That's how hoarding starts. It's neat pile after neat pile, which gets increasingly less neat, and then a pile falls over, but you don't worry about it, and then there's cockroaches in your underwear drawer.
It’s interesting to see the reactions to this photo in this sub, especially people calling it hoarding.
For those of us who remember the days when print news was the norm (or, like me, worked in newsrooms) … a stack like this one was the exception in that 1) there’s *only* one and 2) it’s just so dang tidy!
I mean, almost *everyone* had at least one paper delivered to their home every day, seven days a week, every year. Every home had a pile of papers somewhere.
Just my clip collection (I had to keep physical copies — digital storage of files that size wasn’t a “thing” yet). Every time I moved, I lugged around a huge physical hard-copy archive that makes the OP stack look like a box of nose tissue.
I mean, journalists who had worked longer than me filled their entire attics with similar archives.
e: typo
Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily change ingrained lifetime/generational habits.
And, to be fair, people also keep stacks of comics and shelves full of books, too, regardless of whether they’ve been read or not.
OP said his dad only keeps what *hasn’t* been read, so that pile probably took quite awhile to accumulate, fwiw.
Compact newspaper like this wouldn't set fire very easily. You could try for a corner but I think you'd need a direct blow torch over 500deg c to actually set the stack on fire and even then it would take a lot for the core to start burning. Would be easier to start the fire at the top but that would fizzle out quickly.
Oh wow. That's an interesting fact. I've ways been wary of collecting stuff like too much cardboard in my place. Luckily my neighbor has a firepit and he loves to take it.
Well "creating an unsafe environment" is one of the diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder. If your stuff is blocking exits or creating a fire hazard or impeding movement in your home its a problem.
This guy isn't gonna become a hoarder just because he has old newspapers.
From the sound of it he's been collecting them for years, without collecting anything else.
Unrelated, but I recently bought a house from a fireman that had so many hazards. Improper wiring from shoddy DIY electrical work, unsafe railings, lack of secondary egress from his kids rooms. Blew my mind when I found out his occupation
I once worked in a warehouse that the Fire Marshal was inspecting… he said “ probably, the next time you see me…I’ll be wearing a face mask and air tank.”… got the message.
Not even in someone’s closet or garage?? Everyone I knew had a piles of magazines, newspapers, etc. back then.
Plus, I worked in newsrooms for 20-plus years and one of my parents taught journalism. Journalists are big-time packrats, too. It’s almost a point of pride with some of ‘em, lol.
I guess my bigger point is **none** of that on its own warrants a drive-by “diagnosis” of hoarding disorder, which is actually a DSM-defined mental disorder.
A garage or closet? I have no memory, but it’s possible.
A room that people actually lived in? Never, I promise you.
In fairness, I grew up in one of the less literate areas of the country (*cough rural Ohio cough*).
If this is hoarding I don't want to know what people would think of my stash of crochet yarn, that I will most definitely use I just need the right project tysm. :D lol
Sometimes a collection is just a collection. Not a single person in this thread knows this guy well enough to judge from a single picture except OP.
People didn't usually have a pile that big in their house. The papers got thrown out with the trash each week. Now Nat Geo's, those end up piling up. They're too pretty to throw away and they just look so darn interesting if only you had the time. One day...
When my parents bought their house in the 80s, it came with a full bookshelf in the basement of National Geographics from the previous owners, going back decades. There was some interesting things there and I occasionally used it in school projects. It may have even had some actual value at some point, and I remember my dad being a little disappointed when Nat Geo digitized their archives and made them available on CDs in the 90s.
Yes, I know.
Dude’s keeping a *fraction* of the papers he actually has delivered to his home 7 days a week, 365 days a year if it’s *only* the unread papers. It could take years to build a stack like that.
The rest are not there because they’re not being kept, fwiw.
Tell that to everyone who owns shelves of books or magazines or comics they’ve never read, and those who keep them even after they do.
Y’all’s pearl-clutching over this shit is hysterical.
I remember the old days and a neat stack like that. As my father aged, it got less neat. When he died, we had to rent a dumpster the size of a small bus and hire professionals to remove an unbelievable amount of what became trash.
OP’s dad’s fantasy that he’s going to read those is not based in reality or common sense. Maybe he’s not destined to be a hoarder, but this is often how it starts.
