Hoarding

I'm living in a hotel room for this next week and therefore have a TV!!!! very exciting!!!... anyway, I came across a show called 'Hoarders' on A&E which was pretty enlightening and pretty relevant to Excess!

According to Wikipedia Compulsive Hoarding "is the acquisition of and failure to use or discard such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.".. .. showering?? sleeping!?!?!?!?!? ack!!

Here is a picture of hoarding I found online at www.anxietyandstress.com/hoarding.html:



I found this fascinating for a few reasons:
the hoarders on this show seemed to know that what they were doing was detrimental to them and those around them, but just really didn't know how to stop...
there are probably many people who have not let their hoarding get so out hand, but are also close to the edge- my dad used to keep a lot of useless things and I have this distinct memory of the family helping him throw things away once a year..
I also relate to hoarding!! I find myself battling with throwing things away that I don't have any use for... part of it is the want of stuff and part of it is hating to feel like something is going to a landfill (and maybe a little genetics??)... I wonder if I could ever get out of hand like the people in the A&E show?!?!?! am I a closet hoarder?!?!?!?!