On Getting Wasted

http://harpers.org/blog/2014/10/on-getting-wasted/

by dnetesn • 12 years ago

276 62 12 years ago

bmh100• 12 years ago

A fascinating short story on the author's early year and look into the life a hoarder. The ironic ending is delicious.

Jetrel• 12 years ago

I had to clean up a hoarder house on multiple occasions (somewhat like the author I got a brief, one-time job cleaning a few out); I've got a pretty high tolerance for the filth in one, so the black mold and decaying clothes didn't bother me much.

What bothered me on a much more existential level was the insanity. The madness in the minds of the hoarder (whom I had to interact with) that could not be reasoned with. Madness is terrifying because you're just helpless to do anything for them once it sets in. It's like dealing with a mule who refuses to get out of a danger it can't comprehend - because you're robbed of the essential human ability of explanation. You no longer have that human connection to them; you just have to helplessly hope they'll find their own way out.

justanotherta3• 12 years ago

That's when in the interest of communication and the task at hand you become mad yourself. Indulge in insanity then you will have a common ground from which to reason or appeal to their emotions. If you stand resolute as an ambassador of polite diligent civility you become just another enemy of their way of life.

RevRal• 12 years ago

A little vague. Do you have any sources to further explain this communication technique?

It is my experience that "madness" adds a layer of abstraction that is almost unique to the single person, and when that person expresses anything through that lens it is nearly completely incompatible with my brain. How would convoluting my reasoning through an additional abstraction help my communication with a "mad" person?

Klinky• 12 years ago

This seems quite naive. Unless you're willing to give up your life as you know it, proceed with caution when trying to intervene in other people's lives when a serious mental illness is at play. Your life coming to a halt for a futile effort which only takes a toll on yourself is not worth it.

rhizome• 12 years ago

You seem to be invoking an instance of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which has been soundly disproven. There is something to be said for the approach of a therapeutic presence with people with mental issues, but a becoming-insane is not a necessary result of it.

consumer• 12 years ago

I'm reminded of the study where four guys who all thought they were Jesus were brought together. Each thought the others were imposters, IIRC. Don't think it'd work.

kingkawn2• 12 years ago

I'd argue that what the person desperately needs is not to be told they are wrong, but rather to have someone patient listen to them figure that out for themselves.

megablast• 12 years ago

There is no guarantee that that will work. When you have work to do, you just have to get it done.

wglb• 12 years ago

From direct personal painful experience, there is no useful conversation to be had on the topic.

sethammons• 12 years ago

Have you ever dealt with a person who fits this description? I have. For years. In the case I am familiar with, there was no connecting of logic on their own or with help.

datamatt• 12 years ago

Beautifully written article. Is everything in Harper's generally this good? Considering subscribing if so.

dnetesn• 12 years ago

Yes...Harper's is a fantastic magazines. I've been a subscriber for years.

hotgoldminer• 12 years ago

Check out their Findings section. You will like.

ap22213• 12 years ago

I've been a loyal subscriber for years, also. But, I'd say that for every one or two great issues, there's one that I just can't get through. It must be whomever is editing that month.

ultrasandwich• 12 years ago

Going on 8 years of subscription now. Totally worth it.

petercoolz• 12 years ago

Can someone please explain how this works? Is the younger Mrs. B is paying them to remove everything? Why? Do they just throw it all away?

javert• 12 years ago

If you have a house absolutely full of junk, it has to get cleaned out sometime. Either before the hoarder dies, if someone is trying to help them get their life straight, or after the hoarder dies, because the heir of the property will want to get some value and you can't sell a house that is full of stuff.

Based on the article, no, they don't throw away what they can sell or salvage. He talks about this. Whatever isn't valuable, I'm sure they throw away.

blatherard• 12 years ago

There's plenty of details left out but it sounded like Mrs. B was paying the bills, but wasn't happy about it. There was a hint that Mrs. B was "sick" so perhaps she was under doctor's orders to remove the mold/animal feces/garbage/vermin/etc that may be present in her home. Alternatively, sometimes people are ordered by home inspectors to clear out their homes enough to bring them up to code or face condemnation.

