A Hoarder’s Treasure

Anna is an only child. She had been trying for years to get her elderly mother to move in with her since her father passed away a decade ago. However, her mother was a stubborn and fiercely independent lady in her late 80’s who insisted on taking care of herself in her own home. The only problem was that her mother’s memory was starting to go. She would forget simple things like what she went into the kitchen for or what she rang Anna for. Even though her mother wore a personal alarm device to alert a monitoring service in case of an emergency, Anna still worried about her mother’s safety. She used to call her mother every day and visited her on a regular basis to check on her and to help her with her cleaning and grocery shopping.

Anna’s mother was a hoarder. She was brought up during the Great Depression when her family had to live in poverty because her father had lost his job. They learnt to be grateful for what little they had, hoarding everything and throwing out nothing. This became a way of life for Anna’s mother even after the Great Depression when they led a comfortable middle class lifestyle. Sure, her mother lived in the same old three bedroom, one bathroom house from the time she got married until the time she died, but that was by choice, not by necessity. Unfortunately, her habit of hoarding turned the house into a cluttered mess and a safety hazard. She hoarded everything from old clothes to old shoes to old newspapers and broken pieces of furniture, etc. When Anna tried to throw some of the clutter out her mother would stop her, arguing that you never know when you would need those items in an emergency.

When her mother passed away last month, Anna was left with the task of clearing the clutter and preparing the house for sale. It was an enormous task to sift through the belongings to determine what was worth keeping and what was rubbish. The wheelie bin was not enough to contain all the rubbish, so Anna rang a cheap skip bins hire place in the neighbourhood and hired a 10 cubic metre hook lift skip bin. She also hired a bobcat to carry the heavy rubbish to the skip hire in Brisbane Northside. This particular skip bin was a rectangular shape with large doors that open in the back, which made it easy for Anna’s husband to drive the bobcat into the bin.

What seemed like an insurmountable task at first, soon became manageable thanks to a few willing helpers, the use of a bobcat and the skip bin. Anna, her husband and two children were exhausted by the end of week, but they got the house in ship shape and it was sold within a week of being listed.