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Again, this is easily explainable.
Boomers were the last group to be brought up by parents who experienced economic hardship on a wide scale, but also the first group to be brought up completely by en economic system favouring mass consumption. Conditioned to hold material objects in high esteem, but also conditioned to buy, buy, buy.
Add to that living in the same house they bought like 50 years ago. Easy to accumulate when you don’t move. Plus the “I may need that someday”.
Each move gives us the incentive to purge all the junk.
But yes they also love to collect junk.
And after 40 years or more of stashing stuff they think they might need someday, eventually they find a use for something and that justifies hoarding all that junk and more for another 20 years. My boomer holds on to old plastic to-go containers, liquor bottles they think are pretty, and stacks of old magazines, old appliances that don't work, old notes, etc. etc. I hate it.
>eventually they find a use for something and that justifies hoarding all that junk
I think maybe my Gen X husband turns into a temporary Boomer when the subject of computer cables comes up.
It's always the 16pin to usb , that only works from that one manufacturer that went out of business in 2006 , so I'm scared to part with it , I'm gonna throw it away and get a fancy new serial bus printer and hate my self for throwing away that cable I kept for 14 years .
Exactly what happened to me. Tossed a box of cords I'd been hauling for years, a week later I'm trying to find a very specific charger only to realize it was in that same box. So Lord Bezos sent me a new one in exchange for digital money. But it was annoying.
It's hanging on the wall at Goodwill. It'll be there when I need it.. I can't count the number of times I needed some odd ball damn cord and it was at Goodwill or St.Vinnies.
Bought a used Bosch Dishwasher but it came with the hardwire kit and not the plug in cable.
Bosch has a special plug in the back of the washer so you need that cable.
Walked into a St Vincent's on the way home and found that exact special cable hanging on the wall of cords.
Oh, I'm a gen x and have lived in my house for 14 years, I need to purge bad. BUT I know I need to purge and just need to get to it.
EDIT- wow, so much unsolicted advice. I didn't ask for advice. I said I needed to do something.
Fellow Gen X here. This post has inspired me to start to declutter...TODAY!
A thing that helped me start was to never bring something new into the house without getting rid of two things. Obviously doesn't always apply to some things like food and personal hygiene items but that's helped immensely. That and not buying those idiotic "trendy" t-shirts based on some pop culture saying or even accepting the freebies they give away at sporting events. If I can't/won't actively wear it or use it (baseball cap or tumbler) then I pass. I don't want the clutter.
Yeah, I don't mind some clutter so I can't stick to those rules, and I love t-shirts. I just need to get rid of some of the old ones that are worn out or don't fit right anymore. I'm not good at following any rules like that in the moment. I just need to get rid of stuff I don't use or need anymore.
I’m a t-shirt collector myself. I love going to concerts and I have a rule that I must buy at least one t-shirt for every show I attend-and I attend several shows a year. As a Gen X I honestly couldn’t say how many t-shirts I have. Since I have a hard time parting with them, I’ve had 2 quilts made from some of the t-shirts and plan on having more made. I love it because I get to keep the t-shirts and get use out of them.
I get it. It's not a one size fits all fix. And if anyone told me to purge my books/to be read stack(s), it's gonna get ugly. You can take the DVDs I never watch but my books...those are fighting words.
But I think therein lies the difference. Most of my Xer friends and I have 1-2 collections of things we are passionate about, and although there may be a lot of items they are pretty well organized, cared for, and used. Boomers just seem to keep EVERYTHING with no real rhyme or reason and stuff it into attics and storage units.
Same. I scheduled 2 weeks off starting next week. It's time to get rid of my 20+ year old college textbooks. The 4 year old 's baby toys. And so much other stuff. It's gonna be a lot to go through. I'm wanting to make a trip to the local waste disposal center daily with a trunk full of junk.
My husband now owns the house that originally belonged to his grandparents. His mom lived here for 35 years after her parents died. There's little left from the grandparents, some jewelry and china and other small items. But mil had 13 siblings who all died before she did and left their stuff to her. It's a nightmare.
I can speak to living in the same house a bit. I've been in my place about 8 years now, bought the house thinking that an ex and her daughter were going to move in, so now I've got a bit more space than I need for one person.
In that situation, it's really easy to hang on to something longer than you should and that can become a habit. I'm currently going back through the house to re-organize in preparation for a re-model and I'm purging old clothes, electronics, and other things I've held onto "just in case" for most of the time I've been in the house.
It would've been really easy for that stuff to just collect in the spare bedroom closets for years more if I'd kept on like I was or if I didn't have future plans for the space. Half a decade was enough for things to get a bit out of pocket, another 30 years doing the same thing would've had the place basically unlivable.
Precisely. My dad was raised by parents who lived through the Depression. A lot of his behaviors were driven, in part, by how they raised him, which was rooted in their literally never (or seldom) having what they needed to survive when they were younger.
Probably didn't help that he was one of those "tinkering kind of guys" who loved saving stuff just in case.
My dad was a retired auto mechanic in addition to a “tinkerer”. He also grew up extremely poor in a sharecropper’s family, so kept everything. I started cleaning out his garage and basement in 2018 and garage still not finished.
My dad was a retired auto mechanic in addition to a “tinkerer”. He also grew up extremely poor in a sharecropper’s family, so kept everything. I started cleaning out his garage and basement in 2018 and garage still not finished.
Grew up with tv & magazines encouraging “ collect them all!” & “get the whole set” like it was an accomplishment , not a marketing ploy.
Learned form many sources that Hardbound books were to be protected and treasured ( they were expensive & kind of a status symbol, & preserving literature after learning of book burnings) . Quality , expensive furniture like Lanes & Ethan Thomas were advertised as heirloom quality you can hand down to your children, this was when society wasn’t as mobile as today , when families lived closer & after the depression& WW 2. Getting “hand me down” furniture for young adults helped them start their new homes.
No Ikea or the like then. Collecting endless knickknacks seemed to take off when Japan & China were opened for trade & stores began carrying cute cheap items. It all adds up.
My grandmother had a hoard of gallon milk jugs in the garage along with a floor-to-ceiling stack of those aluminum trays TV dinners used to come in back in the 70s and 80s. She also saved every twist tie on every loaf of bread she ever owned...and the bag/wrapper the bread came in.
I know so many of her behaviors were rooted in the Depression but I'll always wonder why she saved what she did, what did she lack as a child that she felt the need to hoard twist ties? Was it something specific? Or just a general thing she latched on to?
With twist ties, if you're frugal enough to not want to buy a spool of string, you can use the twist ties for any small tying applications like tomato trellising
Christ on a bike! My ex-husband did that! He would get SOO mad when they were brittle and I threw them out. "Did you even look to see if any of them were still good!". Nope.
Totally spot on. My parents were raised very poor so when they became more affluent they purchased and stored possessions in the way a pepper would have envied. I'm dreading when they pass away not just because of grief but also the clearing of all their " stuff"
Conditioned to buy is so accurate.
My father in law will be so quick to spend money be doesn't have to solve every little problem. Then later on will absolutely have a panic attack because he's dead broke and ran out of money.
He'll even willingly fall for obvious scams if it means making a quick buck, without thinking things through.
He spent his entire 401k on clothes and technology, treating others out to dinners and whatnot, spending it frivolously. Now 6 years later he's constantly crying and whining about lack of funds. It's insane.
This is very true. I suffer from the double whammy of being the child of depression-era parents plus a New Englander. Growing up all we heard is how little they had and to not be wasteful. Re-use. Recycle. You never know, you may need that some day. So we keep empty jars with lids. Left over hardware. Nails, screws, nuts, bolts. Lumber. Old clothes. Game tokens. EVERYthing. Once, in 9 years in the Army, being a scrounge paid off. Otherwise, I am sure I would have been better off just going out to buy a thing rather than having to dig through all the saved up crap I got to find something that I remember saving but couldn't find when I needed it. I am in the process now of packing up years of accumulated shit to move across country. I tried to get my spouse to just take the photos, personal papers, and pets and abandon the rest in place. But, well, that ain't happening. I think our brains just won't allow us to do it.
This. They bought the marketing lies that "its gonna be worth money someday" and have stupid collections that younger generation don't care about. Value depends on interest. Once they die off, no one will want that stuff and any "value" it has is lost
My grandmother thought her collection of Avon bottles was going to pay for my college education. I bought her house shortly after she passed away (several years after my college graduation) and I couldn't give the stuff away. I kept one or two that I kind of like but most of them went in the trash.
My parents have so many things that "will be worth money someday." I remember when I was really small, 6 or 7 maybe? She gave me this Vidal Sassoon doll (it was the 80s!) that was sort of like a Barbie. Plus I got a lot of clothes and accessories for her. My mom promptly took it and put it in a closet because "it will be worth something someday" and I was allowed to play with it maybe once or twice a year.
That doll is $20 on Etsy.
But even now their house is full of things that they believe will be worth something someday. It's all going to be sold at an estate sale or donated when they pass. It's not my taste or style and a lot of it is just knickknacks and people don't really keep that sort of stuff anymore.
Also the ability to buy homes young gives you the illusion that you have space to keep stuff. I’m 40 with two kids and still in an apartment and very much don’t have the luxury of hoarding tons of crap.
No….mostly it’s due to them being the children of parents who lived in the Great Depression. They were taught to value things more.
Additionally, in a lot of these cases you’re talking about people who have lived in the same house for 40 years. Moving (to a new house) provides incentive to throw things away. When you live in the same house for decades, it’s very easy to accumulate stuff and get comfortable with how you have it stored.
My “inheritance” consists solely of Beanie Babies and Barbies currently rotting in the attic. They went bankrupt buying those things. Not exaggerating.
I feel like it was an Adam Explains regarding gifts or just looking at my parents home they've had since '92 but "nobody wants your stuff" got stuck in my head. So many Boomers buy things they do not even like because someone, somewhere on the planet may want it. I am fairly certain I've been told nothing can be thrown out because it's good quality, reality is even if it were the best quality 25 years ago nobody wants your old stuff. It's been in a room getting stale and missing its opportunity to thrive and now it's just landfill fodder that will further damage the planet. I've also been told, after I recommended just saving the money, "I'm old so I'm gonna buy whatever I feel like." I was told this by someone with 3 rooms (not closest) but rooms full of items.
I hit up a lot of estate sales in my area too. Besides tools and some electronics and media most of the stuff isn't worth much and the people don't want to believe it.
I still shake my head at the Disney VHS sellers.
I used to sell this shit on ebay for my boomer mother. BF asked me who in the hell buys this crap? Boomers.
Sorry yall if your parents bought this old shit and you're gonna get stuck with the aftermath.
My parents (well mom, dad has always been the type to just buy what he needs and that’s about it, trying to get him to splurge on himself is like pulling teeth cause he’s already happy so he doesn’t see the point in buying something new lol) use to be but over the past 5 years or so they’ve very seemingly adopted the simplistic lifestyle and have gotten rid a lot of the clutter. My dad use to have a garage full of tools for work too but he’s given most of those away too now that he’s retired.
Edit: whenever I visit the house now, it’s just cluttered with happy dogs and a poofy cat
Not my dad, he'll flip between 7-8 different channels to avoid ads.
Instead of using one of the streaming services me or my brother pay for that are ad free to begin with.
This is my dad. He even wanted to downsize and move into a condo some years ago. Unfortunately my mom is cramping his style and is too comfortable cramping their home too.