The actual process is, by and large, taking everything to the dump. There do exist some hoarders who keep clean homes and for whom an estate sale could make sense, but many/most have homes that are pretty much garbage pits.

Source: a close relative of mine was a hoarder, and I've watched way too many hoarding shows.

mmcwilliams• 12 years ago

The risk of sickness, in these cases, can be a serious concern. My next door neighbor was a hoarder, or so the neighborhood found out upon his death. He was allowing wild animals to live in his house; along with a dog that was located in the mess almost a week after he died.

His nephew, who ended up taking care of the cleaning and refinishing, told me he contracted Toxoplasmosis from the accumulated animal feces. I accidentally let that fact slip to the first cleaning crew that was working in the house (without masks) and I didn't see them return after that.

ChuckMcM3• 12 years ago

I expect every situation is slightly different. A couple of blocks from here a woman died and her son paid to have the house cleaned out. (it was eventually condemned) My wife helped her uncle move into an apartment and helped clean out his house so that he could rent it out (additional income to cover his costs).

There was an interesting truth in there. The longer you wait to get rid of something, the more it will cost you. I'm sure it would make for an excellent priceonomics story to look at things which cost $X, depreciate down to 0, and then start costing money to dispose. Some don't quite hit zero, but a lot of the stuff in her uncle's house had gone past it into the region of pay someone to haul it away territory.

HeyLaughingBoy• 12 years ago

things which cost $X, depreciate down to 0, and then start costing money to dispose

I'm a part of the hobby machinist community and this comes up quite a lot because many retirees have (literally) tons of heavy machinery in basements and garages. When your 5,000lb manual lathe that cost $50,000 brand new is now only worth its weight in scrap iron (about $500?) but it will cost $2,000 to call a rigger to take it away, that's a problem for whomever you leave behind when you die.

It's bad enough when it's just one or two items, but I've seen hoarder symptoms in many hobby machinists/machine collectors and I feel quite sorry for the wives and children of some of these guys that will be left to deal with the aftermath.

rickdale• 12 years ago

I am better now that I prefer faster hard drives, but in the past I suffered from hoarding computer files. I still have TV quality files in addition to my blu ray dvd's and my hdtv downloads. It's like any file that I could find I would think to myself, if I on a remote island I would watch/use that!

Honestly coming to grips with it is terrifying and I wish I had every file I have ever come across to this day, but I don't and there are too many more to get to be worried about the ones I had.

foobarian• 12 years ago

The nice thing about files is that they don't take up (much) physical space. I still have all my files going back to 1993 when I built my first PC. The process is easy: wait for disk sizes to double, copy old disk image to new disk, repeat.

lotsofcows• 12 years ago

Your hoarding problem is more socially acceptable than the one in the article.

surge• 12 years ago

I don't mean to make fun, but this is for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ_3g2hUCn4

pavel_lishin4• 12 years ago

I threw away a box of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs full of various episodes of TV shows and movies I'd downloaded in college.

I know I have the potential to become a hoarder. I'm very glad that modern society shows us that people can become ill in that way, because now I'm very vigilant to make sure I don't become that person.

justanotherta3• 12 years ago

Here's a nice documentary delving more into the psyche of a hoarder:

http://vimeo.com/603058

enahs-sf• 12 years ago

Probably going to get downvoted for this, but I was pleasantly surprised by the deceiving title. I thought this article was going to be about the endemic alcoholism in the startup community and it's positive/negative effects on software development.

The article was well-crafted and I particularly enjoyed the WWII soldier's advice:

Don't swing first unless he has twenty pounds on you.

ferrari8608• 12 years ago

After reading that, I cracked up reading the second to last paragraph. It's sad, but I found the way it was stated amusing.

"I’ve had my life threatened by a man with senile dementia. He sat in his armchair, cane at his side, bronchial tube jutting from his neck, and said he’d taken down bigger fellas before. I had at least twenty pounds on him."

j_lev2• 12 years ago

Former deceased estates "furniture removalist" here.

