[Scuba Steve]

My grandma was going in that direction for at least her last 30 years. She never did the cats, newspapers or worse though.

Basically, she managed an apartment complex near a university and then a better complex for 40 years or so. From what I could tell, she saved everything that tenants left behind. Washcloths, dish racks, tapes, 8 tracks, furniture. Everything. Luckily things like toothbrushes and food she would throw out, but she kept every one of those that she bought. When we were cleaning out her place I counted about 30 of them in sight, including one taped to the wall as decoration.

She retired to the country next door to two of her sisters who passed before she did, and the mountain of stuff she owned was moved along with her. Towards the end her hearing was failing along with her mind and we had to make the decision to move closer to civilization (near where my parents live) for her. It just wasn't safe anymore; you'd call and she wouldn't answer unless she happened to be standing by the phone when it rang and we would go for a long time not knowing if she was ok or not. She was also being preyed upon by sweepstakes scams.

But about the junk - it took three years to move everything to my parent's place and go through it all one enclosed trailer load at a time. There was no other choice since she packed boxes based upon what fit in the box instead of by what was going in, and there is no trash pickup out there. What we found... medicines going back to the mid '60s, some food that came in metal tins (crackers, nothing that was nasty), coupons dating to the Nixon administration, every tax return from 1947 - late '60s in a box, neatly rolled and tied with string, who knows how many 8 tracks, a bunch of vintage hats (kept those), toys belonging to me or my brother that were lost or fallen behind something, and basically a collection of the worst of the '60s - today. Anything Wal Mart sold during that time she had. I had to go through all the financial stuff that was unearthed - all the various banks, accounts, and everything. About 40 years worth of records turned up and at least 8 or 10 checking accounts.

All of this stuff was just forgotten - it'd get put in a box, then a closet, then new things would cover it and block access and it just kept on going. Then it must've become overwhelming thinking about going through all of it and dealing with the problem while it just continued to grow. I think she saw things that she had on the individual level - that she has, say a bottle of shampoo with just a tiny bit left at the bottom, and sees it only as "I have something that can be used" rather than looking at it on the bigger scale "I have 45 bottles with just a little at the bottom so this 46th one is useless." She was also unable to see the benefit of just working on a little bit of the problem at a time. She would see that there's still stuff everywhere after we would leave with a carload of things to throw out rather than seeing that now the trail to get into a bedroom was a bit wider or that she could sit in a chair in the living room again. IMO that's how hoarders work - it's basically ignoring a problem as it continues to grow and grow until finally "stuff" becomes a part of the person.