Unbelievable--some progress!
My little mother, the hoarder, has finally gone just too far and YB and I are going to clean her hoard.
(And we are going to catch H3LL for it, too, but I am so glad we're doing this that I can't stand it.)
COVID has had her completely locked down for over a year...she literally has been nowhere, but the inside of the car for that length of time. She has aged quite significantly and now that the Sr Center will be reopening in about a month--she doesn't have the energy to go. She can barely walk and recently has become bowel incontinent. That's something that's hard to hide.
Being home all the time just spurred her catalog shopping and she has bought thousands of dollars worth of clothes, home decor items, puzzles and books. Her hoard has probably doubled in a year.
I was taking out the dead plants the other day and fell backwards over a pile of books-caught my heel on something and went down hard. I was so mad at her, b/c while I was banged up, a fall like that would break her hip. She has the typical little 'pathway' that hoarders make. And she walks so very slowly, that she says SHE never falls.
Anyhow--while retrieving this dead plant, I saw behind the end table and she has piles and piles of old catalogs and TV Guides. All completely covered in thick dust.
I went in the kitchen top get an ice pack and mother yells out to me to NOT USE THE TOASTER. I asked why and she said 'it's full of moths'. By darn, it was. Thousands of them, cooked to a crisp. Then I realized she had gone through her cupboards and has put everything in ziploc bags, b/c of the moth infestation.
I kind of blew up and asked her what was going on--she said she had it under control--no, not by a long shot. Evidently, nobody cleaned her birdcage and the moths get in the food and then take over the apartment. She has moth traps all over her place and they are all packed with bugs. The wall behind the birdcage is covered in poop and feathers and more moths that got stuck in the poop. Then birds are crawling with mites. (I'm gagging now...)
OK, it has been a couple of years since I even attempted to clean and it's obvious. I left her house and contacted YB (she lives with him) and said "WE need to clean. If this doesn't get cleaned, I am just going to call APS and let them see the conditions she's in. I don't want you in trouble, but I need you to take a closer look. You are still sick from COVID (he is a long hauler and will never be much better. Lots of health issues, primarily respiratory and the dust/moths/birds/feathers are making him cough all the time.)
He actually agreed, instead of blowing up, which is what he usually does. He started to cry and said "I just can't do this anymore. She's making me crazy".
Sad as I was to see him humbled and broken, it's opened the door to getting this place cleaned out. We are going to send mother with our sis up to visit her newest GGbaby, and that drive, combined with a stop for lunch will buy us 4 hours. We can do a LOT in that time.
It's going to be awful--but I finally have YB on board and accepting help to clean. Mother really needs 2 times a week bathing help and so I will broach that with mother---in time. YB is finally amenable to 'some' outside help.
I'd always maintained that if she CHOSE to live in a hoard, I wouldn't do anything to clean against her wishes with the caveat that if she EVER had vermin, all bets were off. Welll.......
I don't expect a total cleanout, but if we can simply buy her more space....so she's not creeping around her apartment in narrow passageways--that and get rid of the moths! I will consider it a success. I KNOW she will be so mad, but I know she's crossed the line into filth from just being untidy.
Sorry for the long post. I am a little anxious about stepping on her toes, but I also know that my daddy wouldn't have wanted her to live like this.
Wish me luck!
I hope you and your brother take care of yourselves, and wear some protection against breathing in those hazards.
Thanks for updating us. I always look forward to reading your posts. They have taught me a LOT about boundary setting.
Let us know how it goes with the clean up!
But - please, please, please - for your health and your YB's - please make sure you have the proper protective gear, especially a respirator! It will do you no good, nor your YB, if you get sick breathing all that hazardous stuff in! Make sure you protect yourself, please!!
Good luck!!
And, change your clothes before you get back in the car.
Those little moths, and their worms, can travel back with you to your home. It happened to me. :-(
Honestly it sounds like you need hazmat suits and masks to keep yourselves safe. Please be very careful!!!
It's wonderful that finally the two of you can work together. Your mum will pitch a fit but whatever!!! Her place is definitely not safe for anyone. (((((hugs))))
For someone else to do the work, because you would need a hazmat suit just to be on the premises. Your ill brother too!
The dust kicked up will not only affect a person who is immuno-compromised,
it can harm your mother to stay in her home before the dust has cleared, at least overnight. (Check with professionals.)
So sorry, this really is a hazmat job for professionals.
And you have heard of Pittacosis, and other zoonotic illnesses?
We are not trying to do any more than get the dust (and dust traps) cleaned off and all the old magazines and catalogs thrown out. They are going to go to the neighbors trash, so although mother is barely mobile, she won't go BACK to the garbage cans and retrieve anything.