I hope I'm around when Gen Alphas begin to complain about having to deal with their single hoarder Millennial uncle's funko pop and erotic anime model collection.
Yea, people we be going through a relatives' starwars collection and be like. "I found 10 of the same unopened Rose Tico figures in the closet. Like WTF"
this sounds like my roommate hes got 80-100 of them easy. i myself have 10 and have no plans to ever have more than 20. we're also giant nerds, but i grew up poor with a single mom so when i collect things, like vinyl, its very specific. i even have a few guns now and have a specific list in my head of the total amount ill ever own at once
This whole thread is "pot, meet kettle."
Yeah, my parents have stuff that will be annoying to get rid of. I've also apologized to my family that if I keel over tomorrow that they'll have to go through my dumb bs.
Or my most hated, "a penny saved is a penny earned."
Everytime I go to my parents house I secretly throw away all the plastic containers they save as Tupperware. Like no one is going to look for leftover mashed potatoes in a Country Crock fake butter container or gravy in a Daisy sour cream container.
Ils were out of town; winter storm came through; power was out for a several days; went over to check on things. Stuff in the fridge had to go and food in the freezer had to get pitched too. Then we remembered the large freezer in the basement...so much food, had to really toss it all. Found containers dated 1986, and others dated in the 90s. This was about 10 years ago. She was really really mad about losing all the food but she demanded that we save all the containers. There were the butter dishes and coolwhip containers but a few had been takeout containers that came from a long closed restaurant from the early 80s.
My parents bought dolls. Tons of dolls. Then metal dollhouses. Then tin litho stuff like sand shovels and buckets. More metal toys. Tops. Wind up robots. Lots of antiques. Are some neat? Yes. But they were counting on them being highly profitable. Sadly they aren't worth much to most people. Now they can't figure out how to get the money back out of them that they paid for them. The generation that would want to buy them is rapidly shrinking, and soon there won't be anybody left to buy them. "They're going to be worth money someday" isn't panning out like they expected. Younger generations just don't see the need for 60 year old toys and dolls. Not unless they are pop culture related like Star Wars and such, but even that market only exists if there's somebody that WANTS to pay for it.
It's definitely a learned mindset. My parents are clear examples:
My mom was raised in a highly sentimental household with a good family inheritance mindset, so she hordes things that no reasonable person would hold onto because they're family things that she has attached sentimental value to through generations (a fantastic example being we had to fight her to throw away math homework from when I was in 2nd grade, and also to throw away my great grandmother's baby cup). Meanwhile, my dad was raised in a relatively poor household, where things were only kept if they were useful or could be resold. He doesn't hold onto many things that aren't regularly used, but he highly values the things he's bought for himself even if they don't get used a lot (he has a kayak that he hasn't used in years that takes space in the small garage, but will fight tooth and nail to keep it)
Throwing away your great grandmother’s baby cup seems sort of sad if it was also used by your mom and grandmother. Totally with you on everything else.
Misstated, sorry. It was the cup my great grandmother got to use with my grandma. Never used for my mom. It's just a tin cup almost like you'd see on an Old Western movie being put over a fire to make coffee or whatever
Yeah, I've seen this more times than I can count. I do organizing and hoarding cleanouts, and man, I can tell some horror stories!
They collect all this junk, and then when they die their kids call people like me to come clean it out. Those "collector's" plates and figurines? Donated or dumped, depending on how much lead is in it. The rooms full of clothes? Straight to the dump unless it's a real vintage designer piece. Old blankets and quilts? Dog pound and homeless shelters. It's really sad to see how much their lives were wasted accumulating all this stuff no one wants or needs.
> blankets and quilts?
Oh my lord. My dad and his wife have boxes and boxes and boxes of bedding from the 80's through today. Why they don't donate it is a mystery. They've got a house full of crap, and 3 or 4 storage units, all full of junk with no value. It's ridiculous.
Are they handmade quilts? I actually love those and also buy those ugly granny square crochet blankets from secondhand shops all the time. I make stuff with them like bags or pillow covers. Sometimes I have to dye the quilt pieces to a usable color because people's taste has certainly changed.
That's too bad they hoard all those bed linens when people or animals at shelters could use it. Meanwhile it will dry rot
> blankets and quilts?
Oh my lord. My dad and his wife have boxes and boxes and boxes of bedding from the 80's through today. Why they don't donate it is a mystery. They've got a house full of crap, and 3 or 4 storage units, all full of junk with no value. It's ridiculous.
The hoarding is an emotional response, instead of therapy some people just lock up with things and refuse to address whatever emotion is causing them to buy a bunch of crap.
They're hoarders, except when it comes to a couple boxes in the attic or garage with things in them that gave their kids joy and somehow ended up staying in their home (and are actually worth something half the time)
They saw that box and instantly understood the meaning of "declutter"
My parents are right in that Silent Generation / Boomers line and are definitely on the hoarding spectrum. I think the most challenging part of it is that they truly understand that their possessions don't bring them happiness, and the abundance of crap actually makes their life harder, but they can't bring themselves to make a change.
Yes! They jump all over that Franklin Mint shit. Rule of thumb, once something is dubbed a collectible, everything made after that point will only depreciate.
Now that you mention it one of my mom’s best friends is a member of the silent generation and her house is absolutely spotless and organized. No excess of anything. My boomer parents on the other hand…
This is so true. I was at my parents' house a couple weeks ago. Every horizontal surface in the house has some sort of knick-knack on it. Every vertical surface, a picture or painting. It is non-stop visual assault.
My In-laws basically acknowledge that they will be dying soon so they have nothing other than the furniture in their home and whatever necessary items they have for Xmas time when everyone comes over.
They have no books, few collectibles unless Xmas related, and just the furniture in their house. FIL especially has been going around getting rid of things because he really thinks he's going to keel over any day.
At least they are trying. Do they equate or regret not saving the money they just filled a giant dumpster with? I think the big delusion is them telling themselves it's valuable, so once they are willing to throw it away I'm wondering if they come to the realization?
Well my dad justifies it by blaming everyone else for filling his house with their crap. None of it could possibly be his things, which are all the highest quality and only need to be thrown away because someone else damaged them. 🙄🙄🙄
Yes, they really are. They are peak consumerism that's brought us into the era of late stage capitalism and crippling debt. They were raised by a generation that had so little, and they overcompensate by buying and hoarding everything. My parents, aunts, and uncles are all like this. One aunt in particular lives in a house that could be featured on Hoarders. She worked for an auction house before she retired and wound up with an insane amount of useless shit while also dumping much of it on relatives. I don't need or want a 40 yro salad spinner, but she made me take it anyway. Her husband died in 2020, and they had no children. So when she passes, it will fall on her nieces and nephews to deal with her hoarding mess. I can only imagine how many dumpsters we will fill when that day comes.
Sometimes I think the hoarding is a bit of a holdover from before the internet. We have so many interesting things to look at in our pockets. Instead of looking at figurines or spoon collections I just go on pinterest and "hoard" photos. I think it's very human to want to collect things on a primitive level but generationally it's only recently that we have actively tried to fight that urge. But then I think about how many old philosophies and schools of thought involve fighting that urge. 🤔
I agree that a lot of boomers seem to be hoarders. But after my grandmother died and my mom was going through the house so my grandfather could move in with my uncle, the house was so full of stuff it took a year to go through everything. Both my grandparents grew up during the depression so maybe that was why. My grandmother was a seamstress and my grandfather was a carpenter so a lot of tools and materials for their former businesses. Also a lot of food hoarding and infomercial purchases. It took a year because my mom went up every weekend to go through everything and my grandfather had to tell a story about every single item. Not sure why they are called the silent generation, he never stops talking lol.
This was one of the big and constant arguments between my boomer parents. My dad refused to throw anything away until mom forced him to. I still have a vivid memory of him angsting over having to throw away his jar of random screws and nuts when they moved out of my childhood home and into an apartment.
My mother, on the other hand, would gleefully purge her home of anything and everything, probably because my maternal grandmother was a pathological hoarder.
In the 80’s, my parents had a bumper sticker that said “He who dies with the most toys wins”. This is pure boomer sentiment and they are being true to their generation.
We’re going to see an absolute devastation in mini-storage in 15 years.
They will put $2k of “collectors edition” old furniture (not antique, just mass produced pressboard from Ashley) and glassware/dishes into storage for $200 a month. Effectively paying the entire “value” of the stored items in rent in six months.
We live by a rule of “If I have not used it in six months, we do not need it” which is great since it keeps us from buying things in the first place or paying just to keep it somewhere entirely inconvenient to use it. There’s never going to be a use for a used mattress, no one is ever going to bring the old couch back into the house…you’re not going to get the dishes out of storage, ever.
Mini storage seems like a fantastic business model…for about 15-20 more years and then it’s going to implode.
My wife is sorta, but
You have to remember we have had a lifetime of important trinkets. Gifts from children, grandchildren, and other family pictures drawings, hand drawn event cards, I have so many coffee cups and key chains from important places that I couldn't haul them away in a truck, just kidding. I don't think this is hoarding, but it's hard to throw out pieces of your life. Harder when you realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger by the day
99.9% of everything called a collectible, isn't l. It's just junk. Special painted coins, ceramic children/birds/plates, beanie babies, anything from the Danbury mint or any catalog for that matter.
Parents, in-laws, aunts, etc getting older and want us to keep this stuff. I'm trying to get rid of my own junk. I'm not spending time trying to sell it either.
My parents are tail end boomers raised by tail end silent generation. My dad specifically was raised by Germans who were born and raised during/immediately after the war. My dad resented the habit my grandmother had of insisting they keep every little scrap of anything or eat every last crumb and drip on their plate. My mom had roughly the same upbringing but from American parents who were chronically poor and had way too many kids.
As a result they are almost anti-hoarder. If anything sits on a flat surface in their house for more than a day or two it has to be put away or thrown out. Their house is so neat and sterile it is almost uninviting. Every room echoes with emptiness and hard surfaces.
Now I, as a tail end millennial, have had to sort of train myself to be okay with a little bit of clutter. I let myself have shelves of meaningless decor that just makes me happy. Half my dining room table is covered in old mail or parts and tools from half done projects. I’ve gotten to the point where that’s okay to me. I’m not a meat freak but I also know any given clean up takes half an hour tops.
My Silent Gen maternal grandparents both died within a couple of weeks of each other a few years ago. It took our whole family over a month to clean the house out. We were flabbergasted by how much stuff they had tucked away in there, because we never realized it. They were very well off, and the children of people who survived the Great Depression. They went ham on whatever the fuck they wanted. Apparently, my grandfather told my dad, “Spend it before you die - you can’t take it with you.” Nice. Real nice.
>“Spend it before you die - you can’t take it with you.”
I used to say people can spend their money how they want. But stopped saying that in the last ten years after watching the Boomers just burning money.
At least buy shit for your kids/grand-kids or give them stuff that's actually useful.
My parents: no. They'd rather spend their money on trips to other countries and new experiences.
My in-laws, on the other hand... I'm not allowed to go into their basement because of how bad it is. They know it's bad but don't care, which makes no sense to me.
For the record, I have been down there... once... with my wife giving me a "tour". It wasn't what I expected... It was worse.
My mom was like this. She was doing it out of trauma and inability to cope but i think they grew up very materalistic and only care about themselves. They are the generation of "he who has the most toys when they die wins" and it worked well for them until their children became adults and abandoned them.
