What Are The Unseen Side Effects of Living With a Hoarder?

11 December 2013

If your parent is a hoarder how will it affect you and your future?

Apart from the stress of living with a lot of clutter, the loss of living space, the embarrassment, the worry and the constant search for buried items, what other factors could affect the rest of the family who live with a hoarder?

When I was young and living with Imelda and my mother in the hoarded house, I was lucky enough to have my own bedroom.  I know lots of teenagers spend a lot of time in their bedroom but in my case my room was my own little haven.  It was clutter free and tidy.

From the age of three I was blighted by allergies, eczema and asthma.  I spent my third birthday in hospital after having had an asthma attack.  My skin was forever itchy and dry and covered in blotches and often bleeding.  My eyes were forever itchy and watering.  I was told this was an 'atopic' condition and I would grow out of it.  At age seven it got worse not better and I was told it goes in seven year cycles.  As it started age three I hoped at age ten it would go.  It didn't. At age thirteen it got a lot worse.  I couldn't do sports in school because I couldn't breathe or run due to the asthma.  The school at the time decided asthmatics should be treated normally.  This was fine I guess, except against all those competitive types in school I quite clearly did not measure up.  Outdoor games was a total nightmare as not only did I have asthma but the eczema too.  I did not want to wear a t-shirt and shorts due to the red raw, scabby and itchy skin. Skin with eczema doesn't regulate temperature so I was always too hot or too cold.  I would always have to carry a sweatshirt with me.  I never understood at the time as it was never explained to me but when your whole body is covered in raw skin the skin is not able to regulate your temperature.  As such you'll become too hot or too cold very fast and when others aren't feeling any different.

So what is my point?  Well, as a kid you just kind of get on with life.  Nobody tells you the side effects or long term effects or possible causes.  If they have time to explain anything they will tell your parent not you.  Usually your parent is in a position to do something about it.  In my case this was not so.  My mother, of course, would have done anything for me but she was limited in that the cause was the extreme levels of dust in the house.  It is impossible to hoover if you can't find the carpet.  It's impossible to dust.

Doctors and allergy specialists all suggested the following:

1)   Keep the dust levels down by hoovering regularly and damp dusting all surfaces daily.
      Marvelous idea and pretty obvious - however you first need to find the hoover.  Once you have found the hoover you then need to find the floor. The dusting?  Imagine a nice clear shelf to dust. One swipe - done.  Imagine the same shelf with lots (and lots) of stuff on it - nightmare to dust. Imagine that on a huge scale - problem!

2)    Hoover the mattress daily.
       Great!  Found the hoover, as soon as you take the sheets/quilt off all the dust in the rest of the room        takes flight.

3)   In the summer keep all doors and windows closed (pollen reasons I guess).
      Get outta here - that is the only chance of fresh air we get in the house.

4)   Have floorboards instead of carpets.  -
      Great idea - once you can get to the carpet to remove it.

5)   No pets.
      We compromised with a poodle.

6)   Keep clutter to a minimum..
    hahahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahahahahaha.

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So what are the long term health effects of having to live with this level of junk?

Allergies - the allergies make the asthma and the eczema worse and can be the cause.

Eczema - The dust makes you itch and sneeze.  The constant itching and resulting scratching makes you bleed. Bleeding and scratching gives you infections and nasty scars. Your skin gets thicker and gradually loses its ability to stretch and to regulate your body temperature.  As a result you get much hotter in the heat and much colder in the cold. It feels as if your skin is a size too small. Also you may become hot when others are cold or cold when others are hot.  If you ever go in the sun you look like a Dalmation in negative as the scars don't tan.  For fifteen years I refused to wear a t-shirt because I was embarrassed about the red itchy and scarred skin.  While looking for a job the number one priority for me was that it didn't have a short sleeved uniform.

 My confidence took a huge hit.  I didn't want to look people in the eye.  I wore fingerless gloves in the summer when shopping as every time a shop assistant put change in my hand I saw the look of horror in their faces.

