In April, on the trip
during which my father died, Alison and I went to the currently unoccupied
house to grab some valuables to store in our own homes. We would not inform my
mother of this until it was done. That’s another story. The point of this post is that I refused to pee in
the house. I was able to find suitable cover outdoors and was much more
comfortable with that.
Wow. This is so messed-up, Indigo. I truly believe there is some kind of mental illness, or executive-functioning impairment, or other neurodiversity at play that would cause people to hoard to this degree.
ReplyDeletePun not intended.
DeleteAbsolutely there is.
DeleteMy mind is filling in details that may or may not be worse than the reality. My great-grandfather lived in the upstairs of our house when I was a child, and though my mother went in to clean as often as she could, his bathroom was unspeakably awful. When he died, and she could have free access, my parents gutted it down to the studs and pulled up the floorboards.
ReplyDeleteI'm finding it hard to breathe as I'm reading these posts. I'm so glad you have Alison and Tim (and that neighbourly support network).
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time breathing any time I think of the house. Just had to write a house-related email, and I'm already shallow breathing!
DeleteI can relate only in a small way, in that for the last couple of years, I have refused to use my in-laws loo. Until mother-in-law (MIL) got very ill last year, and now the first thing I always do when I visit is walk in (remembering to keep my shoes on because once I forgot!), and clean the toilet (it's a separate room) thoroughly. Though my last visit to the house, when I was cleaning, I did ended up gagging. Hence my whining post today about my husband's brothers. (I am lucky to have one friend I can really whine to about this, and because my blog could be found, I'm keeping my whines on it ... well ... muted.)
ReplyDeletePS. Glad you can vent here.
That *is* awful, IB. My aunt's house was like that and my other aunt who moved in after the first aunt died is keeping up the clutter, disgusting bathroom. I can handle it better than Dean can -- he refused to use her bathroom.
ReplyDelete(Aside: this house is right behind/next to the Brethren Publishing Co in Elgin)
My selfish response is that this post is somewhat reassuring to me. While I'm not a hoarder (do hoarders ever think they're hoarders?) I am a lousy housekeeper. I don't like it, but it's not likely to change. This very old house, with nearly no closets or built-ins, hasn't helped. But my bathrooms are okay. Pretty good, actually.
ReplyDeleteI can remember only one bathroom I avoided using. The house belonged to close friends of mine. They were hippies, and the bathroom had no door.