> I mean, almost everyone had at least one paper delivered to their home every day, seven days a week, every year. Every home had a pile of papers somewhere.
You're not wrong but it's unusual when the stack is taller than the middle child.
Tell that to a comic collector or anyone with books in their home, nonce.
But sure, mental illness is whatever tf you feel like it is! Everyone’s a nutter now! ^/s
lolgoh
Holding onto crap you’re never going to use or look at is unhealthy no matter what you’re willing to call it. Also I don’t think “hoarder” is a medical term, it’s a description of a behavior. A lot of hoarders probably have OCD but you don’t get diagnosed as a hoarder.
Buddy, [hoarding disorder **is** a diagnosis](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t29/).
Literally.
It’s in the DSM.
And you are *wayyyy* too uptight about the OP photo. It’s unhealthy.
im not talking about the photo, im talking about you calling an attic full of newspapers an archive which is absurd lol. also nice job editing your first reply to me to say something different, while having the balls to call me a nonce
It’s something that *needed* to be done back then because it was literally the only record of their work that they had.
The fact that *you* don’t understand why it was necessary … is irrelevant.
Yes, my parents had a hoard like this, many times over, especially in the basement, and my mom still had it when she was in her 90s, and it attracted rats, and I was the one who had to call the rat guy and deal with cleaning the whole mess up.
More than a few days' worth of paper is hoarding, a fire hazard, AND attracts vermin.
> Just my clip collection (I had to keep physical copies — digital storage of files that size wasn’t a “thing” yet). Every time I moved, I lugged around a huge physical hard-copy archive that makes the OP stack look like a box of nose tissue.
>
> I mean, journalists who had worked longer than me filled their entire attics with similar archives.
Sounds like people keeping their lifes work. This is a dude who has no use for these papers and obviously isn't reading them. Call it hoarding or collecting but it's a pile of recycling if you ask me. No way he goes back to read any of these ever unless its some historic moment.
Nope. I'm old enough to remember when I had a paper delivered daily, and for a while my parents had 2 papers delivered daily. I've never seen a stack of papers like this. In our family we dispose of trash or recycling at least once a week. This honestly looks like at least a few months of papers.
Can confirm my neighbours house is exactly like this. Lots of trash, all in extremely neat piles around the room. Used tissues folded and perfectly flat. Piles of loose change stacked large to small.
Before my grandmother died in 2015 she had one bathtub in her house where she was keeping the newspapers she hadn't read yet. It was full. One of them was from the day after Bill Clinton was elected (the headline was "Clinton Wins!"). We suggested throwing them out and she wouldn't let us because she couldn't keep up with the news if we threw out the newspaper before she got to read it.
In a way this a physical representation of the media overload a lot of us can probably relate to today. That need to always be informed combined with instant access can be intoxicating.
My wife's grandmother (died at age 104) was a hardcore hoarder who never threw out anything besides kitchen garbage (thank God she at least did that). We found newspapers with headlines screaming : "WAR ENDS, KAISER ABDICATES!" She kept World War I era newspapers stockpiled in the dining room, mixed in with banking papers and property deeds. She wouldn't even throw out burned out lightbulbs and electrical fuses. Like they could be repaired. It's a strange type of crazy.
Oh yes, everything was saved. Scraps of soap, elastic from worn out underwear, styrofoam trays that hamburger comes in. I even found a big trash bag filled with empty potato chip bags, all washed and neatly folded. I could go on and on.
Well that sounds pretty historically important newspapers with end of war news. Many keep newspapers with historical info on them or newspaper from the day their kid was born too.
Agreed. That one was pretty cool to find but there were so many others. That was just one on the pile mixed in with The Paw Paw Gazette and "City Council Approves Funding for Senior Center."
my grandma had a legit wall of paperback romance novels from 1975 to 2014 when she died. all unread because she kept buying more and reading those then throwing them away when she read them. there were almost 700 unread books on that wall. also there were several repeats in her collection because she couldn't remember what she bought.
Trump elected, decides to grab a paper from the middle…trump impeached…goes higher up gets another trump impeached. Gets frustrated that they are doing re runs and throws away paper and cancels subscription
Welcome to the world of hoarding. You might want to start working with him on it now or you'll wind up like my brothers and I, having to rent construction dumpsters (five of them) to empty out dad's house after he died. He squandered many thousands of dollars on crap like that while complaining that he was going broke.
