I started to clean my mother’s hoard while she wasn’t home…

Maybe this a is rookie mistake, but I’m just coming to terms with the fact that my mother is really a hoarder when I faced her reaction today, so try to cut me some slack... I’ve been in denial about it for years, accepting her excuses (too busy, too tired to clean after work). Our house was never dirty or full of trash like the people on TV, so I didn’t accept the possibility.

I’m just about 30, and growing up my house was always “weird” but I never really understood why. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over, my parents never made updates to the house because it would require someone coming in, despite some wildly broken and out of date stuff. Trash always was thrown out and the bathroom always worked, but items and dust accumulated. For my mother, her hoard of choice is clothes. She’s been stuck in a cycle of going out to shop because she hates being in her house, but buys more clothes and makes the problem worse.

Basically the clothes had been accumulating since they moved into the house in the 80s, and I never had my own closet space growing up and never got a full size dresser (was stuck with my baby one so it didn’t fit much). It led to my own room becoming littered with piles of my own clothes and a lot of trauma that I’m coming to terms with. When I moved out I finally realized I wasn’t just lazy and dirty, I can keep my own space clean, and I have a cleaning purge like once a season because I can’t relax in a cluttered space.

My mother and I are close despite this, I guess I enable her by going shopping with her- lately she’s taken to buying things for me now to discourage herself from buying for herself while still getting the urge out (I ask her not to, but half of the time I turn around and it’s in her hand), but still takes a few things home of her own. Still, I like spending time with her because I’m an only child and we always have a good time.

She frequently expresses displeasure with the state of the house and says often how badly she needs to clean out… the room. The room is my old nursery that became a doom pit of forgotten clothes. It was pretty bad when I lived there, you could only walk in about foot and the clothes were about 4ft high covering the rest of the floor that wasn’t furniture. She works long hours though and wants to relax on the weekends so I get it. It’s a task to accomplish. Other parts of the house are full of old junk too, but nothing to this extent. The rest is livable and walkable.

Because she’s so busy… I had a plan, dad backed me up. I would go in during her work hours, sort the clothes, bag them up (not toss them/donate them). I bought some furniture online to be delivered to turn my old nursery into a proper walk in closet with functional furniture. A fresh start and a relaxing space that could be hers.

I really, really believed she wasn’t a hoarder and was just a victim of life getting in the way and then it got so bad that it was an insurmountable task that seemed impossible to start. I know how much better I feel in a clean space…. So I wanted to help her. When I walked in, I was horrified, because…. Well, I couldn’t walk in. The clothes were up to the door of the room and taller than me. To make matters worse, her habits started spilling over into my old bedroom- my old bed was covered in clothes.

After day 1, she was pissed, but I haven’t seen her, dad told me. I came back anyway and bagged the rest of the clothes today. I finished packing the clothes and ugh! What AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. It took me about 18 hours total, and the room is still “messy” but there are no more clothes on the floor. Unfortunately, it uncovered something worse. An untreated termite infestation and some pretty bad mold under the window. No idea how long those have been going on, I haven’t seen that wall clear since I was maybe… 6? 7? And moved into my bigger bedroom. Now my dad is also mad (at her), she’s even more mad and he’s telling me that she’s “rampaging.” My dad and I don’t speak too often and he isn’t one to exaggerate. She won’t answer her phone.

I don’t know where to go from here. I haven’t thrown anything away, which she knows- it’s only been moved around and organized. Believe me, I wanted nothing more than to fill up my car and take it to goodwill and be done with it, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to go through it if she chose. I’m still determined to help, because at this point, with the potential termites and mold… I have no choice. Things have to get better- I can’t let my parents live like that. I really deluded myself into thinking she’d be grateful, believing that I was taking a huge task that she wanted done off of her shoulders. But her reaction was an ice bucket of reality on my head.

I feel awful. I still had so much planned, the new organization furniture is being delivered tomorrow…. Part of me still thinks she’ll be happy when she sees the final result, but now that I see it for what it really is… I think I’ve done something terrible and fractured our relationship and also traumatized her when she wasn’t ready. I don’t know if I keep going as planned and hope she has a change of heart at the final result, or pump the brakes and let her settle with it/try to talk her into therapy….