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[Be My Head]

http://www.houston-imports.com/forums/showthread.php?t=486637

I dunno if any of you have seen this yet, but god this is ridiculous.

[Cartilage Head]

 Nasty.

 But in the future, try to start threads that we can actually have a discussion about. Not just "Damn, that place is dirty." Also, the grossest thing about it? Domino's pizza.

[Be My Head]

Well, we can discuss how in the hell someone could manage to allow their living space to get to that point.

[sean]

dogg the link is broken. plus, isn't this pointless thread type stuff?

[Cartilage Head]

 Her place got that messy because she didn't clean it. Case closed.

[Leonidas]

The browny/orangey stain on the toilet seat looks fairly ominous......

[Be My Head]

Yes, I think its a huge factor of living alone. Because if there's no one else around to tell you to clean your shit up, then you won't. I noticed the litter box in the one picture, I can't believe there were cats living there for real.

Also, I apologize if the thread is a little pointless but this is beyond astounding.

[Barmymoo]

I haven't yet seen the apartment in question.

But I must say I do not understand why my mother believes that my room needs to be vacuumed every week.

I don't think we should object too much to a thread with no point. There are plenty of other threads. There is not a quota.

[Dimmukane]

Supposedly there are two cats, who have not been found yet.


Also, there's a chance that the person may have OCD.  I saw a program once where one guy basically kept everything he picked up outside.  There weren't any criteria for the objects other than he didn't throw anything away.

[imapiratearg]

I think there's a psychological condition that sort of like kleptomania, but instead of stealing things it's not throwing them away, that's probably what's going on in this house.  But holy hell that is a messy apartment.  My god.   I wouldn't be surprised if they found Jimmy Hoffa in there or some shit.

[bbqrocks]

there is civilization buried in there somewhere

[Alex C]

Yeah, you're talking about hoarding. Just like with other forms of ocd, the rationale behind it can vary greatly from individual to individual. They've found people who've bought into their problem wholesale and talk about how objects can have souls just like anything else or feel that they really, honest to god might need all that stuff someday. And of course there's also the supremely frustrated individuals who realize what a huge problem they have but simply can't resist indulging in the behavior.

[pwhodges]

It looks faked to me.

[maxusy3k]

That's insane. There must be some kind of disorder at work to let a place get to that stage.

I'm not exactly the cleanest / tidiest of guys but even my filth reaches a point where I just think "Holy shit man you need to clean this up, this is vile."

I'm just trying to figure out what all the stuff was in the bathroom. I probably don't want to figure it out but damn, I'm sure I've never seen anything that looks like it before. It kinda reminds me of the foam insulation stuff you can get.

[tania]

my guess is it's real. it doesn't surprise me that there are people capable of living their lives in that state. there are some pretty strange people out there.
still, those pictures set my ocd off something awful. arrgh

[jhocking]

That poor computer!

[Professor Snuggles]

I guarantee that the person who lives there is really fat.

[KharBevNor]

We need to nick this smiley for our forum:



It expresses what I feel every time I accidentally open the comic discussion forums.

[Liz]

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

[Darkbluerabbit]

Well, someone's not getting their security deposit back.

What shocks me the most is that other than cigarettes, none of the trash is drug or alcohol related.  A mess like that should include some empty plastic vodka jugs or syringes or something.  The absence of pill bottles and burnt spoons leads me to believe that this person must be very mentally ill. 

 Later in the thread, the OP says that the cats are alive and living with someone else, so the grossness level drops just a bit. 

[Hat]

The landlord was left several thousand dollars out of pocket

[Vendetagainst]

I think I'm missing something though, did the OP say that he just walked right into the house because they couldn't get a hold of anybody?

Other than that, just one question:

WHY IN THE HELL *CAN I NOT PAY ATTENTION*

[jhocking]

Who's barefoot? I'm thinking you are simply mistaken about what you are seeing, which is easy enough to do, what with all the clutter.

[Vendetagainst]

Oh shit, you might be right.

[thepugs]

I love the picture with the ironing board.