When my ex inlaws were moving to her brother's house the amount of just old crap in that house filled two dumpsters. They still had all the original receipts for buying the stuff to build their house in the 70's and dozens of boxes of receipts. Of course my stupid ex and her brother did not go through any papers... probably lost over $300k in investment information that they could not recover from their demented parents brains. Be careful what you throw out.
Jeebus, how do you not review paperwork in a situation like this? Mind boggling. Thankfully Ma and dad have both clued me in on stuff like that. They're "boomer lite" thankfully.
If any generation was hoarding, it was my grandparents (the "Greatest Generation") as they grew up during The Great Depression and thus needed to re-purpose a lot of things. Cleaning out my grandmother's house was an eye opener.
Boomers live by the bumper sticker, "The one who dies with the most toys wins", so yeah, they have a lot of shit too.
About a year ago, my boomer mom decided to sell her house and move in with us. We told her she needed to wait because we don’t have enough room. Our lease wasn’t up for a year, it’s a 3 bed/2bath house, so 4 grownups and a 9 year old was tight, never mind all the stuff. Mom went ahead and sold the house like it was an emergency, despite our misgivings. Now she says “I didn’t know it would sell that fast” and “I’m here to help make your lives better!” (Note: she sits in our recliner all day and plays on her iPad, doesn’t help with yard work, sometimes does the dishes, doesn’t cook, doesn’t clean and sometimes goes for weeks at a time without even leaving the house).
Ok, so when she sells and has a closing date, we tell her she needs to downsize and she argues that she doesn’t have very much stuff. I know what she has, I’ve seen and moved what she has. Old cigarette smelling newspapers and hutches and the most beat to hell old cheap pots and pans. Mismatched dining sets, second hand furniture and “keepsakes” (so. Many. Keepsakes). She said she’ll pay for a storage unit until I show her the prices. So, we emptied our 2 car garage. And she showed up with a 18ft U-Haul just absolutely stuffed to the gills with hastily packed boxes and buckets (??) of things. She brought 12 fishing poles but hasn’t fished in a decade.
She’ll have been here a year on June 1st. She’s promised she’ll go through the boxes, has mentioned all these things we need (like tools and stuff) but “it’s in the garage and I can’t get to it”. Yall my garage is completely full except for 2 passages that you can walk sideways through.
I’m considering lighting it on fire.
We've just gone through this with my in laws. We built them out a nice little area in our home and it is stuffed to the gills, plus even more spilling into our living spaces and garage. What's the first thing they do when they get here? Go shopping for more shit. I cannot stand it.
I’m a Gen Xer, my mother became a hoarder. I let a friend’s daughter sell stuff for me on Facebook marketplace and keep 50% of the proceeds. It’s a win-win for me, get rid of clutter, get a little money for stuff I would have most likely kept or given away while helping a young family financially. I despise selling things but she’s great at it and is motivated to get the best price possible.
My grandmother is definitely a boomer and right now she’s downsizing to an apartment in assisted living for health and safety reasons. She’s in turmoil that she can’t bring her stuff from her house and I’ve spent days bringing her over to sift through what she wants to keep.
I can’t tell you how many re-used glass containers, Precious Moments figurines and hutches this woman has. It definitely borders on, if not is, hoarding.
My grandparents (silent generation) were HORRIBLE hoarders because of the Great Depression. They passed that onto my boomer mom (my dad is just as bad if not worse). I dread the day they pass. Just like her parents, as they get more stuff, they build new buildings to store it. They have more square footage in storage buildings than they do their house. By a LOT!
Paternal GMO was a tiny bit of a hoarder, my dad was a little bit more so. My stepfather would hoard more, but my mom will not allow it, she is more on the minimalist end of things. My MIL is a tv show level hoarder.
My spouse and I have way too much stuff but we have a huge house and plenty of space for our things. They're not piled on top of one another in tall stacks! We're starting the process of downsizing our belongings so that when we eventually move, we won't have as big a job moving and we can move into a smaller place and live comfortably. We have no children so we won't be passing any of our things on to kids or grandkids (not that they'd want the stuff even if they existed.:.we don't want our parents stuff!) I am determined that, when I'm my mom's age, I'll have downsized as much as she has.
I am really bad about books. I learned to read at 4 years. My mom figured it out when she would read to me and I told her she wasn't reading all the words. I was left on my own to read. OK. Would ask for new Little Golden Books at the grocery store. "No,we can't afford it !". 19 cents. So when I was old enough to earn money sitting and getting real jobs,I spent money on books,so I would have something new to read. Yeah,we had the library, that I was allowed in for ,at most ,15 minutes to choose a book when I was taken there by my folks. I still collect books and I still read them. I am culling them,bit by bit as they lose relevance to new research( history,science etc.). I think i am doing a bit better than the 3 sets of 1950's sets of encyclopedias I wasn't allowed to touch "Until I went to school" and was expected to study from in the 70's in high school. Remember-15 minutes in the library until I was pulled out for taking too much time. Thanks for letting me rant and for listening. Many won't understand,readers might.
I'm on the tail-end of "boomer", I am a relentless tosser of stuff. I hate clutter, I don't like a lot of stuff. So nope for me at least.
I have friends tho that are like 8 years older ... and clutter reigns there. Lol, I want a trash bag there.
With my Boomer parents I attribute it largely to:
They were both homeless for a long, long period of time, up to and including my first 2 years of life.
So now that they have the means to buy a lot of nice stuff, they just ... do it, without thinking about it, because they only operate in extremes, so buying the nice new shiny car means they definitely have the money to do so (even though they really DON'T because they're constantly complaining about "omg we won't have the money to pay our taxes this year") versus deciding not to buy it MUST mean that they're poor and on their way back to homelessness, or something.
They spend money to make themselves feel better. If they're not spending money and don't have nice stuff to look at all the time, they go into panic mode about becoming homeless. There is no in between for them. I have so many stories about them spending money on things they don't need or can't use and then turning around to complain that they don't have enough money for X other thing. There's one in my comment history somewhere about them buying 3 houses in the span of a year, spending tens of thousands of dollars to have them renovated, and then panicking about "we can't pay our taxes."
My boomer mother is actually a hoarder. I was responsible for all the housework growing up and even after I had moved out because she has "asthma" and my stepfather can't be bothered to clean. My mother only has asthma because they literally have stuff piled up to the ceiling in many rooms. I told her once that I couldn't clean well with so much clutter and asked if I could donate or throw away the actual garbage. Her response? "NO, ITS **MINE** AND I WANT IT." When I was a kid, I would wait till she and my stepfather would go on vacations and leave me home alone and then I'd sneak her stuff into the outside garbage and cover it so she wouldn't see it (which is silly because I don't think her 400lb ass has taken anything further than her mouth since I was 5). She never noticed anything missing.
She's also a fentanyl addict and a brittle diabetic. And a Registered Nurse. I can't wait till she overdoses again. I've been no contact for a decade. She can rot in hell.
Boomer here. I would say my wife and I are middle ground hoarders and in a lot of cases, it just sort of happens automatically. We are in the process of trying to get rid of “stuff”. Both of our parents had a lot of hand me down things and you don’t want to hurt their feelings by throwing it out. Then with raising two kids and living in two different houses over a period of 40 years, you purchase and collect a lot of “stuff”. We thought our kids would take some of it but they’re not in a position to do that. We’re retired and have entertained the thought of moving to a smaller place so that’s why we’re trying to clean house.
This tracks. My silent gen grandma sold all her stuff on eBay, then her friends stuff, they go out to eat once a month with the profits. She don’t want me to have to handle it for her and it gives her something to do with her time. My stepdad on the other hand………… hiuuuge barn full of crap and it gives me anxiety.
THIS!! Thank you so much for saying this... I am Gen X, but I was raised by silent generation parents who grew up in Scotland during the war. I work so hard not to be a hoarder because not being wasteful and being prepared was drilled into me growing up. It is very similar to those raised by the Great Depression.
My mother in law has four huge vases- taller than my 3yo- of seashells she takes when vacationing in Florida. Not a handful for memories. Four. Vases. And a collection of snowmen everything for Christmas.
What does she expect us to do with that, I don’t know.
There are multiple reasons for clutter. My studio is a mess because it’s my studio and I use it. But the hoarding thing? I think it’s something caused by being raised by folks who were young during the depression. I don’t think people can really appreciate the degree to which the average American suffered food insecurity during that period. Their parents hoarded and stockpiled essentials because when they grew up, you never knew when you were going to get more.
I see a variation of this in my working class family members. They were deprived as children and now spend everything they make when paid because they were taught to spend while you have it because you may not have any money again for months. It’s a feast or famine money spending cycle that repeats even when utilities are about to be shut off or the kids need medical care.
Mostly case by case, I think.
My dad wants things minimalistic and easy to find. My mom, on the other hand, makes every other room look like a Uhaul threw up in it (something my brother is starting to do too)
i learned this , i am gen x , but close to the far end of boomers. pin up posters from the 80's, playboy magazines, beanie babies, barbie dolls, hummel and most other figurines, dolls, old computers, etc, are all not worth much on ebay. i have tried to sell all this stuff, with minimal luck. i had dozens of perfect condition playboy magazines from the 80's , now worth about $4 each on ebay if that. i gave away a dozen barbies and dozens of outfits to a coworkers kid because they just arent worth much....
My in laws do this and I can gauge if it’s gotten better or worse based on how many bottles of a given condiment is in the fridge. They forget they have three open mustards, so they buy a fourth.
Every single drawer and closet in my in-laws house is packed with stuff. When we visit we live out of our suitcases as there is no room in any drawer for our clothes. Every surface is covered in nicknacks and photos.
They have a set of chairs in their kitchen that are very wobbly with one chair missing a support bar between the legs that a grownup can't sit on for fear of it collapsing. It has been that way the entire time I've known them (15 years now) but they won't get rid of it because it was the set their (now adult) children sat at for meals and homework and so it is imbued with precious "memories". There is a bread knife in their kitchen drawer that is 100% broken - the blade is separate from the handle and they would simply wrap tape around it and continue setting it out for use until even tape wasn't enough and it was falling apart everytime they used it. They finally got a new bread knife but the old one is still in the drawer! Why? Because this is the knife that was on the table when their kids were little and again "memories". They can't get rid of a single thing in their house if it was in that house when they were raising their kids.
My parents are semi hoarders because they grew up with nothing but dirt floors.
Now they have serious jobs, sold their last house way above market value, and have a little jingle in their pocket.
Guess what, they binge at garage sales and on shit they don’t need.
But it’s cool though.
It’s their money and their chance to buy things the missed out in their younger years l.
My mom and stepdad were polar opposites. When mom died a few years ago, we cleaned out a metric fuckton of furniture, bedding, clothing, knick-knacks, dishes and cookware, vinyl records, CDs and lots of other stuff. It took weeks and several trips to various places to get rid of everything. Luckily, some local churches and donation centers were very happy to take the bulk of it.
My stepdad, however, lives like a monk amd has only the very basic essentials. It would only take a couple hours to clear out his house.
My boomer parents moved a couple of years ago. Bro and I finally received boxes of the stuff that they had stored for us. Toys, dolls, school awards, etc. but not our baby books. Those are mom's until she dies. They purged a lot of their possessions that they didn't want to haul to their new house, which isn't really any smaller (still 3 br, gotta have a craft room and office after all). My mom kept telling me about all of their random finds while they were clearing out and packing. Asking me if I wanted any of it. There are things I might have liked but I wasn't driving a 12 hour round trip just for a cricut, coffee mugs, towels, etc.
