Father's shopping addiction/compulsive hoarding!

LegacyUser

Hey all, regular poster here going anonymous for the usual reasons.

This is a bit of a strange one, not massively critical but something that needs to be dealt with.

My father's always had to have the latest telly/surround sound system, but it's gotten worse in recent years. After my mother died 5 years ago, he had nobody to rein in his spending habits, and he also had a lot more disposable income as myself and my sister moved out of home, and he no longer had a mortgage to pay.

Since then, he's constantly buying stuff. All those Thursday morning specials in LIDL/ALDI - he'll come home with one. Random pointless gadgets like airbed inflators and car battery chargers (that sometimes don't even make it out of their boxes), as well as clothes, furnishings for the house, towels...basically anything he sees as a "bargain". He also buys new computers and MP3 players regularly, despite not needing them.

This is part of a larger pattern of behaviour whereby he is completely unable to clean up after himself or be organised. Our house is like something out of a documentary - rooms filled with stuff he bought which have just been thrown in there. It's impossible to find anything at home anymore, as all the presses are filled (randomly!) with junk. He gets really frustrated and will then throw out perfectly usable things, then the cycle repeats. I should really post pictures so you have an idea - there are several rooms that it's just not possible to get into as they're full of clothes/stuff (random kitchen utensils he bought, more LIDL specials, "old" computers which he doesn't even dispose of/sell, just throws them in on top of other stuff).

He's had a girlfriend for 4 years now, and she lives across the country, so he spends a lot of time with her. In the meantime, my cousin is living in our house, and he does his best to keep the place usable, and cleans away junk from the kitchen/living room, but the rest of the rooms are filling up.


I know it's my dad's money to spend, but I worry that this is a sign of something unhealthy. It's like a compulsion, and his inability to tidy or clean up after himself (he's always had someone else to do it - his mammy, then my mother, then myself and my sister, and now my cousin) is getting more and more frustrating. He's 55, by the way, so by no means decrepit.

Also, my cousin is moving out in a few months, and the big question arises of wtf is gonna happen when he's gone. Currently he looks after the general running of the house - if anything breaks down, he fixes it, as my dad will just run off to his girlfriend's place if anything's wrong. He also throws out stuff like old newspapers. I genuinely fear that, without any sort of intervention, my father would end up like those people on tv - surrounded by stacks of newspapers and junk and barely able to function.

I don't have the greatest relationship with him and I have no idea how to approach this. Suggestions? Are there support groups? Is there a term for this sort of behaviour? I know it's a bit random, sorry!

Silverfish

Hi, yes, there is a term for this - just hoarding.
I'm not sure if there's a support group as such for it, there is a support site however, http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php

and http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/

The problem is not as simple as just throwing all the stuff out - frequently this can send the person over the edge completely. What needs to be tackled is the root of the problem - why are they doing it? The person themselves needs to recognise their own behaviour and must WANT to change.

It frequently occurs after a bereavement - from watching various documentaries and reading up on this, it's a transferral of loss, the person is having issues letting go.

If you don't have the best relationship with your dad, then perhaps you need to talk to your cousin, perhaps he could talk to your dad?