HOARDING!! I have now seen it full scale and full on!

[Kathie in Thorp]

My sis and her husband in E. Oregon just bought a second ranch. Divorced lady owner had 45 days after closing to get out: by June 30. She had been there on her own for 7 years. I had the tour of the new place on my way back from visiting Dad in Idaho this weekend. Lordy, lordy, lordy! The house, shop, living quarters adjacent to shop -- wall to wall to wall to wall with craaap, mouse turds, cat poop, women's Justin boots, size 7 (too small for me) X a dozen without a scuff mark on the soles; there has to be 2,000 yards of fabric there and 1,500 spools of thread, not a clue how many bags of trim but cases of zippers for her sewing/crafting; sacks and sacks of fake flowers; probably 50 apple boxes of crafting books and instructions and as many boxes of tax returns, cattle pedigrees, breeding records (there have not been cattle on the place for years), bank statements, dog breeding records that go back to 1980s, and old cattle breed publications and semen catalogs. Enough cleaning supplies to last the average household 20 years, but none obviously used for many; same with shampoos and soaps and aged vitamins -- even found a bottle of nitro out there. 26 huge bags of trash just out of the kitchen, and boxes of oatmeal, grains, noodles, spices in boxes in the shop. Packages of a dozen in socks, underwear and t-shirts. What a mess. Glad I was only there for a visit. Many, many, many more boxes of used clothes, towels, curtains, projects, dishes, and it goes on and on and on. The whole interior of the 1980s house and second living quarters will have to be stripped and replaced. And I hope nobody working on it comes down w/ hantivirus, including me. :yuck: :yuck:

 

[skyhightree1]

Insane I would be tempted to play with a match in there and have it burn down .. but I would probably be scared the fool had a trunk full of money they forgot about in there and would go throught it all.

 

[Kathie in Thorp]

Insane I would be tempted to play with a match in there and have it burn down .. but I would probably be scared the fool had a trunk full of money they forgot about in there and would go throught it all.

Funny you should mention that . . . . There were rumors that there were books of silver dollar coins in the house. No books of silver dollars were found, and a safe was taken out by the woman. HOWEVER, in my first sniffing (??) around there yesterday, I did find a tin box with rolls of JFK 50-cent pieces (about $200 face value) and several rolls of silver dimes, with some loose very old quarters and some foreign money. AND stamps -- back to JFK commemorative 5-cent stamps (several sheets) and sheets of other old stamps, as well as older uncancelled postage pre-paid envelopes And in the top of a closet: Ducks Unlimited Ltd'd edition decoys. I have no idea what else they might unearth on that property. BUT, the woman moved the agreed-upon cattle equipment off the property! And is begging to have her Mom's desk returned to her. It's a total turd throw, but they are thankful she actually left without having to go through a 90-day process to evict her.

 

[skyhightree1]

LOL Do they plan on going through everything? I personally like going through old barns and sheds finding things I never have seen before.

 

[Jogeephus]

I was involved in a situation like that and what I found to be the easiest thing to do was to take a track hoe and dig a pit in the back yard and fill it with the junk. Then late one night the pile of crap caught on fire by spontaneous combustion and by morning it was all out and the hole was filled back in. The good thing about doing this too is with the chance of silver the fire got so hot in the pit that by morning there was melted aluminum in the bottom that you could see. I doubt silver would melt though so you might get lucky.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

What breed of cattle were they raising??

 

[Kathie in Thorp]

I'll try to reply to all of you that have asked. Previous owner had Angus, Red Bull Breeder. They started in Nevada; not sure how much they did in OR. Jo, this woman has already cost them so much money, they want to sell anything she left that had any value at all. Glad I'm not there to be a part of that! They need the housing -- This is 10 miles from the main ranch, cows are calving, water needs to be changed, etc. Not in their agenda to burn it all down. I think they want to go 5-8 years down the road and flip this 250+ acres w/improvements. They've already moved 28 preg cows there; fixed fences; doing UG irrigation. They had access to the land at closing. Cows are calving. Sky, EVERYTHING! As it comes up vs. condition, burn it, sell it, or donate it.