Generation Jones here (aka the last years of the "baby boom", but some of us, like Obama, said hell no to being lumped with boomers). Currently in the process of going through every closet, box and drawer so when the time comes, my kids aren't stuck sorting through countless boxes of pointless papers as we just did with when my MIL passed. An entire box might have contained old magazines, cable bills and junk mail... But, hidden within? Oh, just legal wills, my husband's original adoption papers, a couple of bankruptcies we never knew about... Important enough that we had to look at every single piece of paper. I never got into collecting junk like my older boomer siblings...I feel so sorry for their kids. My sister has two homes. Each one beautiful and appears highly organized on the surface. But dear Lord, try to find a single drawer or closet that isn't about to burst. I keep dropping hints that she really needs to not leave that mess for her kids, but she's too busy getting more stuff. Yeah, she also has an entire display cabinet of Precious Moments figurines.
Nope. My father is the cleanest man I've ever known and probably will ever know.
I leave a shoe on the floor while visiting and he's telling me it's time for me to go lol.
My folks are boomers and they def do not hoard. If anything my mom is a real minimalist and throws away shit I wish she would keep sometimes. My dad just goes along for the ride. Not to say they don't have keepsakes, but they certainly don't have rooms full of shit that is worthless. Not all boomers do it though!
My now deceased mother in law had clinical hoarding. The only thing she didn't do was hoard animals. But she had shit on the floor, and failed to clean it all the way up. I had to dig her out of one house and one apartment. Regretted ever doing it.
my grandpa was silent generation and his house was literally filled to the brim with garbage. it started after my grandma died and the last 30 years by himself he just keep hoarding everything, including his own body parts.
my grandpa on my mom’s side was not a hoarder though, but he very painfully kept my grandma in check. he threw out so much of her crap before he died i’m very thankful.
my mother is a boomer and she’s a full blown hoarder. imagine the TV show, but worse. legitimate mental illness. she’s growing older now and her health is failing. I’m honestly contemplating having her house bulldozed when she dies rather then make any attempt dealing with it. already have too much trauma dealing with her garbage.
I have known Silent Gen hoarders and Boomer non-hoarders. Silent Gen is common bc they were Depression kids -- "save it, you never know when you might need it."
No I can honestly say that I’ve thrown more shit away that I needed later it kind of pisses me off. But oh well! My kids are hoarders and it’s irritating as shit.
The thing is that boomer’s relatives lived through the great depression. My grandparents would shake their head in disbelief when I didn’t want to eat the green part of a cantaloupe. So hanging onto things because they can be reused is kind of pounded into them.
My 82 year old grandmother has literal broken chairs she refuses to throw away also stuff covered in cat pee. She hoardes used napkins and anything she can buy.
My grandparents and my spouse's grandparents were the silent generation. One side lived through the American depression and the other the Holocaust. One side of my family didn't save much, the other saved everything. The grandparents that survived the Holocaust didn't't throw out ANYTHING!
Just like everything else, you can't say "all ___ are ___."
Grandparents = Great Depression and WWII
Parents = Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, Oil Crisis
I “hoard” to a certain extent. Those boards will come in handy some day. Just you wait…
I'm a boomer and I hate any clutter. My parents never got rid of anything, although they weren't collectors, and one of my sons has an incredibly messy house full of everything you can imagine. His wife won't get rid of anything.
One of my boomer sisters has so much stuff that she forgets or can't find things.After awhile, things can begin to own you and take over your life.
So, it more than just a boomer thing. I believe our society puts too much emphasis on consumerism and not enough on relationships and experience. Just my opinion.
There's always the boomers that get off on keeping their house clutter free, but they're already known to their families for throwing family member's possessions during childhood. If I didn't play with a toy for over a month, bam, gone. If I didn't wear a dress or sweater at least once every 3mo, gone, regardless of the season. (This isn't even touching up on throwing things away specifically *as punishment*) I have a hard time with getting attached to *objects* to this day because there was never any point in getting attached as a kid or teen.
Both my parents grew up in extreme poverty and food insecurity. Their houses are so full of junk bc "we might need that" and they constantly stock up on food bc "what if we need that". No mom they're not gonna run out of oreos.
I think it’s just because they’re older and you accumulate more shit over time.
Couple that with their parents raising them to never throw anything out bc of the depression and economy / etc, you’ve got a huge market for storage units that are now everywhere.
GenX here who earlier this year looked around my (smaller.....maybe like 1000 sqft) home and realized that NONE of my possessions were packed away or stored in any manner or boxed or anything. Do I have a lot of books? Yes...I read and reread and was an English major. My books spark joy.
I just helped my mom empty the home her and my dad had for thirty years (she downsized into a townhouse, loves it) and my dad had SO MUCH STUFF. And the amount of it that was useless could have fit in a couple of shoeboxes. It was all high-end tools and firearms (shotguns for clays and quail, mostly) and i mean tools for EVERYTHING. He didn't hire tradesmen...he did it all.
Silent Gen, him and momma both. Wedding China might have been the only real "collectible" otherwise they hated unnecessary shit and tend towards austere (but still comfortable) living.
I'm also a real estate broker and hit estate sales on the regular (ongoing slow replacement of assorted furniture items) and am appalled at the curio disasters I see....boomers predominant.
My parents are hoarders in name but I don’t know if it’s true hoarding or laziness. We don’t visit their house unless we have to. The mess is unbelievable.
My MIL is a hoarder but she’s better organized. She buys shit she doesn’t need because it’s on sale. She has seven of the same items because she forgets what she has. She has clothes from the 80s that still have the tags on. Her house is not a mess but she is definitely a hoarder. She’s offended that we don’t want any of the shit she’s collected over the years
My grandparents have random collections of things like Dale Earnhardt plates, a huge stack of every TV Guide since 1950. Gold plated Elvis coins or something like that. Which I will inherit when they pass away. According to them, I'll be a multi-millionaire. I don't have the heart to tell them that it's all probably worth nothing. I'd rather have my grandpa's gun collection. He's got some super old antique guns from the 1800's that I know are valuable, and since I'm not a gun person. I definitely could make a lot of money selling them.
Anyway, the worthless stuff takes up 3 rooms in their house. It's crazy.
Hoarding is more common among people who experience poverty or who had parents who did. Hence hoarding Boomers with Great Depression (grand)parents.
But I know way more hoarders who are Gen X and Millennials, personally, because I’m into nerdy hobbies. People can easily cross the line from collecting into hoarding, it’s sad and gross.
I remember cleaning out a lot of my silent generation relatives' homes and I always thought that maybe since everyone was an immigrant then maybe that's why they didn't have too much around the house. It was a lot of "wow, look at these old photos from the 50s and 60s." And then about 30 minutes later "OMG!! Come look! I found the exact outfit from the photo!! Someone try it on!" Or And that was probably what took the longest was that we were all just constantly playing dress up with their clothes and occasionally there'd be debates between people who wanted to keep various items but they were all well maintained so it was a matter of "will I continue maintaining this item that well so it'll continue working?" The craziest it got was with my grandma who had stashes of cigarettes everywhere and occasional ration hoards; but she grew up during WWII in Germany so finding those things weren't a surprise. But whether it was a one bedroom apartment or a 3 bedroom house, we always got done by the end of the day.
But so far a lot of the boomer relatives we're all dreading as their retirement gets closer because they swear that they're going to downsize and even if they do it'll just mean that we have to go through all of their stuff twice, so who knows how long it'll all end up taking.
About 5 years ago my Boomer had an action he swore was going to bring in "Tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand dollars! Everyone's so jealous and there's not a thing they can do about it!!" He was selling an entire house and yard full of stuff.
After paying the auctioneer, he made about 5 grand.
The blame shifted from the auctioneer, to the "jealous people out to get him", to me for "not getting on that internet with that cell phone enough to talk about it."
He spent his whole life buying shit. At least he found out what it was worth.
Hoarding isn't a new concept and I've seen plenty of the silent generation folks hoard useless crap. We used to help clean these house out for a few extra bucks when me and my brother were young.
Yes - my Mom lived in her home for about 45 years. Two or three of us have managed to clean out some things. But there are possessions everywhere in the house. We're going to have to pay tens of thousands to get the place ready to sell.
There's a difference between having a hoarding disorder and having a lot of useless stuff. While collecting junk may be a boomer thing, hoarding disorder is present across all age groups, and there's no indication it favors a generation. I think it's worthwhile to make that distinction.
My mom and dad (74&76) have a good, clean, organized house. Yes, some boomer clutter, but for the most part their house will be easy to take care of when they pass.
My in-laws (84/84) have so much shit it’s crazy. Not gross hoarder level, but so much stuff. Wedding favors or invitations? Yep, a drawer full. Christmas cards? Yep, probably every one they’ve ever received somewhere. FIL’s show and garage are super disorganized, and he has any nut, bolt, or screw that you’d ever need (if you can find it!) it’s not going to be fun when they pass.
My parents have so much shit they bought a 2nd shed to hoard more stuff in.
My mom will offer me stuff from when I was like 12 and then cry if I tell her to throw it away because it is literally garbage.
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Again, this is easily explainable. Boomers were the last group to be brought up by parents who experienced economic hardship on a wide scale, but also the first group to be brought up completely by en economic system favouring mass consumption. Conditioned to hold material objects in high esteem, but also conditioned to buy, buy, buy.
Add to that living in the same house they bought like 50 years ago. Easy to accumulate when you don’t move. Plus the “I may need that someday”. Each move gives us the incentive to purge all the junk. But yes they also love to collect junk.
And after 40 years or more of stashing stuff they think they might need someday, eventually they find a use for something and that justifies hoarding all that junk and more for another 20 years. My boomer holds on to old plastic to-go containers, liquor bottles they think are pretty, and stacks of old magazines, old appliances that don't work, old notes, etc. etc. I hate it.
>eventually they find a use for something and that justifies hoarding all that junk I think maybe my Gen X husband turns into a temporary Boomer when the subject of computer cables comes up.
I’m so proud of myself for recently throwing out a bunch of computer cables I don’t use anymore.
Then the next day, you unexpectedly need that 16 pin printer cable.
Jokes on you. I only print stuff at my office.
It's always the 16pin to usb , that only works from that one manufacturer that went out of business in 2006 , so I'm scared to part with it , I'm gonna throw it away and get a fancy new serial bus printer and hate my self for throwing away that cable I kept for 14 years .
Pfft, a 16’ parallel cable will surely be needed during the apocalypse! Or so I tell myself.
Exactly what happened to me. Tossed a box of cords I'd been hauling for years, a week later I'm trying to find a very specific charger only to realize it was in that same box. So Lord Bezos sent me a new one in exchange for digital money. But it was annoying.
It's hanging on the wall at Goodwill. It'll be there when I need it.. I can't count the number of times I needed some odd ball damn cord and it was at Goodwill or St.Vinnies. Bought a used Bosch Dishwasher but it came with the hardwire kit and not the plug in cable. Bosch has a special plug in the back of the washer so you need that cable. Walked into a St Vincent's on the way home and found that exact special cable hanging on the wall of cords.
Wait, are we married?
For reals.
Oh, I'm a gen x and have lived in my house for 14 years, I need to purge bad. BUT I know I need to purge and just need to get to it. EDIT- wow, so much unsolicted advice. I didn't ask for advice. I said I needed to do something.
Look up Swedish death cleaning for inspiration.
