Garbage House Research and Hoarders

Doing research for my book mostly consisted of watching a marathon of A&E's Hoarders. This proved inspiring not only for my writing, by my own house looked quite a bit better for it. I'm fascinated with other people's fascination with stuff. There's something mesmerizing about watching the effects of people having completely losing control. I know, I know, it's a mental illness and you're supposed to be sympathetic, but it's so much more than that! This is what American consumer culture can be boiled down to: people crushed under the weight of their own excess. It doesn't have to be material possessions, that just makes for a perfect visualization, something tangible you can see and touch. It leaves to-scale physical evidence of it's severity.

I've been inside one of these houses once. I think pretty much everyone has a story like this. A friend of mine lived in his parents' home which was very much like the houses on the show. I only went inside a couple times to try and use the bathroom. I was already, lets say disoriented from festivities carried on outside, so walking inside was quite an experience. I knew from stories something of what to expect, the little pathways through piles like vole tunnels, and the smell completely surrounded the house and was heavily present even on a windy day if you were close enough. But I don't think anything can quite prepare a person. Hoarders use the word 'cluttered' fairly often to describe their homes, which is such an understatement it's like saying the ocean is big and wet. There was stuff all the way to the ceiling all woven together, and I remember the strength of the smell and swear it was a haze you could actually see like smoke. My friend's younger brother led me to the bathroom though a twisting, turning path, and I tell you I never would have been able to find my way back out on my own. After using their facility (with it's own tiny path from door to toilet), I had to call for the boy to guide me out. The second time I tried to use their bathroom there was a cat locked in there with his overflowing litter box. I wasn't supposed to let him out for some reason or another. I tried to go, but he just kept meowing at me and rubbing against my leg. Flies from his litter box kept landing on me. I gave up and retreated, resolved to wobble home to use my own bathroom. That sort of thing sticks with you.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with things. When I was young I wanted everything. Now that I'm older, things are mostly a necessary evil, especially when you can't find any that are made in the USA to at least justify their acquisition as a patriotic service. I try not to buy stuff I don't need, and fortunately I have good impulse control. I'm okay going to curio shops and antique stores to visit things and look at them in their natural environment without feeling like I have to take them home with me. I often feel a little cheated when I buy something because I know it will eventually break or become outmoded and I will have to replace it, and perhaps that is the source of my reluctance rather than willpower. This sets me far apart from a long line of thing-addicts that comprise my ancestral lineage. My mom thinks everything is an antique that can only possibly increase in value, and my dad will stop on the side of the road to haul some piece of junk out of the ditch and up into their truck bed. They and all my siblings will spend hours inside Wal-Mart and come out with things that were on sale, but weren't necessary. Their homes aren't like the Garbage House in my book, or the homes on the reality shows, but they are cluttered. They entertain themselves and each other by talking about all the things they would get if they ever won the lottery.

Even the things they consider investments, the lottery tickets they scratch and odds 'n' ends they think will be valuable one day, are physical objects. They even exclusively used cash for everything until very recently. In fact, they seem to harbor a suspicion for things that they can't see and touch. When I started trading stocks as a side thing, they regarded what I was doing as highly risky, telling me I should invest in real estate instead... again, purchasing something physical. I could always go and look at a house I'd bought and make sure it was still there, while electronically purchasing shares of a company seemed akin to buying cubits of air. How could I sleep at night knowing it could just go out of business and I'd have neither compensation nor anything to show for having owned it?

Growing up in a lower economic class, my parents shouldered a great guilt, not for what they couldn't teach us, but what they couldn't give us. They started using the term 'provide' rather bitterly especially around the holidays when we would be oogling the Toys 'R' Us catalog, leaving clippings around the house with items circled. They didn't see these objects as frivolous extravagances, but rather things they owed to us and were failures for their inability to deliver. There these things were everywhere for us to see in pictures and on TV, and yet they were out of our reach because the universe was unfair.

And it was this guilt that kept us poor and our phone service intermittent and the gas tank constantly at a quarter full. They bought us as much of what we asked for whenever they could. And when they couldn't buy us what we wanted, they'd spend as much buying us things to make up for it. They tricked themselves a nickel and a dime at a time into thinking they weren't spending any money.

I could tell them I never really cared about all that stuff to infinity and back, using all the oxygen of the cosmos, but they would never believe me. I guess I cared at the time, and maybe that was why it still matters, for they still talk about it. Now it's my siblings shouldered with this guilt, and I just hope they don't pass it on to the next generation. There are far better things to worry about, and far better virtues to pass on than bitterness at someone having something that you don't.

Meet Orrin Styro

I'm an avid reader and endure winter seven months/year in MN. I recently published my first novel, The Garbage House, available on Amazon Kindle now.

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Garbage House Research and Hoarders - Guest Post from Orrin Styro