Why Hoarding is Actually a Good Thing!

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Well, hey there. Thanks for clicking on this video. Uh, do you have some friends, maybe some relatives, colleagues that you know that uh like to collect a lot of things? Well, I have friends that are like that. Uh, and in this video, I'm going to talk about why hoarding is a good thing. I know it's a it's kind of a deceptive title. I'll give away part of the plotline. I don't personally think it's actually a good thing. Uh, I just thought it would be a funny title because um, you know, I think people in the social media age, they have this tendency to want to be self-affirmed. You know, nobody wants their bubble to be bursted, so to speak.

[00:00:40]So, true to my word, I am going to uh, sarcastically tell what the good things are about uh, hoarding in this video.

[00:00:48]So, before we get into that, um, I mean, I think the first thing we have to do is define what hoarding is. as a collection of objects. It's usually stored in one's personal uh living space or if you know somebody um you know that has like a bunch of sheds that's filled with stuff that can be part of hoarding too. But usually in my experience with dealing with this, it kind of invades their personal living space. So hoarding is basically like you know somebody that looks like looks at a space and says I'm not okay with a bunch of emptiness. I need to I need to fill all that. I need to collect a bunch of stuff. I need to have it somewhere. Or they see like a desk or something and they're not okay with it just being kind of simple and empty.

[00:01:33]It's generally filling every little section of every little thing with something. Okay. So, uh I have a little bit of information here that I'll read about. Hoarding disorder, okay, is is official term for it. It's a complex mental health condition. We're not going to try to stigmatize it in this video because, you know, mental health conditions are very real. I mean, there's a reason why people go to therapists and seek treatment and everything. So, I'm not trying to uh ridicule people that that have this disorder, but I also want to be very explicit in the sense that it is an actual disorder. So, it's not enough to just say, "Well, I like collecting trinkets and I like to collect all the one thing and then I like to collect the other thing." And at a certain point, that's a disorder. You know, it's especially a disorder. Let's say if um you know like let's say if you collect a bunch of tools, you know, you're a guy that has the not that not women can't collect tools either, but let's say you're a guy that has a garage and you have a bunch of tools and you have like multiple sets of Craftsman tools. You know, you have the the socket wrench and all that stuff, but you have like three versions of every single tool. that would be considered hoarding because even if you were just to have duplicate tools, let's say you were a professional mechanic, then you might want to have like a backup. Like I do video editing for a living. I have a backup computer.

[00:03:05]I don't have, you know, a backup to a backup to a backup. I just have a backup computer. So, I'm just trying to differentiate like what is hoarding and what isn't because there's a weird sort of middle gray line there that if if you're a like I said, if you walk into a mechanic's uh garage or something, they're going to have more tools than the average person. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily hoarding, especially if it's very organized. Where it gets into hoarding is when you have duplication of items that you don't really need and then that encroaches upon your physical uh space whether it's living or work space. So to go back to the the co-pilot search here, hoarding disorder is a complex mental health condition characterized by persistent difficulty discarding possessions driven by perceived need or emotional attachment. So it is psychological. You know, it's not just a, oh, I need all this stuff because what if this goes bad? Well, that could happen, but really, it's not normally going to go bad. You know, you don't need 10 different shirts or whatever that have all the same thing on them. You can probably get by with just a couple. You know, there's a thing called a washer and dryer. You can wash your clothes.

[00:04:21]Uh, I mention that because like even in this example that I'm seeing on Copilot, they have clothes that are listed in the in the picture and that's what I've witnessed in people that I know that have this condition. I know another person that has a condition of collecting, you know, other stuff like tools that I mentioned, but I've also seen it with clothes.

[00:04:42][snorts] Uh, anyways, to go back to the thing, I interrupted myself. Persistent difficulty discarding possessions driven by perceived need or emotional attachment often linked to anxiety, OCD, and cognitive processing deficits.

[00:04:57]Hoarding disorder is involves excessive accumulation of items and an inability to discard them. Uh even when they have little or no practical value.

[00:05:09]I'm sure if you've clicked on this video, you either know somebody that has this condition or hopefully based on the title of this video, why hoarding is a great thing. Uh you might be seeking self-affirmation, you know, and if that's the case, I would encourage you to be a little bit more self-reflective and realize that no, objectively it's just not a great thing. Okay, we have a self-affirming uh thing here in social media where people want to know that the thing that they have or or they just bought or whatever is a good thing. Like if you bought the latest iPhone, you might watch a review out of curiosity on whether the iPhone is any good or not. You probably don't want to hear that you just bought something terrible. [snorts] with hoarding or any sort of, you know, psychological condition, you probably don't want to hear that you have an issue. You know, that's part of the self-denial.