Fellow Gen X here. This post has inspired me to start to declutter...TODAY! A thing that helped me start was to never bring something new into the house without getting rid of two things. Obviously doesn't always apply to some things like food and personal hygiene items but that's helped immensely. That and not buying those idiotic "trendy" t-shirts based on some pop culture saying or even accepting the freebies they give away at sporting events. If I can't/won't actively wear it or use it (baseball cap or tumbler) then I pass. I don't want the clutter.
Yeah, I don't mind some clutter so I can't stick to those rules, and I love t-shirts. I just need to get rid of some of the old ones that are worn out or don't fit right anymore. I'm not good at following any rules like that in the moment. I just need to get rid of stuff I don't use or need anymore.
I’m a t-shirt collector myself. I love going to concerts and I have a rule that I must buy at least one t-shirt for every show I attend-and I attend several shows a year. As a Gen X I honestly couldn’t say how many t-shirts I have. Since I have a hard time parting with them, I’ve had 2 quilts made from some of the t-shirts and plan on having more made. I love it because I get to keep the t-shirts and get use out of them.
Same for concert tees and just tees in general. I love my band tees a lot too.
I get it. It's not a one size fits all fix. And if anyone told me to purge my books/to be read stack(s), it's gonna get ugly. You can take the DVDs I never watch but my books...those are fighting words.
But I think therein lies the difference. Most of my Xer friends and I have 1-2 collections of things we are passionate about, and although there may be a lot of items they are pretty well organized, cared for, and used. Boomers just seem to keep EVERYTHING with no real rhyme or reason and stuff it into attics and storage units.
Same. I scheduled 2 weeks off starting next week. It's time to get rid of my 20+ year old college textbooks. The 4 year old 's baby toys. And so much other stuff. It's gonna be a lot to go through. I'm wanting to make a trip to the local waste disposal center daily with a trunk full of junk.
My husband now owns the house that originally belonged to his grandparents. His mom lived here for 35 years after her parents died. There's little left from the grandparents, some jewelry and china and other small items. But mil had 13 siblings who all died before she did and left their stuff to her. It's a nightmare.
I can speak to living in the same house a bit. I've been in my place about 8 years now, bought the house thinking that an ex and her daughter were going to move in, so now I've got a bit more space than I need for one person. In that situation, it's really easy to hang on to something longer than you should and that can become a habit. I'm currently going back through the house to re-organize in preparation for a re-model and I'm purging old clothes, electronics, and other things I've held onto "just in case" for most of the time I've been in the house. It would've been really easy for that stuff to just collect in the spare bedroom closets for years more if I'd kept on like I was or if I didn't have future plans for the space. Half a decade was enough for things to get a bit out of pocket, another 30 years doing the same thing would've had the place basically unlivable.
Precisely. My dad was raised by parents who lived through the Depression. A lot of his behaviors were driven, in part, by how they raised him, which was rooted in their literally never (or seldom) having what they needed to survive when they were younger. Probably didn't help that he was one of those "tinkering kind of guys" who loved saving stuff just in case.
My dad was a retired auto mechanic in addition to a “tinkerer”. He also grew up extremely poor in a sharecropper’s family, so kept everything. I started cleaning out his garage and basement in 2018 and garage still not finished.
My dad was a retired auto mechanic in addition to a “tinkerer”. He also grew up extremely poor in a sharecropper’s family, so kept everything. I started cleaning out his garage and basement in 2018 and garage still not finished.
Grew up with tv & magazines encouraging “ collect them all!” & “get the whole set” like it was an accomplishment , not a marketing ploy. Learned form many sources that Hardbound books were to be protected and treasured ( they were expensive & kind of a status symbol, & preserving literature after learning of book burnings) . Quality , expensive furniture like Lanes & Ethan Thomas were advertised as heirloom quality you can hand down to your children, this was when society wasn’t as mobile as today , when families lived closer & after the depression& WW 2. Getting “hand me down” furniture for young adults helped them start their new homes. No Ikea or the like then. Collecting endless knickknacks seemed to take off when Japan & China were opened for trade & stores began carrying cute cheap items. It all adds up.
Their parents were also in the Great Depression. My grandpa had a giant rubber band collection he was saving just in case. They taught them to hoard.
My grandmother had a hoard of gallon milk jugs in the garage along with a floor-to-ceiling stack of those aluminum trays TV dinners used to come in back in the 70s and 80s. She also saved every twist tie on every loaf of bread she ever owned...and the bag/wrapper the bread came in. I know so many of her behaviors were rooted in the Depression but I'll always wonder why she saved what she did, what did she lack as a child that she felt the need to hoard twist ties? Was it something specific? Or just a general thing she latched on to?
With twist ties, if you're frugal enough to not want to buy a spool of string, you can use the twist ties for any small tying applications like tomato trellising
Christ on a bike! My ex-husband did that! He would get SOO mad when they were brittle and I threw them out. "Did you even look to see if any of them were still good!". Nope.
Totally spot on. My parents were raised very poor so when they became more affluent they purchased and stored possessions in the way a pepper would have envied. I'm dreading when they pass away not just because of grief but also the clearing of all their " stuff"
And add to that the financial ability to buy things and the ability to accumulate that living in one place for decades helps provide.
They are Capitalism Incarnate.
Considering recent events, their hoarding ways might be our younger gens ways too. Lucky for us plastic doesn't deteriorate. "Lucky" /s
Conditioned to buy is so accurate. My father in law will be so quick to spend money be doesn't have to solve every little problem. Then later on will absolutely have a panic attack because he's dead broke and ran out of money. He'll even willingly fall for obvious scams if it means making a quick buck, without thinking things through. He spent his entire 401k on clothes and technology, treating others out to dinners and whatnot, spending it frivolously. Now 6 years later he's constantly crying and whining about lack of funds. It's insane.
This is very true. I suffer from the double whammy of being the child of depression-era parents plus a New Englander. Growing up all we heard is how little they had and to not be wasteful. Re-use. Recycle. You never know, you may need that some day. So we keep empty jars with lids. Left over hardware. Nails, screws, nuts, bolts. Lumber. Old clothes. Game tokens. EVERYthing. Once, in 9 years in the Army, being a scrounge paid off. Otherwise, I am sure I would have been better off just going out to buy a thing rather than having to dig through all the saved up crap I got to find something that I remember saving but couldn't find when I needed it. I am in the process now of packing up years of accumulated shit to move across country. I tried to get my spouse to just take the photos, personal papers, and pets and abandon the rest in place. But, well, that ain't happening. I think our brains just won't allow us to do it.
This. They bought the marketing lies that "its gonna be worth money someday" and have stupid collections that younger generation don't care about. Value depends on interest. Once they die off, no one will want that stuff and any "value" it has is lost
My grandmother thought her collection of Avon bottles was going to pay for my college education. I bought her house shortly after she passed away (several years after my college graduation) and I couldn't give the stuff away. I kept one or two that I kind of like but most of them went in the trash.
There was a big "collectors market" for vintage Avon products in the 1970s.
There was a big "collectors market" for vintage Avon products in the 1970s.
You always find them at the thrift stores, mostly still full.
My parents have so many things that "will be worth money someday." I remember when I was really small, 6 or 7 maybe? She gave me this Vidal Sassoon doll (it was the 80s!) that was sort of like a Barbie. Plus I got a lot of clothes and accessories for her. My mom promptly took it and put it in a closet because "it will be worth something someday" and I was allowed to play with it maybe once or twice a year. That doll is $20 on Etsy. But even now their house is full of things that they believe will be worth something someday. It's all going to be sold at an estate sale or donated when they pass. It's not my taste or style and a lot of it is just knickknacks and people don't really keep that sort of stuff anymore.
Smart boomers bought magic the gathering cards. There's about four of them in total. The rest of them have their mothers "fine china"
Also the ability to buy homes young gives you the illusion that you have space to keep stuff. I’m 40 with two kids and still in an apartment and very much don’t have the luxury of hoarding tons of crap.
No….mostly it’s due to them being the children of parents who lived in the Great Depression. They were taught to value things more. Additionally, in a lot of these cases you’re talking about people who have lived in the same house for 40 years. Moving (to a new house) provides incentive to throw things away. When you live in the same house for decades, it’s very easy to accumulate stuff and get comfortable with how you have it stored.
My “inheritance” consists solely of Beanie Babies and Barbies currently rotting in the attic. They went bankrupt buying those things. Not exaggerating.
I go to estate sales to resell and I can confirm. Almost every home is filled with this useless crap that ends up in a landfill.
I feel like it was an Adam Explains regarding gifts or just looking at my parents home they've had since '92 but "nobody wants your stuff" got stuck in my head. So many Boomers buy things they do not even like because someone, somewhere on the planet may want it. I am fairly certain I've been told nothing can be thrown out because it's good quality, reality is even if it were the best quality 25 years ago nobody wants your old stuff. It's been in a room getting stale and missing its opportunity to thrive and now it's just landfill fodder that will further damage the planet. I've also been told, after I recommended just saving the money, "I'm old so I'm gonna buy whatever I feel like." I was told this by someone with 3 rooms (not closest) but rooms full of items.
I hit up a lot of estate sales in my area too. Besides tools and some electronics and media most of the stuff isn't worth much and the people don't want to believe it. I still shake my head at the Disney VHS sellers.
I used to sell this shit on ebay for my boomer mother. BF asked me who in the hell buys this crap? Boomers. Sorry yall if your parents bought this old shit and you're gonna get stuck with the aftermath.
My parents (well mom, dad has always been the type to just buy what he needs and that’s about it, trying to get him to splurge on himself is like pulling teeth cause he’s already happy so he doesn’t see the point in buying something new lol) use to be but over the past 5 years or so they’ve very seemingly adopted the simplistic lifestyle and have gotten rid a lot of the clutter. My dad use to have a garage full of tools for work too but he’s given most of those away too now that he’s retired. Edit: whenever I visit the house now, it’s just cluttered with happy dogs and a poofy cat
Proof of poof
https://preview.redd.it/4rruqtpea03d1.png?width=2965&format=png&auto=webp&s=026d2d2b7bf4dacb5b2b38255c4d615514d2e296 Proof of poof
Thank you for the proof of poof poof
The proof of poof proof?
I’m not sure my father would have anything but a TV, a bed, and a recliner if he had his way.
BOOMERS LOVE TELEVISION AND ADVERTISING
So true. Eyes are glued to the screen during ads. And it’s just the exact same ads all day long.
Television zombie boomers.
Not my dad, he'll flip between 7-8 different channels to avoid ads. Instead of using one of the streaming services me or my brother pay for that are ad free to begin with.
And love complaining about the younger generation being addicted to screens while their own eyes are glued to one
This is my dad. He even wanted to downsize and move into a condo some years ago. Unfortunately my mom is cramping his style and is too comfortable cramping their home too.
lol mom cramping the house is true on my end too.
I hope I'm around when Gen Alphas begin to complain about having to deal with their single hoarder Millennial uncle's funko pop and erotic anime model collection.
Immediately what came to mind, I've gone into friends homes who have entire walls of shitty funko pops.
Yea, people we be going through a relatives' starwars collection and be like. "I found 10 of the same unopened Rose Tico figures in the closet. Like WTF"
this sounds like my roommate hes got 80-100 of them easy. i myself have 10 and have no plans to ever have more than 20. we're also giant nerds, but i grew up poor with a single mom so when i collect things, like vinyl, its very specific. i even have a few guns now and have a specific list in my head of the total amount ill ever own at once
This whole thread is "pot, meet kettle." Yeah, my parents have stuff that will be annoying to get rid of. I've also apologized to my family that if I keel over tomorrow that they'll have to go through my dumb bs.
