[freedomlover]

I'm going to save a link to this.

Actually I think I'll save 10 just to be on the safe side.

[dljordan]

I've seen an extreme example of this. My cousins husband started working when he was very young and used to sleep in his car at night. When his mother died I was asked to go and help clean out the house and I saw the reason he didn't want to sleep inside. The entire house was filled with JUNK with little pathways going from room to room. There were fleas everywhere and the filth was staggering.

[aShepard]

a bump for later!

[joesnuffy]

This was a needless, sensless and avoidable tragedy..

and why God invented snorkels...

[JRochelle]

My idea of housekeeping is to sweep the room with a glance.

Well not, really but it sounded appropriate.

[small voice in the wilderness]

This could have been me, during the clinton years, so intent I was at wanting them to get theirs. I'm not sure I vaccumed from 1994 until Innauguration Day, 2001.

[Bean Counter]

And you wonder why COPS films up in that area so often...

[billhilly]

Holy Mackerel, I'd better go look for my wife.

[Mr. Brightside]

Good luck finding the life insurance policy.

[VOA]

Here's a link to a good article that ran in Parade Magazine (the Sunday
newspaper supplement):
http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_09-04-2005/featured_1

I know a retired professor that struggles with this problem. It's a
real challenge that requires real treament.
Unless they are somebody like Howard Hughes with a zillion dollars,
and a highly competent support network!

[numberonepal]

She was in desparate need of help from these guys:

[shhrubbery!]

We had a case similar to this near our home.

Former student radical Billy Marcinko was burned to death when neighbors and firemen could not manage to break into his burning house -- due to piles and piles of boxes of videotapes blocking entrances:

Fire victim was 'like a cult figure'
(ex-Rutgers "revolutionary" dies amidst piles of videotapes)

[radiohead]

Learn a lesson ping. : )

[John D]

I am glad it happened in Washington, at first I thought it might be my wife.

[Ignatz]

Read the stories, see the pictures.
Squalor can be overcome.

[bannie]

I used to have a wonderfully delightful, elderly second-cousin (We called her "aunt" because she was quite elderly, and she had so few relatives left.) She had her entire house neatly stacked from floor to ceiling--with paths throughout the house leading from one necessary place to another. When we'd visit, she'd give us treasures from her stacks--antique dolls and other ancient toys in perfect conditions. She'd never had a child, and she had wanted kids so badly.

She was nothing if not neat! She had been a county clerk for years...an amazing woman.

[metmom]

bump

[metmom]

ping

[subterfuge]

A friend of mine's ex has this problem, but she gets all the stuff from the Home Shopping Network. She has a real, and serious problem. She cannot stop herself from buying the stuff. He home is cluttered with UNOPENED boxes of TV's, appliances, jewelry--all because they were "good deals" that were just too hard to pass up.

[Hi Heels]

Ew! When I worked for a nursing outfit, we ran into stuff like this. One lady's foot was so infected it required inhome IV for several weeks. When the nurse arrived at the home, he called me and was SCREAMING into the phone that the stove was on full blast because there was no electrical power, the piles of stuff and paper were stacked over his head, she had no working plumbing and was doing her business outside in the planters and he wasn't gonna run no IV no way in that house. So, calmly, I asked if her spouse or some family member was there who could be taught (that's what we're suppose to say). The nurse said "hell no there isn't anyone here but an old mangy cocker spaniel and her husband's dead. But he's probably propped up around here some place....."

We ended up having to call adult protective services, but it took a good two weeks to get her out of there. You see, they said she was in her right mind. There with her dog, peeing in the bushes, 85 year old woman with the stove on full blast and a third world infection in her foot right smack in the middle of Encino, California..... eesh.