[00:06:07]So, one of the first great things about having hoarding uh syndrome is that you're going to accumulate a lot of things that will uh take up all of your personal space. you know, just a a reach around the corner. You might be able to grab, you know, five shirts that you've never worn before and probably won't ever wear, you know, but they're right there. You can reach for them. So, that's the first uh strong pro of hoarding is that uh you'll have less personal space for yourself and most of your personal space will be taken up by, you know, physical objects that you collect.

[00:06:44]>> [snorts] >> Uh, another thing that I've seen happen with people is that they collect so many things that you might get to have vermin in your household. Uh, there might be so many things stacked upon each other where you create what I call walking lanes. And I've seen this uh in in my own life with somebody that I knew. Uh, still kind of know them. It's unfortunate, but I mean, you go into their household, there's walking lanes, you know? It's not it's not like you can just kind of kick back and put your feet up or or have any place to kind of hang out. It's like, oh, I used to be able to stand here and the last time I came over that space was empty, but now there's another physical thing that you collected, you know, that's there now. Oh, I guess I can't stand there anymore. I've even gotten kind of yelled at or reprimanded for accidentally tripping over their stuff, you know, like as if it's I'm in the wrong for not observing where the new lane is to walk. [laughter] So, you might end up having vermin, you know, uh maybe it's just a bunch of insects that you can't figure out where they're coming from. Uh or maybe it gets worse. Maybe you have mice, maybe even rats, you know, maybe there's old food that you're not aware of that you've collected.

[00:08:11]All of these things I've seen uh in in my personal travels with this phenomenon. So, I am making this video to try to, you know, bring some light to the people that are going through this and say, "Hey, you know, wake up. You have a psychological condition that needs treatment. It makes your friends and relatives and those who wish to visit you extremely uncomfortable.

[00:08:38]Um, so the next thing you have to look forward to why hoarding is so great is uh you'll probably lose contact with some of your friends and family members because eventually they're not going to want to put up with it anymore. They're going to get tired of, you know, potentially tripping uh maybe over some of your stuff. You know, we might even call it trash.

[00:09:00][laughter] Uh, and then they're not going to want to come over. You know, if there's nowhere to stand, if you become more and more claustrophobic in the in more and more of your hoarding, it's going to get to the point where people say, "Geez, you know, this this this is a nice room. You know, it's too bad that it's filled with junk.

[00:09:21]You know, I would love to come over and hang out, but there's there's no place even to hang out. It's taken up by all of your stuff."

[00:09:29]And so the next thing you have to look forward to with hoarding is uh you know if you don't carry uh good liability insurance in your house, you might get sued because if somebody like falls and injures themselves and it can probably easily be proven via negligence. If you have tons of trinkets and everything else that people can trip over, well then you're probably going to, you know, risk that in terms of liability. Do the people that watch this really care about that? Do they think about it? Probably not. So [laughter] again, forgive me. You can you can dislike the video all you want. If you're a hoarder and you clicked on this, you you probably don't like my monologue. And if you're somebody that's dealing with hoarding uh and and somebody else is the one that's doing it in your life, well, you'll probably find this video kind of funny and humorous.

[00:10:21]Um you know, it's again, it's not really my intention to throw people under the bus.

[00:10:28]Um, I've had anxiety in my own life. I still kind of deal with it a little bit.

[00:10:32]I've worked through it. I've thought sought therapy rather. Uh, and it's helpful, you know, for for somebody that's going through something, whether it's anxiety, which this according to, uh, Microsoft search says hoarding can be caused is it can be related to anxiety. In other words, people that have trouble making decisions in their life, well, that that can kind of manifest itself in collection of things.

[00:11:02]So, if you have a difficulty uh in deciding things, you might have difficulty in deciding to throw away things. And so, that manifests itself in, well, now I need all these trinkets.

[00:11:14]I can't just have, you know, a few little plants here and there. I have to I have to have my entire place filled up with plants. Um, another thing that can happen that's closely related to hoarding is the collection of many many many many pets.

[00:11:33]Uh, again this has happened in my own life where um somebody that I know has an everinccreasing amount of uh, you know, diasporas. Let's say like, in other words, here's a tank with a thing in it. Here's another tank. Here's another tank on top of the two tanks.