In the end I wrote an article for the National Eczema Society magazine and GMTV got in touch and asked me to go on Lorraine Kelly's show in the morning.  They paid for me to see a Harley Street doctor Dr Mark Atkinson who believes in alternative medicine.  He saw me once and then gave me a diet to follow - dairy and gluten and wheat free.  After about six weeks I saw Dr Atkinson again and went back on the Lorraine Kelly show in a T-shirt.  It was a very proud moment for both myself and for Dr Atkinson.  The first time in fifteen years I had worn a T-shirt in public.  Amazing!  This diet/treatment did seem to work to some extent I have to admit but the diet was too restrictive and so I stopped following it.  At about the same time I moved into my own flat.  The eczema was never quite as bad from then on although I still had flare ups until I had my first child in 2003.  Whether this cured the eczema because of the hormones or because with a baby I simply did not have time to scratch, I am not sure.  Since then, as far as the skin goes my skin has improved although, interestingly, after I have been to Imelda's house clearing up I need a soak in the bath to stop it flaring up again.  My confidence has improved 100% since the skin cleared up. I am a very different person now.

Asthma - Saved the worst until last.  My doctor explained that the more severe attacks you have the more chance you have of your lungs becoming scarred.  Scarred lungs are not good.  I had so many asthma attacks requiring hospitalisation I lost count.  Young asthmatics are so desperate to fit in that they will try to play down their asthma in an attempt to fit in and be normal.  This doesn't help as if help is not obtained the asthma is not able to be controlled.  I realise there were many, many times I should have seen a doctor and one or two when I should have had an ambulance but instead I kept quiet and struggled through. God how I wish I'd had the confidence back then to have someone call an ambulance.

I've always been sensitive to pets.  Because of the hoard I didn't often invite friends from school around. It was embarrassing and I did not know how to explain it.  I was already teased due to the skin - I did not want to be teased for living in a pigsty as well.  So I went to friend's houses.  The problem was most of them had pets and although I would try to pretend it was OK, it clearly was not OK.  Within minutes of entering their house I would be breathless and struggling to breathe.  When this happens it is difficult to talk.  I would therefore become quiet and I am sure the parents of my friends thought of me as the quiet and shy little asthmatic girl with the itchy skin.  I was so trapped at that time.  There was nowhere I could be the real me. Nowhere to go to be free of the allergies.

I was (and still am) highly allergic to house dust (house dust mite) and all furry animals - cats, dogs, rabbits, mice, horses (severely) and guinea pigs.  I have since found out that my mattress throughout the WHOLE of the time I lived at my parent's house was full of horsehair.

My first episode of respite was when I went to work in a ski resort on about 1988. No asthma or eczema for four whole months.  Now it becomes obvious that this was because I was not in a house which was full of dust and I was not sleeping on a horsehair mattress.  I was up a mountain with fresh air and no animals for four months at a time.  My skin improved and I was able to ski for five hours a day without any asthma at all.

Proof of this was being rushed to hospital for the night on three occasions the same day I came back from a season skiing.  Welcome to earth!  Interesting too that I have found a letter while I was clearing the hoard written by me the week before I came home one year.  I have written in huge capital letters 'Please make sure my room is clear of junk and please hoover it'.