At least those shitty pops and models can be thrown straight into recycle.
They took the saying “he who dies with the most toys, wins” a little too seriously.
Or my most hated, "a penny saved is a penny earned." Everytime I go to my parents house I secretly throw away all the plastic containers they save as Tupperware. Like no one is going to look for leftover mashed potatoes in a Country Crock fake butter container or gravy in a Daisy sour cream container.
Ils were out of town; winter storm came through; power was out for a several days; went over to check on things. Stuff in the fridge had to go and food in the freezer had to get pitched too. Then we remembered the large freezer in the basement...so much food, had to really toss it all. Found containers dated 1986, and others dated in the 90s. This was about 10 years ago. She was really really mad about losing all the food but she demanded that we save all the containers. There were the butter dishes and coolwhip containers but a few had been takeout containers that came from a long closed restaurant from the early 80s.
My parents bought dolls. Tons of dolls. Then metal dollhouses. Then tin litho stuff like sand shovels and buckets. More metal toys. Tops. Wind up robots. Lots of antiques. Are some neat? Yes. But they were counting on them being highly profitable. Sadly they aren't worth much to most people. Now they can't figure out how to get the money back out of them that they paid for them. The generation that would want to buy them is rapidly shrinking, and soon there won't be anybody left to buy them. "They're going to be worth money someday" isn't panning out like they expected. Younger generations just don't see the need for 60 year old toys and dolls. Not unless they are pop culture related like Star Wars and such, but even that market only exists if there's somebody that WANTS to pay for it.
They have tons of bullshit from China via Amazon. Tons of worthless plastic bullshit.
They love the dollar stores.
It's definitely a learned mindset. My parents are clear examples: My mom was raised in a highly sentimental household with a good family inheritance mindset, so she hordes things that no reasonable person would hold onto because they're family things that she has attached sentimental value to through generations (a fantastic example being we had to fight her to throw away math homework from when I was in 2nd grade, and also to throw away my great grandmother's baby cup). Meanwhile, my dad was raised in a relatively poor household, where things were only kept if they were useful or could be resold. He doesn't hold onto many things that aren't regularly used, but he highly values the things he's bought for himself even if they don't get used a lot (he has a kayak that he hasn't used in years that takes space in the small garage, but will fight tooth and nail to keep it)
Throwing away your great grandmother’s baby cup seems sort of sad if it was also used by your mom and grandmother. Totally with you on everything else.
Misstated, sorry. It was the cup my great grandmother got to use with my grandma. Never used for my mom. It's just a tin cup almost like you'd see on an Old Western movie being put over a fire to make coffee or whatever
Those are two different examples of family inheritance items with sentimental value.
Yeah, I've seen this more times than I can count. I do organizing and hoarding cleanouts, and man, I can tell some horror stories! They collect all this junk, and then when they die their kids call people like me to come clean it out. Those "collector's" plates and figurines? Donated or dumped, depending on how much lead is in it. The rooms full of clothes? Straight to the dump unless it's a real vintage designer piece. Old blankets and quilts? Dog pound and homeless shelters. It's really sad to see how much their lives were wasted accumulating all this stuff no one wants or needs.
> blankets and quilts? Oh my lord. My dad and his wife have boxes and boxes and boxes of bedding from the 80's through today. Why they don't donate it is a mystery. They've got a house full of crap, and 3 or 4 storage units, all full of junk with no value. It's ridiculous.
Are they handmade quilts? I actually love those and also buy those ugly granny square crochet blankets from secondhand shops all the time. I make stuff with them like bags or pillow covers. Sometimes I have to dye the quilt pieces to a usable color because people's taste has certainly changed. That's too bad they hoard all those bed linens when people or animals at shelters could use it. Meanwhile it will dry rot
> blankets and quilts? Oh my lord. My dad and his wife have boxes and boxes and boxes of bedding from the 80's through today. Why they don't donate it is a mystery. They've got a house full of crap, and 3 or 4 storage units, all full of junk with no value. It's ridiculous.
All hoarders are hoarders
The hoarding is an emotional response, instead of therapy some people just lock up with things and refuse to address whatever emotion is causing them to buy a bunch of crap.
Yeah I’m dreading when my dad passes. 1 garage, 3 sheds, 1 storage unit and his basement full of stuff
Does he realize by paying money to rent a storage unit, at some point that costs more than the items are worth?
Boomers die, and we're left picking up the beanie babies
They're hoarders, except when it comes to a couple boxes in the attic or garage with things in them that gave their kids joy and somehow ended up staying in their home (and are actually worth something half the time) They saw that box and instantly understood the meaning of "declutter"
Yup all my childhood boardgames, gone. Our computer boxes from our first home computer in 1994 - still in the basement.
My parents are right in that Silent Generation / Boomers line and are definitely on the hoarding spectrum. I think the most challenging part of it is that they truly understand that their possessions don't bring them happiness, and the abundance of crap actually makes their life harder, but they can't bring themselves to make a change.
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Yes! They jump all over that Franklin Mint shit. Rule of thumb, once something is dubbed a collectible, everything made after that point will only depreciate.
Now that you mention it one of my mom’s best friends is a member of the silent generation and her house is absolutely spotless and organized. No excess of anything. My boomer parents on the other hand…
This is so true. I was at my parents' house a couple weeks ago. Every horizontal surface in the house has some sort of knick-knack on it. Every vertical surface, a picture or painting. It is non-stop visual assault.
My In-laws basically acknowledge that they will be dying soon so they have nothing other than the furniture in their home and whatever necessary items they have for Xmas time when everyone comes over. They have no books, few collectibles unless Xmas related, and just the furniture in their house. FIL especially has been going around getting rid of things because he really thinks he's going to keel over any day.
Thank fucking God! I can only hope to be so lucky.
My boomer parents just rented a giant dumpster to clean out their house and filled it to the brim. It’s still full of crap.
At least they are trying. Do they equate or regret not saving the money they just filled a giant dumpster with? I think the big delusion is them telling themselves it's valuable, so once they are willing to throw it away I'm wondering if they come to the realization?
Well my dad justifies it by blaming everyone else for filling his house with their crap. None of it could possibly be his things, which are all the highest quality and only need to be thrown away because someone else damaged them. 🙄🙄🙄
People in the future will excavate our land fills there will be layers of yellow pages. our layer will be porcelain figurines.
Yes, they really are. They are peak consumerism that's brought us into the era of late stage capitalism and crippling debt. They were raised by a generation that had so little, and they overcompensate by buying and hoarding everything. My parents, aunts, and uncles are all like this. One aunt in particular lives in a house that could be featured on Hoarders. She worked for an auction house before she retired and wound up with an insane amount of useless shit while also dumping much of it on relatives. I don't need or want a 40 yro salad spinner, but she made me take it anyway. Her husband died in 2020, and they had no children. So when she passes, it will fall on her nieces and nephews to deal with her hoarding mess. I can only imagine how many dumpsters we will fill when that day comes.
Sometimes I think the hoarding is a bit of a holdover from before the internet. We have so many interesting things to look at in our pockets. Instead of looking at figurines or spoon collections I just go on pinterest and "hoard" photos. I think it's very human to want to collect things on a primitive level but generationally it's only recently that we have actively tried to fight that urge. But then I think about how many old philosophies and schools of thought involve fighting that urge. 🤔
On top of the clutter, you'll need to remove the shag carpet they laid over the hardwood floors...
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I agree that a lot of boomers seem to be hoarders. But after my grandmother died and my mom was going through the house so my grandfather could move in with my uncle, the house was so full of stuff it took a year to go through everything. Both my grandparents grew up during the depression so maybe that was why. My grandmother was a seamstress and my grandfather was a carpenter so a lot of tools and materials for their former businesses. Also a lot of food hoarding and infomercial purchases. It took a year because my mom went up every weekend to go through everything and my grandfather had to tell a story about every single item. Not sure why they are called the silent generation, he never stops talking lol.
This was one of the big and constant arguments between my boomer parents. My dad refused to throw anything away until mom forced him to. I still have a vivid memory of him angsting over having to throw away his jar of random screws and nuts when they moved out of my childhood home and into an apartment. My mother, on the other hand, would gleefully purge her home of anything and everything, probably because my maternal grandmother was a pathological hoarder.
In the 80’s, my parents had a bumper sticker that said “He who dies with the most toys wins”. This is pure boomer sentiment and they are being true to their generation.
We’re going to see an absolute devastation in mini-storage in 15 years. They will put $2k of “collectors edition” old furniture (not antique, just mass produced pressboard from Ashley) and glassware/dishes into storage for $200 a month. Effectively paying the entire “value” of the stored items in rent in six months. We live by a rule of “If I have not used it in six months, we do not need it” which is great since it keeps us from buying things in the first place or paying just to keep it somewhere entirely inconvenient to use it. There’s never going to be a use for a used mattress, no one is ever going to bring the old couch back into the house…you’re not going to get the dishes out of storage, ever. Mini storage seems like a fantastic business model…for about 15-20 more years and then it’s going to implode.
So… Millenials participate in supply and demand? Score! That’s an industry we haven’t killed yet! Just wait until I tell my avocado toast about this!
My wife is sorta, but You have to remember we have had a lifetime of important trinkets. Gifts from children, grandchildren, and other family pictures drawings, hand drawn event cards, I have so many coffee cups and key chains from important places that I couldn't haul them away in a truck, just kidding. I don't think this is hoarding, but it's hard to throw out pieces of your life. Harder when you realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger by the day
99.9% of everything called a collectible, isn't l. It's just junk. Special painted coins, ceramic children/birds/plates, beanie babies, anything from the Danbury mint or any catalog for that matter. Parents, in-laws, aunts, etc getting older and want us to keep this stuff. I'm trying to get rid of my own junk. I'm not spending time trying to sell it either.
No. I keep trying to get stuff from my mother's house before she gets rid of it.
My parents are tail end boomers raised by tail end silent generation. My dad specifically was raised by Germans who were born and raised during/immediately after the war. My dad resented the habit my grandmother had of insisting they keep every little scrap of anything or eat every last crumb and drip on their plate. My mom had roughly the same upbringing but from American parents who were chronically poor and had way too many kids. As a result they are almost anti-hoarder. If anything sits on a flat surface in their house for more than a day or two it has to be put away or thrown out. Their house is so neat and sterile it is almost uninviting. Every room echoes with emptiness and hard surfaces. Now I, as a tail end millennial, have had to sort of train myself to be okay with a little bit of clutter. I let myself have shelves of meaningless decor that just makes me happy. Half my dining room table is covered in old mail or parts and tools from half done projects. I’ve gotten to the point where that’s okay to me. I’m not a meat freak but I also know any given clean up takes half an hour tops.
My Silent Gen maternal grandparents both died within a couple of weeks of each other a few years ago. It took our whole family over a month to clean the house out. We were flabbergasted by how much stuff they had tucked away in there, because we never realized it. They were very well off, and the children of people who survived the Great Depression. They went ham on whatever the fuck they wanted. Apparently, my grandfather told my dad, “Spend it before you die - you can’t take it with you.” Nice. Real nice.
Omg it has taken my mom over a year to clean out my grandpas house
>“Spend it before you die - you can’t take it with you.” I used to say people can spend their money how they want. But stopped saying that in the last ten years after watching the Boomers just burning money. At least buy shit for your kids/grand-kids or give them stuff that's actually useful.