[00:11:52]And pretty soon there's nowhere to eat. You know, the [clears throat] kitchen table has four tanks on it with one tank on top of that one and then the two kitchen seats have tanks on them. It's like, well, we can't let these creatures just go. I mean, we have to collect them. Well, I got news for you guys. Uh, nature is vast. All right. The earth is a very large place and uh if your intention is to collect all the animals throughout the world, one of each.

[00:12:24]Noah did that and he made an ark.

[00:12:26][laughter] You are not Noah. You don't have to collect every species known to man. Uh last time I checked there there is not an impending flood coming unless you guys are clued into something that the rest of us aren't. But I I don't think you have to plan for a flood. But, you know, hoarding. I mean, that's another example. Okay. I remember visiting someone who I was about to purchase a car from, and I remember walking into their place, and I mean, we looked around the corner. I was with a friend.

[00:12:59]We were checking out this truck.

[00:13:02]This dude's entire wall was tanks filled with different reptiles, mostly snakes. And I mean from like the floor to the ceiling, like three out of the four walls, because the fourth was like not there. That's how I was looking around the corner. It was basically like an opening to his living room. It was completely lined with reptiles. [laughter] I ended up not buying the truck from him because uh well, basically because it was impractical. It was kind of a show truck. He had put a lot of money into it. It was an awesome looking truck. Um, but it just showed me like he made a joke saying, "Hey, you know, when I get into something, I really take it to the extreme." So, it was like in reference to the truck that he had, which had all kinds of cool artwork on it. It had an upgraded engine. The back was decked out with a sleeping area. It was a really awesome truck.

[00:14:01]And it just it was just ironic that we when we went into his house there was just I mean literally from the floor to the ceiling just tanks of reptiles. So it was crazy.

[00:14:15]I mean there was a little bit of a smell um which kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about the vermin thing. I doubt in his household he needed to worry about mice because snakes kind of like mice. But anyways uh I'll keep going with the Microsoft diagnosis here.

[00:14:29]psychological and cognitive factors.

[00:14:32]Hoarding is associated with anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive tendencies. Uh OCD, though it is increasingly recognized as a distinct disorder within the OCD spectrum. So you're talking about fixation on things.

[00:14:49]In this case, uh physical possessions.

[00:14:52]All right, we can get into a little bit of biblical ideology here where you're not really supposed to obsess over material possessions. And so these things are related to it. So, hey, you know what's great about hoarding?

[00:15:07]Uh, you probably either will have anxiety from it, depression, or OCD, or you already have those things that are untreated, and that's kind of your makeshift solution.

[00:15:19]Uh, [snorts] cognitive deficits are common, including difficulties with planning, decision-making, attention, memory, and organization.

[00:15:27]Organization is a real big one. Um, and it's kind of a misleading part of this because [gasps] the times where I've seen where people are hoarding, sometimes they can be very organized.

[00:15:41]You know, in other words, if you look at their desk and every little inch is taken up by something, it goes back to the OCD thing. Almost like somebody that can't stop washing their hands, for instance. If they find comfort in organizing all those little trinkets, you know, it's kind of simultaneously disorganized looking at first, but then you realize how long do you spend doing that, you know, like what are you doing?

[00:16:08][laughter] It's like it's neurotic basically. So I I think I can kind of understand why it's saying that OCD is related to that because you have to be compulsive in wanting to arrange all those things. I'm sure some of you out there have seen this um with a loved one, you know, a friend or a relative. Uh leave a comment leting letting me know and others know, you know, what that experience is like. Uh but I'll keep going here uh as I take a sip of coffee.

[00:16:42]H Maxwellhouse.

[00:16:44]Anyways, uh symptoms typically emerge in adolescence or early adulthood and they worsen over time. That's really important to realize as well because again in my own personal life, those of of my friends that I know that have this issue, I saw it. Okay. From how they were raised, the their parents were the same way. You know, you'd walk through their house and there'd be like stuff just everywhere. There was walking lanes. Uh unfortunately, my own comments didn't really seem to make any difference.

[00:17:23]Anyways, uh worsen over time with clutter becoming more severe by middle age. risk factors include genetic uh genetic predisposition, co-occurring psychiatric conditions, and environmental influences.

[00:17:39]So, what I just talked about kind of rings true. You know, it's unfortunate.