'Cause you know, you gotta look sharp.

[calenlass]

It's a chick in some white flats or something.

[Vendetagainst]

Anyone notice that stick of deoderant on the ground near that guy's foot? There is some unfortunate irony there.

[Spluff]

How the fuck did those guys get into my house?

[Jace]

I know of someone who lived like that, my stepdad's aunt. After her "partner" died, apparently she just kept everything that wasn't trash. My parents went to clean her house out after she died, there is a picture of a man who stands about 6' tall next to the window, he is right at the window, and the clutter was up to his chest.

It was almost nothing but paper as well. There were newspapers from the mid 80s in her apartment, she just saved all her mail, all her newspapers, everything.

[Elizzybeth]

Man, it can't be that hard to do.  I've only lived in my apartment a month, but if I saved all the junk mail I got, I bet I'd be an inch or two deep in paper already.

[tania]

pretty much everyone who lives on their own knows you have to do a lot of cleaning every day since no one else will remind you or do it for you. i imagine it would be pretty easy to just stop doing it if you get depressed or busy enough. probably moreso once the trash starts building up and it then gets harder and more time-consuming to clean up.

now i am thinking if this person doesn't have a mental illness it is equally likely they have really severe depression. sad stuff.

[tuna ketchup x]

But I must say I do not understand why my mother believes that my room needs to be vacuumed every week.

If you don't vacuum every week (or every two weeks, or whatever you have scheduled), it's easy to forget. Because carpet gunk is not as obvious as, say, open food on the counter or messy clothes on the floor, esp if you have a dark carpet. Then two months later it's like "what's that smell... oh, carpet."

My grandad's place was almost that bad when he died. He had dementia, probably some other mental health problems too, but at the end, dementia. Only instead of old food and cigarettes it was things he picked up at flea markets, and not collectibles worth anything, but boxes of old romance paperbacks and wooden knicknacks and tools. It took several weeks to burn everything needing burning. I feel bad for this person but more relieved that they only had two pets and that the pets are safe. Animal hoarders are the absolute worst.

[Metope]

This reminds me I have to go over to my dads place and pick up that vacuum cleaner he got for me.

[calenlass]

pretty much everyone who lives on their own knows you have to do a lot of cleaning every day since no one else will remind you or do it for you. i imagine it would be pretty easy to just stop doing it if you get depressed or busy enough. probably moreso once the trash starts building up and it then gets harder and more time-consuming to clean up.

now i am thinking if this person doesn't have a mental illness it is equally likely they have really severe depression. sad stuff.

The only room in my house that I clean up every day is the kitchen, because I have taken enough biology classes to know what will grow in there if I don't. Otherwise, I do laundry probably every 3 to 4 weeks, or whenever I run out of underwear, and I have forgotten to take the trash out like 3 weeks in a row, and there are a couple of dirty dishes stacked up on my desk, but maybe sane people just don't consume that much garbage in the first place? because my house does not look like that or anywhere close.

[KharBevNor]

It would be worse if you lived on takeaways. Me and the BF did that for a couple of months and the amount of rubbish was fucking insane. Like, there was literally not enough bin space to cope.

[tania]

my house and room can get messy pretty fast. i only ever cook my own food and therefore have to constantly clean the kitchen, and our old house last year didn't have a dishwasher which meant even just a day or two of not washing dishes would lead to pretty disgusting piles of dirty plates and sometimes mold.
i've read stories of kids who come from abused homes where their parents basically completely neglected them on account they were too busy and usually the living situations look really similar to this one. i'm sure some of it is due to some kind of mental illness, but sometimes when you're in the same place and it's only getting a bit messier or a bit worse every day you just don't see how bad it really is unless you're looking in from an outsider's perspective.

[Scrambled Egg Machine]

I really hate how this happens here in Houston so often. Like once a week, there'll be an article in the Chronicle about one more nutty hoarder. I hope when I move out that won't happen to me.

[jhocking]

But I must say I do not understand why my mother believes that my room needs to be vacuumed every week.