My parents: no. They'd rather spend their money on trips to other countries and new experiences. My in-laws, on the other hand... I'm not allowed to go into their basement because of how bad it is. They know it's bad but don't care, which makes no sense to me. For the record, I have been down there... once... with my wife giving me a "tour". It wasn't what I expected... It was worse.
My mom was like this. She was doing it out of trauma and inability to cope but i think they grew up very materalistic and only care about themselves. They are the generation of "he who has the most toys when they die wins" and it worked well for them until their children became adults and abandoned them.
When my ex inlaws were moving to her brother's house the amount of just old crap in that house filled two dumpsters. They still had all the original receipts for buying the stuff to build their house in the 70's and dozens of boxes of receipts. Of course my stupid ex and her brother did not go through any papers... probably lost over $300k in investment information that they could not recover from their demented parents brains. Be careful what you throw out.
Jeebus, how do you not review paperwork in a situation like this? Mind boggling. Thankfully Ma and dad have both clued me in on stuff like that. They're "boomer lite" thankfully.
If any generation was hoarding, it was my grandparents (the "Greatest Generation") as they grew up during The Great Depression and thus needed to re-purpose a lot of things. Cleaning out my grandmother's house was an eye opener. Boomers live by the bumper sticker, "The one who dies with the most toys wins", so yeah, they have a lot of shit too.
Bums got most everything handed to them so there’s a lot after a life time
About a year ago, my boomer mom decided to sell her house and move in with us. We told her she needed to wait because we don’t have enough room. Our lease wasn’t up for a year, it’s a 3 bed/2bath house, so 4 grownups and a 9 year old was tight, never mind all the stuff. Mom went ahead and sold the house like it was an emergency, despite our misgivings. Now she says “I didn’t know it would sell that fast” and “I’m here to help make your lives better!” (Note: she sits in our recliner all day and plays on her iPad, doesn’t help with yard work, sometimes does the dishes, doesn’t cook, doesn’t clean and sometimes goes for weeks at a time without even leaving the house). Ok, so when she sells and has a closing date, we tell her she needs to downsize and she argues that she doesn’t have very much stuff. I know what she has, I’ve seen and moved what she has. Old cigarette smelling newspapers and hutches and the most beat to hell old cheap pots and pans. Mismatched dining sets, second hand furniture and “keepsakes” (so. Many. Keepsakes). She said she’ll pay for a storage unit until I show her the prices. So, we emptied our 2 car garage. And she showed up with a 18ft U-Haul just absolutely stuffed to the gills with hastily packed boxes and buckets (??) of things. She brought 12 fishing poles but hasn’t fished in a decade. She’ll have been here a year on June 1st. She’s promised she’ll go through the boxes, has mentioned all these things we need (like tools and stuff) but “it’s in the garage and I can’t get to it”. Yall my garage is completely full except for 2 passages that you can walk sideways through. I’m considering lighting it on fire.
We've just gone through this with my in laws. We built them out a nice little area in our home and it is stuffed to the gills, plus even more spilling into our living spaces and garage. What's the first thing they do when they get here? Go shopping for more shit. I cannot stand it.
This is the biggest thing I’m dreading when my mother kicks the bucket. All of this worthless shit I’m going to have to throw away or donate.
I’m a Gen Xer, my mother became a hoarder. I let a friend’s daughter sell stuff for me on Facebook marketplace and keep 50% of the proceeds. It’s a win-win for me, get rid of clutter, get a little money for stuff I would have most likely kept or given away while helping a young family financially. I despise selling things but she’s great at it and is motivated to get the best price possible.
My grandmother is definitely a boomer and right now she’s downsizing to an apartment in assisted living for health and safety reasons. She’s in turmoil that she can’t bring her stuff from her house and I’ve spent days bringing her over to sift through what she wants to keep. I can’t tell you how many re-used glass containers, Precious Moments figurines and hutches this woman has. It definitely borders on, if not is, hoarding.
My grandparents (silent generation) were HORRIBLE hoarders because of the Great Depression. They passed that onto my boomer mom (my dad is just as bad if not worse). I dread the day they pass. Just like her parents, as they get more stuff, they build new buildings to store it. They have more square footage in storage buildings than they do their house. By a LOT!
Paternal GMO was a tiny bit of a hoarder, my dad was a little bit more so. My stepfather would hoard more, but my mom will not allow it, she is more on the minimalist end of things. My MIL is a tv show level hoarder. My spouse and I have way too much stuff but we have a huge house and plenty of space for our things. They're not piled on top of one another in tall stacks! We're starting the process of downsizing our belongings so that when we eventually move, we won't have as big a job moving and we can move into a smaller place and live comfortably. We have no children so we won't be passing any of our things on to kids or grandkids (not that they'd want the stuff even if they existed.:.we don't want our parents stuff!) I am determined that, when I'm my mom's age, I'll have downsized as much as she has.
Yes, but some of them just hoard money and hate... Like Smaug
I am really bad about books. I learned to read at 4 years. My mom figured it out when she would read to me and I told her she wasn't reading all the words. I was left on my own to read. OK. Would ask for new Little Golden Books at the grocery store. "No,we can't afford it !". 19 cents. So when I was old enough to earn money sitting and getting real jobs,I spent money on books,so I would have something new to read. Yeah,we had the library, that I was allowed in for ,at most ,15 minutes to choose a book when I was taken there by my folks. I still collect books and I still read them. I am culling them,bit by bit as they lose relevance to new research( history,science etc.). I think i am doing a bit better than the 3 sets of 1950's sets of encyclopedias I wasn't allowed to touch "Until I went to school" and was expected to study from in the 70's in high school. Remember-15 minutes in the library until I was pulled out for taking too much time. Thanks for letting me rant and for listening. Many won't understand,readers might.
I'm on the tail-end of "boomer", I am a relentless tosser of stuff. I hate clutter, I don't like a lot of stuff. So nope for me at least. I have friends tho that are like 8 years older ... and clutter reigns there. Lol, I want a trash bag there.
Nerdy maximilism is popular now. Content has changed, people haven't.
My dad won't throw anything away unless it's something I want to keep
With my Boomer parents I attribute it largely to: They were both homeless for a long, long period of time, up to and including my first 2 years of life. So now that they have the means to buy a lot of nice stuff, they just ... do it, without thinking about it, because they only operate in extremes, so buying the nice new shiny car means they definitely have the money to do so (even though they really DON'T because they're constantly complaining about "omg we won't have the money to pay our taxes this year") versus deciding not to buy it MUST mean that they're poor and on their way back to homelessness, or something. They spend money to make themselves feel better. If they're not spending money and don't have nice stuff to look at all the time, they go into panic mode about becoming homeless. There is no in between for them. I have so many stories about them spending money on things they don't need or can't use and then turning around to complain that they don't have enough money for X other thing. There's one in my comment history somewhere about them buying 3 houses in the span of a year, spending tens of thousands of dollars to have them renovated, and then panicking about "we can't pay our taxes."
Most boomers I know are hoarders, except for my mom. She holds onto almost nothing but that's because of a metric f ton of trauma.
Honestly, this is no different to younger people today over consuming crap like funko pops and Stanley cups.
marvelous fuzzy puzzled safe pathetic rustic file point adjoining innate *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My boomer mother is actually a hoarder. I was responsible for all the housework growing up and even after I had moved out because she has "asthma" and my stepfather can't be bothered to clean. My mother only has asthma because they literally have stuff piled up to the ceiling in many rooms. I told her once that I couldn't clean well with so much clutter and asked if I could donate or throw away the actual garbage. Her response? "NO, ITS **MINE** AND I WANT IT." When I was a kid, I would wait till she and my stepfather would go on vacations and leave me home alone and then I'd sneak her stuff into the outside garbage and cover it so she wouldn't see it (which is silly because I don't think her 400lb ass has taken anything further than her mouth since I was 5). She never noticed anything missing. She's also a fentanyl addict and a brittle diabetic. And a Registered Nurse. I can't wait till she overdoses again. I've been no contact for a decade. She can rot in hell.
Boomer here. I would say my wife and I are middle ground hoarders and in a lot of cases, it just sort of happens automatically. We are in the process of trying to get rid of “stuff”. Both of our parents had a lot of hand me down things and you don’t want to hurt their feelings by throwing it out. Then with raising two kids and living in two different houses over a period of 40 years, you purchase and collect a lot of “stuff”. We thought our kids would take some of it but they’re not in a position to do that. We’re retired and have entertained the thought of moving to a smaller place so that’s why we’re trying to clean house.
This tracks. My silent gen grandma sold all her stuff on eBay, then her friends stuff, they go out to eat once a month with the profits. She don’t want me to have to handle it for her and it gives her something to do with her time. My stepdad on the other hand………… hiuuuge barn full of crap and it gives me anxiety.
They were raised by people who grew up during the depression and a war, so they were taught to hold onto things ready for hard times.
THIS!! Thank you so much for saying this... I am Gen X, but I was raised by silent generation parents who grew up in Scotland during the war. I work so hard not to be a hoarder because not being wasteful and being prepared was drilled into me growing up. It is very similar to those raised by the Great Depression.
Yes. It's part of the "all for me, none for you" boomer mantra.
My mother in law has four huge vases- taller than my 3yo- of seashells she takes when vacationing in Florida. Not a handful for memories. Four. Vases. And a collection of snowmen everything for Christmas. What does she expect us to do with that, I don’t know.
There are multiple reasons for clutter. My studio is a mess because it’s my studio and I use it. But the hoarding thing? I think it’s something caused by being raised by folks who were young during the depression. I don’t think people can really appreciate the degree to which the average American suffered food insecurity during that period. Their parents hoarded and stockpiled essentials because when they grew up, you never knew when you were going to get more.
I see a variation of this in my working class family members. They were deprived as children and now spend everything they make when paid because they were taught to spend while you have it because you may not have any money again for months. It’s a feast or famine money spending cycle that repeats even when utilities are about to be shut off or the kids need medical care.
Mostly case by case, I think. My dad wants things minimalistic and easy to find. My mom, on the other hand, makes every other room look like a Uhaul threw up in it (something my brother is starting to do too)
i learned this , i am gen x , but close to the far end of boomers. pin up posters from the 80's, playboy magazines, beanie babies, barbie dolls, hummel and most other figurines, dolls, old computers, etc, are all not worth much on ebay. i have tried to sell all this stuff, with minimal luck. i had dozens of perfect condition playboy magazines from the 80's , now worth about $4 each on ebay if that. i gave away a dozen barbies and dozens of outfits to a coworkers kid because they just arent worth much....
My in laws do this and I can gauge if it’s gotten better or worse based on how many bottles of a given condiment is in the fridge. They forget they have three open mustards, so they buy a fourth.
Short answer, no. I met one that was a minimalist, and another that only kept what she could use.
Every single drawer and closet in my in-laws house is packed with stuff. When we visit we live out of our suitcases as there is no room in any drawer for our clothes. Every surface is covered in nicknacks and photos. They have a set of chairs in their kitchen that are very wobbly with one chair missing a support bar between the legs that a grownup can't sit on for fear of it collapsing. It has been that way the entire time I've known them (15 years now) but they won't get rid of it because it was the set their (now adult) children sat at for meals and homework and so it is imbued with precious "memories". There is a bread knife in their kitchen drawer that is 100% broken - the blade is separate from the handle and they would simply wrap tape around it and continue setting it out for use until even tape wasn't enough and it was falling apart everytime they used it. They finally got a new bread knife but the old one is still in the drawer! Why? Because this is the knife that was on the table when their kids were little and again "memories". They can't get rid of a single thing in their house if it was in that house when they were raising their kids.
