I vowed to look after the guy after his mom died as she was a spectacularly good friend and like a mother to me.
Ahh, that makes much more sense. Good for you.
Being responsible is sort of my mantra or ideology if you will. Whether at home or work we should all strive to keep things organized and tidy for good morale. Living in squalor is depressing, even for those who create the squalor.
I admire guys like you. I'm nowhere near that organised, I live in my head so I usually just don't see stuff building up around me. Every few months I go on a rampage though and clean/tidy/dispose of everything. I try not to get emotionally attached to crap I don't need.
So he went on a rant claiming I had no right. His words: "Yes, they were crappy, too small and hard to open but they were mine". Me: "Ok, I'll go get you some nice bags from the store to replace them. Some nice ziplock bags, ok?".
Yeah, been there before. People like that are incredibly territorial, but also expansionist. I've never lived anywhere with anyone as bad as your guy though. You're a patient man.
You're not a true hoarder. I am kind of like you in that I go through stuff at least twice a year and dispose of stuff I have no real plans for. I try to organize by type and usage just so I can quickly get to stuff I really need.
A true hoarder will often have jumbles of stuff, then collect more stuff of the same type and has odds and bits here and there with no true idea of what they have. Eventually they have no room to function.
My Great Grandpa was a hoarder and when he died we as a family ended up burning piles and piles of stuff. I clearly remember the massive piles of burning stuff that were being cleared out when I was four years old.
Grandpa was also a bit of a hoarder and then Grandma was too but she would put everything away in tidy drawers. So you really didn't know how much stuff she had until you'd try to open a drawer or cupboard.
IN their garage over the years it had filled up with empty boxes because she might need them someday. While she was out of town I got disgusted because you really couldn't get through the garage, store tools or even see what was in the garage. Just piles of empty boxes. I burned them all save two boxes of boxes someone had purchased at Home Depot. She was very peeved when she came back from vacation. But, under those boxes was an old horse drawn buggy. A surrey? I cleaned it up and she sold it to a relative for $1000.00. She's save every single plastic container by washing it out and placing behind her trailer in a 50 gallon steel drum. Several steel drums loaded with plastic containers. Again, I burned them all when she was out of town and she had a fit. She was going to "recycle" them. Just haul them to town someday to recycle and they weren't even paying. Ok, I lied and told her I "recycled" them. She was sooo happy about that.
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