[00:17:44]It's like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. If you grew up thinking that's normal, then chances are you still think it's normal. My parakeet is chiming in the other room. She says hoarding is bad. [laughter] Uh many individuals with hoarding disorder lack insight into how bad it actually is. In other words, the severity of their condition. They don't seem to get it. You know, it's like you can you can try to tell them that it's bad and that it's bothersome to you, but they don't really seem to understand that it's uh it's to me it's no different than if you go into an elevator and 20 people get in. You know, it's like, do you want to ride in an elevator with 20 people or like just yourself and just a few other people? Like obviously, I think most people are going to say the latter because it's a lot more comfortable. You can have some breathing space. So, claustrophobia, I think, is a real part of it that even people that would be considered non-claustrophobic are going to become bothered by hoarding over time because it's just it's it's like encroaching your physical space.

[00:18:54]So, hey, again, another reason why hoarding is great is that uh you can look forward to more free time because less and less people are going to want to come over and visit you. They're not going to feel comfortable staying there for long periods of time because it's so uncomfortable.

[00:19:11][laughter] And and under development and risk factors, uh animal hoarding, which I talked about earlier, is a specialized form involving the accumulation of large numbers of animals, often with neglect.

[00:19:24]Fortunately, in my personal witness of this, uh I have not seen the neglect part, but I have seen the just ever ever ever growing number of creatures.

[00:19:38]And like I said, I mean, if you're I if you're allowing that to build up, especially like in the area that you would eat food in, that's a problem, you know? I mean, that could even lead to sanitary issues, okay? like infections and all that kind of thing. Uh impact on daily life. Hoarding can impair social, occupational, and personal functioning.

[00:20:01]So, look, that's why hoarding is great as well. I mean, who wouldn't want to impair their social functioning, right?

[00:20:08]Like, why would you want to have the space to have a bunch of people over when you could just fill up that space with a bunch of junk, right? [laughter] Uh occupational functioning. Okay, this is what I talk about with the walking lanes, occupational safety hazards. OSHA would have a field date with somebody that hoards in their household because you're creating situations where if you're not watching where you're going, you know, you might trip and fall. Maybe you're on the phone or something and you take a step backwards not realizing that there's junk right behind you. That's an occupational hazard, occupational functioning. uh creating unsafe living conditions, hygiene issues, and strained relationships.

[00:20:54]Clutter may block access to essential areas, increase fire hazards, and contribute to physical and emotional stress. I've seen all of this uh going back to the example I just gave there with the animals in the eating area.

[00:21:09]I've seen that clutter take up items on the kitchen table to the point where if somebody accidentally left the oven on, you would have a fire immediately because there's so much stuff around everything. So, there's an occupational hazard there. This goes back to why I was saying that people that are are hoarders, you better darn well be carrying the maximum amount of life insurance and liability insurance and all that stuff because it's not much different than if you're smoking, you know, a pack or two a day. You're really incurring a type of risk on your life that you may be in denial of, you know.

[00:21:46]So, I hope I hope as you're watching this video, you don't take too much offense to it. I hope I can reach, you know, even if I just reach one individual from this to get saying, well, maybe he's got a point, you know, maybe I should look into this.

[00:22:00]That brings us to treatment approaches.

[00:22:02]Treatments that uh are proven to be, you know, at least somewhat helpful. The most effective treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT.

[00:22:13]You're talking about going and and and revealing to someone, a trained therapist, and the first thing that has to happen, okay, for anybody that seeks out help, I mean, myself included, you have to go there, okay, voluntarily, I can't put you in a headlock and give you nookies and say go to therapy. You'd you'd have to want to do that yourself.

[00:22:36]So, if you're watching this and you clicked on this and I click baited you into thinking that, you know, hoarding is a great thing.

[00:22:43]Another thing you have to look forward to with hoarding is you're going to spend a lot of money on therapy, all right, to get it solved. Now, that can actually be a good thing. That may be the only good thing that I can say from hoarding out of this is that if it causes you to go to therapy and you get your life in a way that doesn't involve keeping every single, you know, Happy Meal toy over the last 20 years, you know who you are. All right, sell that stuff on eBay. All right, maybe that's a good thing. Like, if you can monetize the thing and get rid of it.

