Hoarder logic makes me SCREAM!

Imelda used to be a television engineer and he worked for the BBC right up until retirement.  he worked as a technical engineer - from what I can recall his job involved making sure there was not too much colour saturation of any one colour when they were broadcast and making sure that any live news injects form our area which were to be shown on the national news were ready to go and broadcast at the precise second they were required.

He has (I have found) EIGHT televisions in his front room.  One of these works and this is a modern LCD flat-screen television.  The remaining seven are the cathode-ray type television - the old square box shaped ones with knobs on the front.

Why?

Why are they there? Why are they still there when they are broken? Why does he need seven  broken TV sets? Why does he feel the need to keep them when you can't get parts for them anymore? Even if he was able to fix them he would not be able to do anything with them - they had one in our local pawn shop for months for £5 but nobody wanted it - not even for a spare for the kids room. Most people think they take up too much space.  They are not wall mountable.  They are not digital so even if they weren't broken I don't think it would be possible to get a picture on them.

When my old huge monster box tv blew a gasket I was relieved to be honest - it gave me an excuse to get a new one - a nice, flat, space saving, wall mountable digital ready TV.  Happy days.

Here's the thing. Imelda acquired a brand new, state of the art CONFERENCE television. It was a flat-screen over 60" with speakers, inbuilt computers, the lot.  It was Gorgeous.  It took two men to lift the TV and two men to lift the stand. It was extremely heavy. My partner and I looked at it and WOW.  It looked gorgeous and it was the total business.  It was designed to sit in a large conference room in a posh hotel.  Imelda paid only about £800 for it which was about a third of the RRP. It was brand new, but I believe because the company had gone into liquidation and he had known the director he was offered it.  Personally I thought it would have looked ridiculous in all but a huge grand house due to its size.  Imelda neither has a huge nor a grand house.  Actually the house is a decent size but the room inside is very scarce.

Imelda had to have it then or not at all.  The problem was there was - get this - NO ROOM for it in his house. Surprise surprise.  Not enough room even to put it in a spare room - all totally hoarded.  We graciously offered to have it in our house while he made room (yes I know hahaha).  Imelda was having none of this - it would only be for 'a few days' while he got the room sorted.

Really?

He managed to persuade his next door neighbour - who is no pushover - to put it in his garage.  The neighbour, who knows the situation, agreed but warned Imelda his garage was not air tight, it got damp in winter and he would not be liable for any damage or theft.  The neighbour used his garage as a games room.

THREE YEARS later, when the TV company got involved and cleared out the front room, I reminded Imelda that the TV was still next door.  He asked the removal people to bring it over for him.  We tried to switch it on. No sign of life whatsoever. 'It is probably damp' he said.  So it was leant against a cabinet - face in to avoid damage.  Then all the stuff was put back in front of it and it has not been seen since.

Until last week.  Imelda went on hoiday and so I went in with my partner and a friend who fixes pcs and monitors.  After an hour or so we dug the TV out. No life, the friend took a look, changed the fuse and fiddled about. Still no life at all.  The friend said it was a top of the range TV system with integrated computer system for conferences. I think the friend was more shocked at the state of the house. 'What a waste' he said.  It seems the TV was damaged by being kept in the cold damp garage for three years. Prognosis not good.

It was obvious to all but Imelda that this was likely to happen, yet he himself was convinced it would only be in the neighbour's garage for a few days.  My family would have loved to have it and keep it warm and dry but no, he preferred to keep it in the box in a cold damp garage. Now it is broken forever and it takes up a LOT of space. I can guess it will be there in his house forever.

:(