SkyHighTree as heard this story, but I'll repeat it. I have a brother 59 years old that is the only bro that has sought but not had an ag adventure. He's now hired on at Baker City for the new place. He's like the Energizer Bunny! He's up at 5:00 AM, goes out to the new property, checks the cows/calves (wades through a creek to do that), does some spraying, irrigates, then goes to the wreck of a house, sorts/packs/cuts brush/burns all day, takes a wall apart, checks cows/calves again about 5:00 PM, moves water again, shows up at the main ranch at 7:00 looking like he's been in a pig pen all day, has a shower, mixes a drink, has dinner at 8:00, in bed by 9:30 PM, he's happier than a pig in mud. Dirt and cattle all are good for your soul.

 

[greybeard]

I would never advise anyone to dig a pit and just push it off into the pit and burn it. Been thru this x2 now, and tho it was a major major headache, it worked out to + the side both times. Once in the thousands of $ once in the tens of thousands of $.

 

[Kathie in Thorp]

I would never advise anyone to dig a pit and just push it off into the pit and burn it. Been thru this x2 now, and tho it was a major major headache, it worked out to + the side both times. Once in the thousands of $ once in the tens of thousands of $.

Greybeard, they're hoping for that here. Having seen a lot of the small stuff.. . it's a long shot to make any money on the left-overs. Some of it's really clean and well pkg'd; and then there's the craaaap. BUT we also found lots of fencing stuff, tons of tools. But all of this stuff, no matter what it is, is scattered in boxes and loose throughout all the buildings. Fabrics, clothes, thread, dishes, tools, electronics, spices, wall paper, old groceries, cans of stuff, sticky pads, address books, historical paper records, craft supplies, new and old plumbing and light fixtures, rodent turds, -- all of it -- some in every building.

 

[hillsdown]

My sis and her husband in E. Oregon just bought a second ranch. Divorced lady owner had 45 days after closing to get out: by June 30. She had been there on her own for 7 years. I had the tour of the new place on my way back from visiting Dad in Idaho this weekend. Lordy, lordy, lordy! The house, shop, living quarters adjacent to shop -- wall to wall to wall to wall with craaap, mouse turds, cat poop, women's Justin boots, size 7 (too small for me) X a dozen without a scuff mark on the soles; there has to be 2,000 yards of fabric there and 1,500 spools of thread, not a clue how many bags of trim but cases of zippers for her sewing/crafting; sacks and sacks of fake flowers; probably 50 apple boxes of crafting books and instructions and as many boxes of tax returns, cattle pedigrees, breeding records (there have not been cattle on the place for years), bank statements, dog breeding records that go back to 1980s, and old cattle breed publications and semen catalogs. Enough cleaning supplies to last the average household 20 years, but none obviously used for many; same with shampoos and soaps and aged vitamins -- even found a bottle of nitro out there. 26 huge bags of trash just out of the kitchen, and boxes of oatmeal, grains, noodles, spices in boxes in the shop. Packages of a dozen in socks, underwear and t-shirts. What a mess. Glad I was only there for a visit. Many, many, many more boxes of used clothes, towels, curtains, projects, dishes, and it goes on and on and on. The whole interior of the 1980s house and second living quarters will have to be stripped and replaced. And I hope nobody working on it comes down w/ hantivirus, including me. :yuck: :yuck:

They bought it knowing what was there ... Sucks to be them but you get what you pay for . ;-)

 

[lavacarancher]

Kathie, I have experienced this kind of sickness first hand. My wife's mother was a hoarder. She had a path through her house from her chair to the bathroom and other places she absolutely needed to go but everything else was stacked from floor to as high as she could reach with junk. Other folks have eluded to money being hoarded. We found several thousand $ placed inside magazines. Have no idea how much money we threw away not realizing we needed to look inside all the magazines. Something you might mention to your kin folks.

 

[Jogeephus]

Wasn't talking about pushing it all in the hole and burning it just the stuff you have to toss. At .50 cents a bag tipping fee it doesn't seem economical to do it that way.