[00:23:17]All right, I have 100% feedback rating on eBay. uh not a whole lot of uh sales over the years. I mean, I think I'm over a hundred or something, but it's, you know, I just I've used that over time to sell things that I don't want. If you were to look at my apartment, it's minimal. Okay, maybe I even have the reverse of that. There's some things that I've gotten rid of where I come back later and say, "Oh, well, maybe, you know, maybe I could have kept that a little bit longer." Anyways, uh getting back to the treatment approaches, CBT can help individuals understand their emotional attachment to possessions. You can talk through it. You can say, "Well, why does this thing, you know, why is this Arizona tea can that you've collected over the years? Why do you need all the designs? You know, what is that? Is that connected with your childhood? Did you have a relative that was into Arizona tea? What is it about your collection of Arizona tea cans that's so important?" uh improve decision- making and develop skills for sorting, discarding, and organizing items, which are all things that are related to hoarding.

[00:24:26]It's, you know, the organization thing is a, like I said, it's a it's sort of a paradox because I'm not super organized, but that's why I like to get rid of stuff. I don't like having a lot of stuff that takes up my time to organize.

[00:24:41]So, for me, I just get rid of a lot of it. So, I live very simply. I don't want five duplications of the thing that I just want one highquality version of. I don't need 10 backups when I have, you know, one really good one and then maybe a backup or something like I mentioned with my computer. If you're a professional, you know, if you're a professional uh Pikachu collector, I maybe that's different. You know, you want to collect all the versions and then sell them on eBay.

[00:25:10]or if you have a ton of Craftsman tools and you think that, you know, if you get rid of the third set that you're not going to be able to fix your car, you know, you're starting to, if you're a professional, that's one thing. But if you're if you're somebody that's just collecting the tools and then they just sit there in the trays, then that might be hoarding. You might be finding a psychological comfort because maybe when you were a kid, your dad had a a Craftsman tool set and you had to move a bunch of times and maybe you find that triggering to get rid of those tools. I'm just throwing out things here, but uh relaxation techniques may be incorporated to manage anxiety.

[00:25:52]I've seen this personally. Uh, I helped some friends move and they were extremely anxious the whole time because every little one of their trinkets and every one of their bins needed to be handled very carefully. We're talking a lot of porcelain and little figurines and stuff. When that spilled, they completely lost their marbles. I mean, it was literally like the marbles came out of their head instead of the tray. I gave up at that point because I said, you know, you shouldn't be moving half this stuff anyways. you should have just gotten rid of it. And here I am, you know, the friend that's helping you when you turn around and you flip out when I just tripped over the curb or whatever. I can't even remember if it was me or one of them that did it, but I specifically remember that it was like a huge deal that one of the things got spilled. Oh my gosh, this is so stressful. Why? Why do you care? You have a thousand more that we're going to move.

[00:26:51]Anyways, so it has to do with anxiety.

[00:26:53]It has to do with being able to relax and say, "They're just material possessions." Big whoop-de-doo. Did anybody get hurt? You know, when the things Oh, no. Nobody got hurt when they spilled. Well, then you don't have much to worry about. You can always get more of your trinkets.

[00:27:10]While no medications are specifically approved for hoarding disorder, SSRIs may be prescribed if anxiety or depression coexists.

[00:27:19]Uh again, you know, this is a thing where I've seen this in my own life where uh [laughter] I don't know if that's helpful. I'm not a doctor, so I I I'm not sure if I can really comment on that other than my own personal take on it, which is uh in the situations that I've seen, I have not seen that make any difference. So I think it really in my own personal estimation maybe it can help some people but I really believe personally that it has to come from from yourself. So even if you're on medication and you go to therapy and you say, "No, I don't want to throw away this or that or the other thing." The medication might help you relax, but you still have to make that determination, you know, in your own mind. Hey, this is a problem. I'm going to try to solve it.

[00:28:11]I'm going to try to, you know, tackle this. Um, and the last part is just kind of repeat the beginning of this.

[00:28:19]Hoarding is a known disorder. So, it's not the point of this video to vilify people that are doing that. It's to simply kind of try to shake your brains a little bit and say, you know, if somebody was uh schizophrenic, okay, obviously that's a more significant condition, but you wouldn't tell them that the voices are real and you should just follow them. So, in the same way, you don't it's unhealthy if you're into hoarding to say, "No, I just like to collect things. I just want to feel safe and secure because, you know, you never know, I might need 10 raincoats. Well, I got news for you, okay? The rain is going to come and go, and really, you're probably okay with just one raincoat.

[00:29:04]All right, so thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one.