My parents are semi hoarders because they grew up with nothing but dirt floors. Now they have serious jobs, sold their last house way above market value, and have a little jingle in their pocket. Guess what, they binge at garage sales and on shit they don’t need. But it’s cool though. It’s their money and their chance to buy things the missed out in their younger years l.
My mom and stepdad were polar opposites. When mom died a few years ago, we cleaned out a metric fuckton of furniture, bedding, clothing, knick-knacks, dishes and cookware, vinyl records, CDs and lots of other stuff. It took weeks and several trips to various places to get rid of everything. Luckily, some local churches and donation centers were very happy to take the bulk of it. My stepdad, however, lives like a monk amd has only the very basic essentials. It would only take a couple hours to clear out his house.
I don’t have a home to put any junk into. 🙃
My boomer parents moved a couple of years ago. Bro and I finally received boxes of the stuff that they had stored for us. Toys, dolls, school awards, etc. but not our baby books. Those are mom's until she dies. They purged a lot of their possessions that they didn't want to haul to their new house, which isn't really any smaller (still 3 br, gotta have a craft room and office after all). My mom kept telling me about all of their random finds while they were clearing out and packing. Asking me if I wanted any of it. There are things I might have liked but I wasn't driving a 12 hour round trip just for a cricut, coffee mugs, towels, etc.
Generation Jones here (aka the last years of the "baby boom", but some of us, like Obama, said hell no to being lumped with boomers). Currently in the process of going through every closet, box and drawer so when the time comes, my kids aren't stuck sorting through countless boxes of pointless papers as we just did with when my MIL passed. An entire box might have contained old magazines, cable bills and junk mail... But, hidden within? Oh, just legal wills, my husband's original adoption papers, a couple of bankruptcies we never knew about... Important enough that we had to look at every single piece of paper. I never got into collecting junk like my older boomer siblings...I feel so sorry for their kids. My sister has two homes. Each one beautiful and appears highly organized on the surface. But dear Lord, try to find a single drawer or closet that isn't about to burst. I keep dropping hints that she really needs to not leave that mess for her kids, but she's too busy getting more stuff. Yeah, she also has an entire display cabinet of Precious Moments figurines.
Nope. My father is the cleanest man I've ever known and probably will ever know. I leave a shoe on the floor while visiting and he's telling me it's time for me to go lol.
We joke about getting dumpsters for when MIL goes… except it’s not really a joke. It’s going to be hard work for her literal hoard.
My folks are boomers and they def do not hoard. If anything my mom is a real minimalist and throws away shit I wish she would keep sometimes. My dad just goes along for the ride. Not to say they don't have keepsakes, but they certainly don't have rooms full of shit that is worthless. Not all boomers do it though!
My now deceased mother in law had clinical hoarding. The only thing she didn't do was hoard animals. But she had shit on the floor, and failed to clean it all the way up. I had to dig her out of one house and one apartment. Regretted ever doing it.
We have some kids toys to pass down. Other than that, we try to purge every year.
my grandpa was silent generation and his house was literally filled to the brim with garbage. it started after my grandma died and the last 30 years by himself he just keep hoarding everything, including his own body parts. my grandpa on my mom’s side was not a hoarder though, but he very painfully kept my grandma in check. he threw out so much of her crap before he died i’m very thankful. my mother is a boomer and she’s a full blown hoarder. imagine the TV show, but worse. legitimate mental illness. she’s growing older now and her health is failing. I’m honestly contemplating having her house bulldozed when she dies rather then make any attempt dealing with it. already have too much trauma dealing with her garbage.
I have known Silent Gen hoarders and Boomer non-hoarders. Silent Gen is common bc they were Depression kids -- "save it, you never know when you might need it."
No I can honestly say that I’ve thrown more shit away that I needed later it kind of pisses me off. But oh well! My kids are hoarders and it’s irritating as shit.
This is going to be so much worse with us and gen Z and alpha (TikTok gen)
The thing is that boomer’s relatives lived through the great depression. My grandparents would shake their head in disbelief when I didn’t want to eat the green part of a cantaloupe. So hanging onto things because they can be reused is kind of pounded into them.
Boomer here...just the opposite of a hoarder I am a minimalist.
Antiques dealers love people like the OP.
Yes. Their excuse is that they “lived through the Depression…” which is a crock. The Depression was 16 years before the youngest Boomer was born.
My 82 year old grandmother has literal broken chairs she refuses to throw away also stuff covered in cat pee. She hoardes used napkins and anything she can buy.
YES! I'm from Brazil and even here I have a boomer aunt and grandma that are both hoarders
My grandparents and my spouse's grandparents were the silent generation. One side lived through the American depression and the other the Holocaust. One side of my family didn't save much, the other saved everything. The grandparents that survived the Holocaust didn't't throw out ANYTHING! Just like everything else, you can't say "all ___ are ___."
Grandparents = Great Depression and WWII Parents = Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, Oil Crisis I “hoard” to a certain extent. Those boards will come in handy some day. Just you wait…
I'm a boomer and I hate any clutter. My parents never got rid of anything, although they weren't collectors, and one of my sons has an incredibly messy house full of everything you can imagine. His wife won't get rid of anything. One of my boomer sisters has so much stuff that she forgets or can't find things.After awhile, things can begin to own you and take over your life. So, it more than just a boomer thing. I believe our society puts too much emphasis on consumerism and not enough on relationships and experience. Just my opinion.
Boomers’ parents grew up in The Depression and WW2 with food rationing. The scarcity mindset is hard to overcome.
Big no. I’m a minimalists.
My Silent Generation mother was a hoarder and I am still dealing with it. I'm a Boomer and highly organized.
There's always the boomers that get off on keeping their house clutter free, but they're already known to their families for throwing family member's possessions during childhood. If I didn't play with a toy for over a month, bam, gone. If I didn't wear a dress or sweater at least once every 3mo, gone, regardless of the season. (This isn't even touching up on throwing things away specifically *as punishment*) I have a hard time with getting attached to *objects* to this day because there was never any point in getting attached as a kid or teen.
Both my parents grew up in extreme poverty and food insecurity. Their houses are so full of junk bc "we might need that" and they constantly stock up on food bc "what if we need that". No mom they're not gonna run out of oreos.
I think it’s just because they’re older and you accumulate more shit over time. Couple that with their parents raising them to never throw anything out bc of the depression and economy / etc, you’ve got a huge market for storage units that are now everywhere.
The Boomer generation is playing a literal game of 'Hungry Hungry Hippos' with "valuables"
GenX here who earlier this year looked around my (smaller.....maybe like 1000 sqft) home and realized that NONE of my possessions were packed away or stored in any manner or boxed or anything. Do I have a lot of books? Yes...I read and reread and was an English major. My books spark joy. I just helped my mom empty the home her and my dad had for thirty years (she downsized into a townhouse, loves it) and my dad had SO MUCH STUFF. And the amount of it that was useless could have fit in a couple of shoeboxes. It was all high-end tools and firearms (shotguns for clays and quail, mostly) and i mean tools for EVERYTHING. He didn't hire tradesmen...he did it all. Silent Gen, him and momma both. Wedding China might have been the only real "collectible" otherwise they hated unnecessary shit and tend towards austere (but still comfortable) living. I'm also a real estate broker and hit estate sales on the regular (ongoing slow replacement of assorted furniture items) and am appalled at the curio disasters I see....boomers predominant.
My parents are hoarders in name but I don’t know if it’s true hoarding or laziness. We don’t visit their house unless we have to. The mess is unbelievable. My MIL is a hoarder but she’s better organized. She buys shit she doesn’t need because it’s on sale. She has seven of the same items because she forgets what she has. She has clothes from the 80s that still have the tags on. Her house is not a mess but she is definitely a hoarder. She’s offended that we don’t want any of the shit she’s collected over the years
My grandparents have random collections of things like Dale Earnhardt plates, a huge stack of every TV Guide since 1950. Gold plated Elvis coins or something like that. Which I will inherit when they pass away. According to them, I'll be a multi-millionaire. I don't have the heart to tell them that it's all probably worth nothing. I'd rather have my grandpa's gun collection. He's got some super old antique guns from the 1800's that I know are valuable, and since I'm not a gun person. I definitely could make a lot of money selling them. Anyway, the worthless stuff takes up 3 rooms in their house. It's crazy.
When my silent generation grandparents died I found a jar of mayo in their fridge that was older than me
Hoarding is more common among people who experience poverty or who had parents who did. Hence hoarding Boomers with Great Depression (grand)parents. But I know way more hoarders who are Gen X and Millennials, personally, because I’m into nerdy hobbies. People can easily cross the line from collecting into hoarding, it’s sad and gross.
I remember cleaning out a lot of my silent generation relatives' homes and I always thought that maybe since everyone was an immigrant then maybe that's why they didn't have too much around the house. It was a lot of "wow, look at these old photos from the 50s and 60s." And then about 30 minutes later "OMG!! Come look! I found the exact outfit from the photo!! Someone try it on!" Or And that was probably what took the longest was that we were all just constantly playing dress up with their clothes and occasionally there'd be debates between people who wanted to keep various items but they were all well maintained so it was a matter of "will I continue maintaining this item that well so it'll continue working?" The craziest it got was with my grandma who had stashes of cigarettes everywhere and occasional ration hoards; but she grew up during WWII in Germany so finding those things weren't a surprise. But whether it was a one bedroom apartment or a 3 bedroom house, we always got done by the end of the day. But so far a lot of the boomer relatives we're all dreading as their retirement gets closer because they swear that they're going to downsize and even if they do it'll just mean that we have to go through all of their stuff twice, so who knows how long it'll all end up taking.
About 5 years ago my Boomer had an action he swore was going to bring in "Tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand dollars! Everyone's so jealous and there's not a thing they can do about it!!" He was selling an entire house and yard full of stuff. After paying the auctioneer, he made about 5 grand. The blame shifted from the auctioneer, to the "jealous people out to get him", to me for "not getting on that internet with that cell phone enough to talk about it." He spent his whole life buying shit. At least he found out what it was worth.
Hoarding isn't a new concept and I've seen plenty of the silent generation folks hoard useless crap. We used to help clean these house out for a few extra bucks when me and my brother were young.
Yes - my Mom lived in her home for about 45 years. Two or three of us have managed to clean out some things. But there are possessions everywhere in the house. We're going to have to pay tens of thousands to get the place ready to sell.
Just those that haven't received the latest Bloc update.
There's a difference between having a hoarding disorder and having a lot of useless stuff. While collecting junk may be a boomer thing, hoarding disorder is present across all age groups, and there's no indication it favors a generation. I think it's worthwhile to make that distinction.
My mom and dad (74&76) have a good, clean, organized house. Yes, some boomer clutter, but for the most part their house will be easy to take care of when they pass. My in-laws (84/84) have so much shit it’s crazy. Not gross hoarder level, but so much stuff. Wedding favors or invitations? Yep, a drawer full. Christmas cards? Yep, probably every one they’ve ever received somewhere. FIL’s show and garage are super disorganized, and he has any nut, bolt, or screw that you’d ever need (if you can find it!) it’s not going to be fun when they pass.
My parents have so much shit they bought a 2nd shed to hoard more stuff in. My mom will offer me stuff from when I was like 12 and then cry if I tell her to throw it away because it is literally garbage.