The horders I dealt with during my tour of duty had already passed to the next world, but you still had to protect yourself mentally each morning lest you go crazy/question existence/get depressed/etc (happened to a couple of people I worked with, although I don't rule out the possibility that crazy is attracted to this kind of work). For each item in every bedside table, every piece of furniture, every picture, every computer, you had to put aside the memories the deceased person may have had, the reason the deceased held onto the item until the end, the data contained within and make a split-second decision: box or barrel.

Barrels were massive rusted oil drums that we used for collecting garbage. Boxes were used to transport the salable "smalls" for auction. If you were caught considering the saleability of an item for too long you'd soon hear your boss's voice from across the room, "barrel it!"

One time I came across a pair of filing cabinets filled to the brim with research and lecture notes on Egypt and the hieroglyphics. I had already pieced together parts of this person's life to form an image of them - old-money spinster who traveled the world lecturing and having adventures, including sneaking in to China from Hong Kong in 1976 - and their life work was contained in these filing cabinets.

"We can probably get fifty bucks a piece for the filing cabinets; barrel the rest"

For a team of three, two hours per room was budgeted, so everything that was dear to a person over the course of their 70-year life would usually be processed within two days.

Regarding hoarders, the main differences between a dead hoarder and a living one are 1) the fact that you don't have to deal with the emotion as per the OP, and 2) there is no superficial "cleanup" the day before the cleaners arrive. The house is exactly as the hoarder left it as no-one thinks the day before they die, "If I were to die tomorrow I'd be aghast if they found this!"

I know this sounds ridiculous but I would expect a living hoarder would at least manage to dispose of the bucket of feces and used tampons next to the couch if they knew some cleaners were coming. Even hoarders have pride, y'know.

The house with the bucket of tampons was the stuff of legend. Even today, 15 years later, if I were to contact my former boss for a beer it wouldn't be long before the story of that place came up. Along with the tampon-and-poo bucket, the final defacation of the former resident in the sweat-crusted outline on the green velvet couch where the they had spent their final moments is still a vivid memory. The stench, using shovels to scrape up the person's life from where it was stuck to the carpet and fill barrel after barrel, my boss's sense of humour ("whaddaya suppose she used this for?!"), how quiet everyone was on the ride back to the office, showering for an hour afterwards.

Understandably, after working this job for a while I went through an extremely minimalist phase. Even now I pause before most non-consumable purchases. I keep nothing that I wouldn't want someone finding when I die.

I think while many hoarders fear the memories of the past being forgotten, HNers tend to fear being forgotten themselves.

Of course as per the OP, there were good parts to this job too! The pay, for starters, was decent. And discovering some bondage equipment or some naked polaroids of the former resident and their girlfriend was always good for a chuckle and a reminder to stop taking yourself so seriously and enjoy life a bit more.

tim333• 12 years ago

Kind of a shame with the filing cabinets getting binned. Maybe digitising things is the way forward.

j2kun• 12 years ago

It seems like there should be a service for the interesting documents to go to historians or something. Then they can take their time going through it to see what has historical value and what does not, and make a non-split-second decision.

pavel_lishin4• 12 years ago

I recall a minor plot point of Rainbows End where an entire library was being scanned in by being put through a shredder, and the resulting stream-of-confetti being photographed at a very high frame rate and resolution, to be later stitched back together into a set of coherent documents.

If that technology existed and was good enough, it would be an interim solution. Grab the data, pulp the paper.

j_lev2• 12 years ago

I think the payoff would be too low. It might be more feasible however if it was already in digital format, and there was a searchable place to which a person's entire hard disk could be uploaded with a short description of who/what/when. Add crowdsourcing.

Another option would be to auction entire hard disks on Ebay with a description as per the above, not sure if this already exists. Then it's a kind of lottery, with massive potential payload for people willing to go through the data.

bshimmin• 12 years ago

I loved this line: "Junk hauling is the best job for writers. Writers are not necessarily the best junk haulers."

atmosx2• 12 years ago

My English are poor, however I feel that the author can play with words well enough to be a writer. He surely knows how to write an article. He would be a good writer IMHO.