If you don't vacuum every week (or every two weeks, or whatever you have scheduled), it's easy to forget. Because carpet gunk is not as obvious as, say, open food on the counter or messy clothes on the floor, esp if you have a dark carpet. Then two months later it's like "what's that smell... oh, carpet."

I definitely understand this point. It never looks like my carpet is dirty, but whenever I vacuum the bag fills up. Come to think of it, when's the last time I vacuumed?

[Scandanavian War Machine]

did you guys watch the Oprah episode about hoarding? i'm kind of surprised that i've seen it myself since i don't watch much tv but eh, whatever.
anyway, it's a pretty horrifying existence. people have been crushed to death when their mountain of useless shit fell over on them. my mind, she boggles.

compulsions are weird. ooh can we derail this thread to talk about compulsions? i know every single one of you has an odd tick or habit that you have virtually no control over and i'd like to know what they are because that sort of thing is interesting to me.
for example, i have to crack my knuckles every time i wash my hands or else something bad will happen. if my knuckles can't be cracked, then i just crack anything else i can find(neck, back, toes etc.) and wait till they can be cracked.

so what about you guys?

[Vendetagainst]

Oprah

what about you guys?

I have hyperfocus and am possibly in the autistic spectrum (the former is definite, the latter speculation on the part of family members, previous teachers, and myself). Sometimes I find myself making the same repetitive gestures over and over, or realize that I have stopped in my tracks because my mind was wonderering so much, and I occassionally have mood swings where it seems like I am not entirely in control of my actions.

[KvP]

I compulsively run. It's not at a specific time or place, but sometimes, I just have to run, somewhere. I'll skip out of work or get out of bed and just go. It used to be a lot worse. Over time, this feeling builds up inside of me, and when I run it gets spent, like a static discharge. That's about as best as I can describe it.

[Hat]

I cannot climb up or down a flight of stairs without my feet doing it to the rhythm of "one two three FOUR FIVE six seven eight NINE TEN, ELEVEN TWELVE" in this song

[Be My Head]

Since you asked....

Sometimes (that's right not always) I can absolutely not sleep if I don't

A ) Move certain things out of my line of vision
B ) Completely make sure that there is dead silence
C ) Completely remove ALL light sources, I even need to unplug the stereo because of the little red light on the power button, same thing with the little LED on the computer motherboard. I'm not exaggerating.

I also have psychological things where I will constantly go over a conversation (almost always completely mundane) and worry incessantly over whether I embarrassed myself, even when I CLEARLY did not. I will even remember conversations from years ago and be really annoyed/worried over what happened.

I could probably go on but I won't bore you guys with the un-interesting ones.

[KvP]

I also have psychological things where I will constantly go over a conversation (almost always completely mundane) and worry incessantly over whether I embarrassed myself, even when I CLEARLY did not. I will even remember conversations from years ago and be really annoyed/worried over what happened.

I'm pretty sure everybody does this, especially when they're young.

[Spluff]

Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've never done that.

[Be My Head]

*shrug* you may be right about that, since it seems to have gotten better as I've gotten older (I'm 18 in a couple months). But I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when I was little, and I'm quite anti-social (I only have a few close friends).

Do you think many people go over years old encounters and worry over them though? That part I find a bit odd.

[jhocking]

Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've never done that.

Comedies frequently turn on a major character's lack of self-awareness.

[Dimmukane]

The knuckle cracking bit is actually a pretty big one for me, too.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

huh. it was just brought to my attention that, without fail, i always lick my lips after inhaling smoke.

i did not know that i did that. i'm sure it must look stupid.

[imagist42]

Do you think many people go over years old encounters and worry over them though? That part I find a bit odd.

I do. I also imagine the ways future potential arguments and conversations may go (but never actually go), extensively, in my head. I will go over and over them, refining my responses to others' imaginary points, and sometimes find myself so caught up in these could-be discussion threads that I am speaking my "parts" out loud, re-working them again and again until they sound right to me. It is like I am doing dialogue exercises as a writer, but to "real" people, and sometimes talking out loud.