 

[Bigfoot]

I've been in one hoarders house. If your is as bad as this one, I feel sorry for you.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I knew I had one of those - somewhere. While I was cleaning up found out I had 9 LOL

 

[cow pollinater]

Kathie, you gotta keep those old genetics catalogs. That's not hoarding, it's collecting. :D

I watched a hoarding case go literally from start to finish. One of my boyhood friends that lived about a mile a way lived in a fairly clean but messy house. His dad lost his job and when money got tight they started seeing value in things that didn't have any and kept up their spending on all the extras at the same time. Fast fore-ward twenty years and a parting of ways over some drug use and a victim mentality and my friend and his family lost three homes on five acres that they had inherited free and clear and loaned against despite having any source of income to pay the mortgage. After the aunt that lived in one house died, the home they were in was so bad that they just picked up and moved into the next one and started over. A few years later when the grandmother died, they did it again. When the bank took possession you could not step into the first two homes and you had to crawl over stuff to get into the third... I was told that they left with one pickup load of essentials and left the rest there.
It took a crew of Mexicans in hazmat gear two weeks to get those homes cleared out and now it looks like the first two homes are going to get dozed.

 

[chippie]

How sad. How old was the woman? It must have been very difficult for her to leave her things.
Hoarding is a sad mental illness.
I bet that a quilt guild, or the extension office may be interested in the fabric & sewing stuff if is salvageable. Many of the churches here have quilting groups. The ladies make quilts for charities.

 

[Kathie in Thorp]

How sad. How old was the woman? It must have been very difficult for her to leave her things.
Hoarding is a sad mental illness.
I bet that a quilt guild, or the extension office may be interested in the fabric & sewing stuff if is salvageable. Many of the churches here have quilting groups. The ladies make quilts for charities.

Chippie, the gal is about 65. Sis says she is very neat in appearance, does her make-up and her hair, but otherwise looney in day-to-day stuff. It is sad; I agree. Returning some things to her would not be an issue had she not stripped out the cattle equipment that was supposed to remain on the property. Whatever is worth saving that can't be sold once cleaned up -- no worries -- my sister would donate to charity vs. burning/dumping.

 

[greybeard]

They will find, that a lot of the stuff, tho seemingly good, once inspected is not fit for donation to charity. Full of silverfish, roaches, rat droppings etc. Depending on the volume of it, they would probably be $$ ahead in getting a large dumpster on site to throw that kind of stuff in once it has been looked at closely. You keep the dumpster for 30 days or until it is full and then the dumpster company will come empty it and bring it back to them--cost about $300 here (each). I filled over twenty 8'x 8' x20' rollon/roll off containers with stuff that was just trash that wouldn't burn or couldn't be sold to a scrap yard. Glass and plastic mostly as well as vermin covered furniture. No one wants 10 yr old TVs, hair dryers, small kitchen appliances etc either--chunk 'em in the dumpster. About the only things the dumpster people wouldn't allow was tires and paint and petroleum products.

Please--be careful with anything with someone's SS# on it.

 

[Kathie in Thorp]

They will find, that a lot of the stuff, tho seemingly good, once inspected is not fit for donation to charity. Full of silverfish, roaches, rat droppings etc. Depending on the volume of it, they would probably be $$ ahead in getting a large dumpster on site to throw that kind of stuff in once it has been looked at closely. You keep the dumpster for 30 days or until it is full and then the dumpster company will come empty it and bring it back to them--cost about $300 here (each). I filled over twenty 8'x 8' x20' rollon/roll off containers with stuff that was just trash that wouldn't burn or couldn't be sold to a scrap yard. Glass and plastic mostly as well as vermin covered furniture. No one wants 10 yr old TVs, hair dryers, small kitchen appliances etc either--chunk 'em in the dumpster. About the only things the dumpster people wouldn't allow was tires and paint and petroleum products.

Please--be careful with anything with someone's SS# on it.

Dumpster already in place. Agree -- junk is junk is junk. Glad it's not my deal!

 

[TexasBred]

Back during the war there was a lot of "hoarding". A little black girl saved her money til she had $5.00 and took it to the bank to open herself a saving account. Banker asked her "Did you hoard that money"??? She said no sir, I only hoard $3.00 of it. I chopped cotton for the rest of it. :lol2: :lol2: