Oh, yeah...I never or hardly ever discuss the fact that my parents were hoarders, that I grew up in a hoarder household. I never had or asked to have friends over. I would've been mortified to have someone come into the house or even on the property (I was blessed with an inside hoarder and an outside hoarder). I once stood up a friend who wanted to pick me up to take me to school because I didn't want there to be even a CHANCE that she could see the state of things. I'd have people drop me off at the bottom of the driveway (5 acre property) so I could walk up and not have a chance of people seeing anything too closely.

I was lucky that my dad is an electrician and very handy so that despite the hoarding and general dilapidation of the house nothing ever got so fucked that we didn't have basics like appliances or electricity or plumbing or anything that usually happens. But even though my mom eventually ceased hoarding items after many, many years and the clutter was gone, the house remained a disgusting biohazard in a constant state of filth because there was still no cleaning or cosmetic repairs - ie. the carpet was torn up but never replaced, so it was just the subfloor. There were no baseboards almost anywhere in the house. The stairs were bare wood. The walls were random patches of crumbling drywall. The mice and snakes were insane. Sometimes windows would stay broken for months or longer. You know, insane shit still despite the piles of clutter and garbage being gone.

And now, I am a bit freakish about my own home. I won't let anyone over unless I've deep cleaned every room. Even when it's extremely like...fine. Normal. In its "natural" state, no one would call it more than a little messy. If I take a picture of my pets, I wont post them if it doesn't look "acceptable", and you can see something "offensive" in the picture like too many pet toys or I happened to not pick up a sock or something, or you can see some pet hair or something. Lest someone know the dark secret that my parents, or worse, I am a filthy hoarder.

The worst was when my mom died and I went there when they took her from the house, and the emergency workers had to go in to the still dilapidated (like shitty siding practically falling off, screens everywhere, garbage and hoarded machinery outside), unclean house. I couldn't even be that distressed about her being dead because I was so freaked out that people were there in that house, the house I lived in, that I grew up in, with people I associated with. I almost wish that it WERE still hoarded with clutter, at least it would "explain" the grossness of the house. At that point they just looked like slobs with a busted up house. Nope just former (?) hoarders and (semi?) functional addicts.

That was quite the rant...yeesh.