my childhood bedroom. On one of my walls, practically every inch of the wall is covered with several hundred photos worth of pictures that have been chosen, printed, and taped up over the course of four years. The pictures mainly consist of my favorite humans, art pieces, films, and nature spots. It is a great depiction of my strong interests both in general and specific ways. Comparing my definition of hoarding to collecting or just simply owning things is the distinction that hoarding has the ability to destroy multiple facets of a person’s life including their ability to live in the space, work, or family. Being that this is not the case for my photo collection, I would not say that I am a hoarder. However, there does lie a great deal of anxiety about any sort of parting or destruction to my photos. For example, I did take photos of that specific wall and nothing else in my room, in case I missed it while being here at Hampshire. Creating something similar even in a small capacity was my greatest priority when it came to room decorating. I spent the last week before coming here choosing my absolute favorite photos to put on poster boards for hanging up here. However, having some emotional connection to one’s things is not out of the ordinary. Plus, if anything did ever happen to them, I do think I would learn to accept it being that the majority of photos I got online, so I still have access to them. Being that my items are up on a wall, and I feel like cleaning those is not at the top of most people’s cleaning lists, I would not consider this a lack of cleaning routines. While hoarding tendencies are common, I do not consider my photo wall to be a form of them.
Hoarding and Cleaning – prompt
Examine the items in your immediate environment. Are there any particular things that you seem to have a significant amount of? (Include photos if possible!) Could someone make the argument that this is a form of hoarding? Are the existence of these items the result of a lack of cleaning routines, or is there a more compelling explanation?
Readings from this week include:
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. “Hoarding Disorder.” DSM-V. Washington, DC.
Herring, Scott. “Collyer Curiosa.” In The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture, 19–50. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Martens, Lydia. “The Visible and the Invisible: (De)Regulation in Contemporary Cleaning Practices.” In Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination, edited by Ben Campkin and Rosie Cox. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007, 34–48.