Also a point I want to mention here is one occasion when I had a particularly severe attack.  I'm not sure if it was the same attack which resulted in me being on a ventilator (life support machine) in 1988 or a different one.  There were so many they merge into one.  I do remember I was struggling so hard to breathe and was pretty much terrified I was about to die.  As far as I can remember my asthma had become very bad,very fast and none of my inhalers were working.  I finally forced myself to admit I needed help.  It took a lot at that age to ask for an ambulance as I hated to make a fuss but I realised quite quickly on this occasion that this was a serious asthma attack. My dad had gone downstairs to call the ambulance and my mum was sitting with me.  The ambulance took so long.  I remember the opening music of a program on my TV and asking mum to turn it down so I could hear the ambulance.  I sat stiff with fear and concentrated on just getting enough oxygen into my lungs to stay conscious.  Eventually the program was over and still no ambulance.  Odd that - a 22 year old with a severe asthma attack in the middle of Cardiff - no ambulance for half an hour. Imelda appeared shortly after that, obviously having watched the same program downstairs on the bigger TV.  He asked if I was better yet.  I managed to find the breath to ask him to chase the ambulance and he said       'Well I suppose I had better call them then.'
It hit me he'd not even telephoned for an ambulance at that point.  He'd left me for a while to see how it went after I'd asked him to call the ambulance.  I didn't have the breath or energy to walk to the phone myself and he decided to play God and decide himself when it was appropriate to call.   When I realised that I would have to wait again I almost passed out with fear and made a desperate last ditch to get air by launching myself off the (horsehair) mattress for the open window.  I think this spooked him and only then did he call the ambulance.  The thing is with asthma when you are really really having a bad attack you can't speak - you need all your energy to breathe.
    My one attempt to get air by suicide luckily failed and once the ambulance was called they arrived very quickly and I was whisked out of the hellhole for a few days in hospital.

I did wonder many times if my father really cared about me because surely if he did then he'd do something about the mess which was causing my problems.  At the time I didn't realise the extent of my mother's suffering and how hard she constantly battled to get rid of the junk. I didn't know how many times she'd visited the neighbours for a bit of a break and to put stuff in their bins.  I did not understand how hard she must have battled with him to keep the place decent.  It must have half killed her to see her children's health suffering and not being able to do anything about it.

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These days my skin is clear and I wear whatever I like.  Apart from the scars which truly do no longer bother me, I'd say my skin is now normal.  It did not get better completely until I was 38, after my son was born.  The asthma is still an issue and I can't go into a house with a pet.  I now have the confidence to ask if someone has a dog or cat when they invite me to their house and I tell them won't be coming over for this reason.  They'll always insist young Rover is very clean and doesn't moult or they'll put him in the garden but this never helps as the allergy is too bad.  I spent Christmas Eve night sleeping on a couch in an old peoples' home only three years ago because we'd gone to stay with a relative for Christmas who had two dogs.  The relative had sent the dogs to a friend for the duration, had thorougly hoovered and dusted etc etc.  Within thirty minutes of arrival I was wheezing and after an hour I had to sit in the car.  After an hour in the car I went to the hospital and was given a nebuliser and steroids and told
 'DO NOT GO BACK TO THAT HOUSE.' by the doctors. Someone managed to arrange with the local old folks' home for me to sleep on a couch there in a sleeping bag.  I couldn't drive home and the kids were all getting on with enjoying Christmas.  By the time I got a taxi the next morning to join my family in the conservatory of the house (windows open, no carpets), the kids had already opened all their presents. I felt really bad for ruining their Christmas.

I know I'd have probably had allergies and the rest of it even if I hadn't grown up in a hoarded house but I seem to be the only one of my whole family who had allergies, eczema and asthma to the same extreme extent.  I am sure this was because I lived in that house with all the dust, the dog and the horsehair mattress.

Today I live in a clean house with no pets other than a few fish and Trouser (the snake).  My mattress is allergy free, my hoover is in daily use.  I have no curtains in the bedrooms and I have just a normal amount of clutter.  I don't have the urge to say 'Excuse the mess we're decorating' every time the postman knocks on the door, because there is no mess and we are not decorating.  Friends are welcome at any time.  I wear what I want.  I am happy.  I still have asthma and have to be careful but I'm confident I can stay away from high risk places and I know when to call an ambulance.

I don't go to Imelda's house unless I absolutely have to and when I do I make it as quick as I can.  The minute I walk in the door I have a wild urge to turn and run.  The good thing is now I can turn and run as now I have somewhere to go.

:)