As far as the books and puzzles---probably box them up in the huge boxes they come in and that are still in the apartment and store them with mothballs or something that kills them) I fear that the moth infestation is so bad we will need to go through her clothes, but we will see what time allots us. 2 ENORMOUS closets full of clothes she can't wear.
Since the moths came in through the birdseed, I will throw that all away and I will try freezing the new stuff!! THANK you for that idea--it wouldn't have occurred to me.
All surfaces will be wiped down with the appropriate cleaners and the carpet will be cleaned. There's not much of that, but it's filthy.
There are some books that probably DO have some historic value, I will have YB take a look at those and see if they are worth anything. I am afraid that the moths have taken over!
No more plants---(unless they are fake and can be washed.) I don't have a set goal for anything other than getting to the root cause of the moths. She thinks by setting out 10 traps she's going to get them---I know we'll make a dent in them, but they are probably there until we can completely empty the place and bug bomb, which cannot happen while she's living there.
I have 'fought' her on having the birds for 15 years. She is incapable of caring for them, and always has been. Some guy at the Sr Center raises them and gives them away, but they are not hand-trained and so you can't touch them or even get near them. I looked at them both on Wed. and they need a vet's attention to have their beaks cleared and the mites killed--the birds look miserable. (We owned a cockatiel some years ago and people don't realize they need VET CARE!) Perhaps we can re-home them. One awful at a time, although they kind of ARE the root cause of this problem.
I'm not getting enough junk out to need a dumpster. Her place is only 800 sf, so everything she owns would fill a couple dumpsters and we're not trying to take all her things away--just make it less 'fussy' to look at.
Windows will all be wide open and we will wear hazmat suits and the best medical grade masks we can get. Neither YB nor myself are the best 2 sibs to be doing this, but the other 3 are pretty much 'phone call only' relationships.
I figure this will go one of two ways: Mom won't even NOTICE or she'll pitch a huge fit. Either way, Spring Cleaning 2021 is happening---
Again--thank you all!!! I mentioned this to my DH and he said "Bad, bad, bad idea. Just step away." I have, for the most part. But we all promised daddy we wouldn't let happen exactly what HAS happened.
It will be a few weeks yet. But I am feeling hopeful--and sorrowful that YB had to hit rock bottom before he realized he cannot do everything--nor should he!
I was wondering this, too. Isn't it going to happen all over again? YB is very unhealthy. What's the plan for your mother if he dies or becomes incapacitated? You seem to be the only other sib who does anything (although why you do, I can't understand).
I have not heard of those two diseases by NAME. I was simply told while I was txing cancer not to go near the birds and DH. who is a liver transplant recipient, cannot ever go in her place. Going to look them up right now. Thanks!!
All this is great 'ammo' in what is going to be a difficult thing to do.
YB has POA and as kind of steps in and out of it--I'm sure a lot of families have the one sibling who bullies and controls. He just happens to have her living there--
A few years ago we met as sibs to see what we could do for mom, going forth. YB lost his marbles and blew up at all of us (we were seeking to have aides come in 2-3 days a week for bathing help and general tidying--YB simply shut us down and we let it go).
We won't go 'legal' on him. Other YB has FPOA and watches mom's money, but doesn't do confrontation, so he doesn't get involved.
After the clean out--and we are going to hopefully all be on board--we will decide what's next. I think mom might like the idea of a 'personal assistant'---but it has to be OK with YB. She is the most 'respectful' of her FPOA, so he will be the one to talk to her about that.
As we are throwing away 25 years worth of junk that she's squirreled away, I am not too worried that she'll spend the next 25 years re-filling. I am cancelling ALL the catalogs and she doesn't do 'online' shopping, so that should stop. YB can be more careful about getting rid of the mail order books and puzzles once they've served their purpose.
Should YB pre-decease mom, and that is a legitimate concern, his health is awful--she will be promptly moved to a NH. My SIL and she do not get along and that has been very hard on her.
We have been bitten in the past--so we need to tread lightly.
He could get checked again maybe. Maybe he could get well.
Glory be--this may actually happen!
Sis may know of someone who'd take the birds. 75% of the mess in her place (besides her hoarding) is those darn birds. She cannot care for them. I feel like returning them to the man who bred them and gave them to mother. What was he THINKING??
That's my first thought, but I haven't read the rest of the thread yet. Hugs.
I actually feel like we aren't doing what daddy wanted us to do, which was: take care of Mom.
