at wits end with my Da's frightening house

[MrsGamp]

feel mean doing this but I am so angry and sick of it!
had to come to Da's because I am broke til tomorrow and need to see a GP about my knee, which I can't hardly walk on after spending 2.5 hours standing up teaching this arvo...
check the pix out ... I don't even know where to start.

I DONT WANNA get Health Dept because they might condemn the place (which would mean he'd have to oust me from his flat that I live in for minimal rent ... no way could I afford private rent) OR they would recommend he go in a home which he'd hate and which would bankrupt him after a year or two. so don't no-one dox me please!)

I must stop spending so much
money on crap like illegal Dex and try to get the council to send round some huge skip bins so I can get rid
of rubbish (he won't pay for it himself, and doesn't want me to pay for it, either! it's like he is pathologically attached to the squalor... but it is SO much work ... no-one would help me, except maybe my brother a bit, but even my brother, whom I love to bits and who is so supportive overall ... well even he seems insanely indifferent to filth and garbage....it used to be LOVELY when my Mum was alive. Of course she was the sole picker-upper and washer-upper and gardener and toilet cleaner.

Actually was gunna attach pix but I don't dare. Just trust me it
is BAD. Worse than anything I have ever seen on reality TV about dirty houses/hoarding.

 

[Soso78]

Prob too late to help. Should have sorted it before it got this bad. I’m assuming it’s took years to get that bad.
was u not around for a long time or something?

 

[Hylight]

Abuse. Try to go through the procedures and follow all of the policies. And try to get along, move along.
I am sorry to hear that happened to you. They seem especialy mentally abusive as a presence.
It did seem to take a turn for the worst. So sorry and all.

 

[deficiT]

My mom hoards hella fabric
not looking forward to this in the future
old people accumulate dat garbage over years

gonna be me one day

 

[mokele]

feel mean doing this but I am so angry and sick of it!
had to come to Da's because I am broke til tomorrow and need to see a GP about my knee, which I can't hardly walk on after spending 2.5 hours standing up teaching this arvo...
check the pix out ... I don't even know where to start.

I DONT WANNA get Health Dept because they might condemn the place (which would mean he'd have to oust me from his flat that I live in for minimal rent ... no way could I afford private rent) OR they would recommend he go in a home which he'd hate and which would bankrupt him after a year or two. so don't no-one dox me please!)

I must stop spending so much
money on crap like illegal Dex and try to get the council to send round some huge skip bins so I can get rid
of rubbish (he won't pay for it himself, and doesn't want me to pay for it, either! it's like he is pathologically attached to the squalor... but it is SO much work ... no-one would help me, except maybe my brother a bit, but even my brother, whom I love to bits and who is so supportive overall ... well even he seems insanely indifferent to filth and garbage....it used to be LOVELY when my Mum was alive. Of course she was the sole picker-upper and washer-upper and gardener and toilet cleaner.

Actually was gunna attach pix but I don't dare. Just trust me it
is BAD. Worse than anything I have ever seen on reality TV about dirty houses/hoarding.

Just gotta give you a . And wish you much luck!

 

[Larimar]

You and your brother just need to help clean it up , even if you do a little everyday . Deal with the real trash first and put some out every week when the trash men come , food , bodily waste etc start with that then deal with the clutter .

 

[Fiori di Bella]

MrsGamp! You’ve mentioned wanting to try to tidy up things for your Da before and being met with resistance, even from your brother iirc?

And in CA, if you are dealing with human waste, it cannot go in the regular garbage and must be put in a biohazardous materials waste container. Though diapers can go in the regular trash, which is strange. Perhaps it has to do with human waste that sits around rotting or in mass quantities (?) Handling this is also probably not something you want to handle on your own. If there’s any way you could explain to your Da and say that you’re concerned social services may get involved as the smell is getting bad and neighbors must notice, or something along those lines, maybe he would allow a hoarding clean up crew to clean up the bathroom and kitchen, at the very least. I don’t know what rooms are worst in his case. But maybe if you told him that he faces being put in a home if his house isn’t tidied up he might be scared into allowing in some help?

My Aunt Marilyn was pretty together when she was married to my uncle. They had a lovely home on a corner lot in one of the nicest older neighborhoods. Their home was a hacienda - home that’s built around an enclosed interior courtyard with an impressive ornamental fountain.

But when Aunt Marilyn was 65 my uncle died and she fell apart. They’d always worked hard to make their garden into one that people admired. We stopped by several months later, because she wanted help getting rid of some things, and the state of her gardens was the first clue that something wasn’t right. Flowers and trees were now dead and/or overgrown. Inside were trails spanning the house, and 100s of boxes, bags and piles of stuff lined the paths. The patio’s fountain was dried out and a broken washing machine, old paint cans and bags of trash littered the once ornately tiled floor. Most shocking was that her toilet in the master bathroom had broken and she been using her bathtub as a toilet for 6+ months. My mom saw the tub and left saying “We can’t help her, she’s too far gone.” My dad wanted to help but it was more than he could handle. Back then, hoarding wasn’t talked about.

In the case of my aunt, the neighbors did complain, about 3 years later, when giant weeds were growing from the center courtyard and now were visible to street traffic. The house was nearly hidden by the overgrown trees and weeds. The Department of Health scheduled an inspection and she freaked out and called my dad. My dad and I went over and were in disbelief by the degree of deterioration and hindrance to normal life that had taken hold. There was now not a bare spot on the floor. Larger animals (opossums, raccoons) had taken over areas of the house. Animals could climb the outside trees, walk across the roof and gain access to the house through the courtyard, with the tree-like weeds, whose doors no longer closed. They had been chewing on things, leaving their waste, some critters were making sleeping quarters and safe places to have babies.

Needless to say, the house was deemed not habitable. She was given 6 weeks to bring it up to code or she would be fined and her home could be condemned. She swore to us and them she would call the people they gave her contact numbers for. There were even volunteers who would help at the time. But she did nothing. She did a beaurocratic dance with the city. She paid her fine every 6 weeks. They left her alone for another 6 weeks. As long as they still saw the weeds coming over her roof, they knew it wasn’t up to code so they didn’t bother inspecting and just billed her. Her house never got condemned.

She had rented her little guesthouse, which was still very nice, to Angie, a gal in her 40s who’d been there about 8 years. When my aunt got frail, my dad paid her to check on my aunt and verify that she was still alive. There had recently been a story in the news here about a man who had no friends nor close relatives and someone finally got wind of the fact that he hadn’t been seen in quite awhile. When they opened the door of his home, it was a hoarder home, and he was mummified in the bathroom, and had been dead 18+ months. My dad didn’t want to see that happen. The day that Angie didn’t hear a peep when she called out to my aunt was the morning after she died.

The house naturally had to be bulldozed and I think it was a pretty much even between what it cost to pay for all the clean up of the entire lot her house stood on and her assets.

Editing for this: Way too long! Sorry about that!
TL;DR: My aunt became a hoarder and she died w/o ever cleaning up. Her house became the blight of the neighborhood.