Tomte• 12 years ago

He is a writer. He writes articles. That's an honourable profession.

poslathian• 12 years ago

Being published in Harpers is a kind of a big deal in the writing community ;)

atmosx2• 12 years ago

Oops, sorry had no idea!

csorrell• 12 years ago

For three years I worked for a second hand store, using the companies box truck to both deliver purchases, and pick up donated materials from peoples homes.

This article reminds me of some of the hoarder houses I came across during that time. Sometimes it was my job to help clean up junk, but usually when I came across a hoarder it was because they found something in our store that they just couldn't live without and wanted it delivered for them. It was always a bit unsettling to come to a hoarders house with more junk for them to pile up and realize that I was contributing to an already out of control mess.

I've seen houses that were so packed with crap that the owner literally had to carve out walkways so that they could move from room to room. The rest of the space was stacked with boxes, books, furniture, etc. and was inaccessible.

I met a few fanatic collectors as well that I would consider hoarders. One guy had so many toy trains and so little livable space, that he was moving boxes off his bed every night so that he could get to sleep, and then stacking them up again in the morning so that he could get around. He was very proud of his train collection.

The strangest to me was an older woman who had worked out a deal with my manager to get all the boxes of Christmas knicknacks we had leftover from the holiday season. There was a good 20-30 boxes. She lived alone in a big old Victorian fully decorated with Christmas things. Her living space wasn't really out of control, just over the top tacky. She then showed me the barn where she wanted me to unload the truck, which was packed with more Christmas memorabilia than I've ever seen in one place. I asked her why she thought she needed any more stuff and she said that she just really loved Christmas. She too was very excited about her collection and felt proud to have gathered so much. It was kind of sad...

Now, the coolest collection I got to see was from an aging computer repair guy. This guy wasn't really a hoarder though, just an enthusiast. He had a room in his house where he was storing old machines and called me in to help him get rid of them. There were a good 2-3 hundred computers in his collection. He had been collecting them since the 70's and for years wanted to open up a computer museum. Old Commador PETs, Radio shack TSR-80s, all kinds of neat stuff and most of it was still working. When he contacted me, his health was failing and he just wanted to clear it out. I tried to save as much of the older machines as I could for resale, but most of it ended up being recycled.

aestra• 12 years ago

Do you guys think hoarding has something to do with the consumerist culture we live in today?

What's with the downvote? It was merely a question to spark discussion about the topic at hand. I am really interested in people's opinion on this. Is that really offensive or counterproductive or not on topic to ask a question and solicit opinions? If you think the answer to the question is "no" then just say so. If you find this comment unproductive, please explain why.

pavel_lishin4• 12 years ago

Asking for explanations of downvotes is pointless.

Furthermore, if you suspect that a downvote is a silent "no", accept it as a no.

gwern• 12 years ago

Do you guys think hoarding has something to do with the consumerist culture we live in today?

I think this is hard to answer because of the staggering increase in per-capita income over the past 4 centuries or so: at most points in history, only the most wealthy people would even hope to physically accumulate anything close to what a hoarder might.

There weren't hoarders back then because no-one could afford to be a hoarder. Newspapers? Dear by the sheet of paper. Knick-knacks? You don't have any money left over after food and rent. Clothes? You could only afford 1 or 2 outfits, and if you somehow had more, you'd be forced to sell all your excess to the local mercer or ragpicker the next time you got into financial trouble. You can see this in the occasional inventory or will: even nobles had shockingly small numbers of goods. (I think sometimes of Shakespeare willing his second-best bed to his wife; who would even mention any bed, much less the second-best one, in their will these days?)

cafard• 12 years ago

One quick point for the young among the readership: an American can accumulate a hell of a lot without being a hoarder. I married into an extremely tidy family--no dust on the tabletops, let alone piles of stuff on the floor. But when I helped clean out a couple of houses, it was still a big task.

kazagistar• 12 years ago

In order to avoid buildup, it really does take a minimalist outlook, only purchasing things that you truly need, and constantly getting rid of things that are not useful anymore.

On Getting Wasted

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