My sibs are ALL on board with this, but coordinating the days off from work, the jobs that need doing--kind of hard. Not everyone has gotten both COVID shots, and until we have, we're holding off. Also, since we have to open all the windows, we need slightly warmer weather.
As my OS pointed out "moth infestation is gross but it's not life threatening". She's right. I honestly thought I'd send out and email and get back what I usually do, which is....nothing. All 4 sibs responded right away and YS was organizing shifts before I'd even had a chance to respond to her.
So--couple more weeks and we'll dig in. Minimally, the two brothers can fix the broken faucets and cable connectors--YB has been sick since Dec with covid--long haul syndrome. Poor guy.
It will work out---if all 5 of us are in together (which pretty much never happens) then mom will have no one to complain to and she'll just have to pull up her big girl panties and accept a clean house. How horrible, right?
I emailed all the sibs and my YS took the reins, big time. She organized a cleanout day to be Monday when YB won't be home. She and OTHER YB will do all the cleanout. I am getting my 2nd covid shot and will likely be very sick again---plus I cannot be around the birds and they will be in the apt the whole time.
We weren't going to tell mom, as she routinely kiboshes EVERYTHING we plan...but YS said she needed to be there. (YS has never cleaned like this before, maybe her way will work?) Anyway, she told me that she and YB can do it all and that she'd talked to mom and she was excited about it. That, I know, cannot be true.
All I said was "best of luck to you both. It's not for the faint hearted and mom WILL be in your face all day long". I did ask her to PLEASE box up the books and puzzles and drop them at the Sr Center. And to remove all the scented candles that mother has won at Bingo. They are all rancid and she isn't allowed an open flame due to a fire scare a few years back. BUT, they'll do what they can. I feel that if they don't remove the birds for a couple of weeks and basically bomb the place with cleaning and mothballs and cedar blocks--we are just going to be doing this again in a couple months.
I have some really big boxes I will run up there this w/e and hopefully mom will be amenable to letting a lot of garbage go.
It's funny, really, If this were my OS and me, mom would have blown a head gasket. AS OS says, 'you and I are the ones who get the heat, because we just get in there and get the job done and don't fuss mom. S is mom's favorite, and E is probably close 2nd. We're leftovers.' I had to laugh, b/c she's right.
I'm kind of glad I won't be involved. The job won't be near what OS and I think it should be, but hey, we don't have to do anything.
And quite honestly, I am expecting mom to call tomorrow night and call the whole thing off b/c of something that will happen.
Much better for your health, and your OB’s, as well.
Let us know how Monday goes! :-)
Birds can get sick from scented candles.
They can die from exposure to cleaning products.
Can they be at the avian vet for the big cleanout? Overnight?
I can see this after the clean out, the birds will be so much healthier.
You can tell Mom, it's for the birds.
As far as the candles, mother isn't allowed to light them b/c they are not quality ones and smell awful--also it's not good to have candles burning all the time. She wins them at Bingo and brings them home--she must have 50.
I do not care one fig about those birds. As they are feral, they have never been touched and she is terrified that if someone held them to move them to a travel crate they'd die. So she prefers they live sick and miserable in a filthy cage.
Honestly, this is the first time my YS has gotten involved in cleaning and I will be very surprised if mom doesn't call her tomorrow night and back out of Monday...I mean, it would be great if they can get in there and really clean, but YB has to work and so the cage will not get cleaned and so the whole cleaning thing will come to a screeching halt.
Mother won't take the birds to a vet. Period. So it is what it is. She had a traveling vet come once, years ago to the one bird that was actually sweet and a lot of companionship. The vet couldn't save the bird and it died in pain from being picked on by the feral birds. The vet chewed mom out for being neglectful and she said she'd never have him back.
I wish I felt more hopeful about Monday, but YS and YB will NOT push mom at all, so if they get the newspapers and books and puzzles out and bleach down the bathroom, that's all we can hope for.
Much safer to stay back on the sidelines & cheer the team on from there. Maybe suggest they hire someone!
Warn them of hazards.
Let them decide.
They live the consequences.
Reap what they sow etc.
I think it will be a epic fail--but mother has surprised me before. She treasures my YS beyond all of us, always has. So when she steps in, (rarely) she gets the best of the best. She doesn't believe the things the rest of us tell her.
SMH.
I worry about YB's lungs. He has had serious problems for years and didn't do well with COVID. He saw a pulmonologist last week for chronic lung problems. I'd hate to see him, at age 57, going on oxygen, but that's a possibility.
Ugh.
Those disgusting birds. Glad it's not going to be me scraping the poop and feathers off the wall behind the cage.