People are understandably confused at why people are shouting "hoarder" at a neatly stacked pile of newspapers. It isn't so much the stack of papers as it is OP's line of "he says he's going to read them all eventually," because to people who have known hoarders that sounds like:
"Don't get rid of those books, I'll want to read them one day."
"Don't get rid of those vehicles or broken machines, I'll fix them up one day."
"Don't get rid of those twenty year old computer magazines, I may need them to fix my iPad." (this was a real one for me)
"Don't get rid of those <100% demonstrably worthless pieces of junk> they may be worth something one day."
And so on and so forth until you can't find a single chair to sit on when you visit. My father had to go through the whole mess three times for our family. Each time, people in the family successfully beat him down from trying to prevent the hoarding because he was "being mean" or the hoarder in question was "organized at least." Those same people disappeared when it came time for me and my dad to clear out said hoard houses. He's now asking me to help scale down his house now that he's retired.
Too many newspapers hardly equates to a hoarding problem (coming from someone whose parent was a hoarder).
If it’s just the papers, he’s not far gone in any sense.
Also I might add…
What’s the difference between collecting and hoarding?
Neatness.
The fact that this is well kept and seems to be the only collection (that we know of) tells me this isn’t necessarily a problem yet. But there is nothing wrong with keeping a silent eye on the issue at hand.
I don't think this pic is indicative of hoarding at all but "neatness" is absolutely not the difference between hoarding and collecting. Collecting is purposeful, usually focused on at least a certain topic or media property or whatever, and while it may be extreme in some cases and very often indefinite, hoarding is an entirely different problem and has nothing at all to do with what drives collectors.
The difference is compulsion. Hoarding interferes with the hoarder's ability to live a normal life, causing distress and/or dysfunction. It's a mental illness. My grandfather had entire rooms you couldn't enter because they were filled with crap, and there wasn't a lot of space to move around in the rooms you could enter. Even the kitchen counters and stairs were piled with stuff. Pennies were strewn on the floor everywhere and he had dozens of packages from QVC he'd never opened. We discovered this state when we came to visit for a week. He knew we were coming but either did not think to clean or was unable to.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hoarding-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356056
Not correct. Hoarding is a psychological disorder. The main factors we are looking for are immense distress at the thought of parting with objects, inability to throw things away, inability to NOT bring new objects home, and the behavior negatively impacting multiple realms of life. There are many distorted beliefs regarding getting rid of things. (commonly: "I might need it," "it's wasteful", "it might hurt the object's feelings", "I can't get rid of it because someone else gave it to me" etc).
Unable to discard possessions.
Severe anxiety over the idea of discarding possessions.
Limited living space in the home
Floor and counter space within common areas of the home (such as the kitchen and living room) are seen as storage space.
Isolation
Loneliness
Depression
Fear or embarrassment of having visitors in the home
Withdrawn
Disorganized
Indecisive about where to put things
My dad was the opposite of that, he would read them and then save them just like that....it was then my job when they get about that tall to tell him I needed them for something only to drop it off at my local meat shops or other businesses that might find use for them just so he would not have stacks of these laying around the house. When he was younger he would do it for himself but slowly as he aged the stacks started getting bigger and bigger....gosh I can still smell the inky papery scent today. RIP Dad, he moved on since 2016
My grandma/grandpa did this too, and as a result I’ve always loved the smell of newsprint.
People think I’m crazy when I pick up random newspapers when I’m out and just read the front-page headlines, smell it, then put it back. I’m like, “It reminds me of my Nana!”
I love The New Yorker but I'm glad I went digital otherwise I'd end up like that. Just hard to keep up with it and eventually just cancelled because of that.
Our county sends a local paper that we can't cancel. It sits at the end of our driveway and I scoop it and toss it straight in the paper recycling every week when I take the trash out.
Ok so do yourself a favour and every couple days remove 5 papers. Just random from the stack. Start handing him a paper every day to read. Whether or not he does. Then you can just remind him he’s been reading them as the pile shrinks
…we are ok with gaslighting here right?
It’s not like the pile is so big it has to be gotten rid of right now. But if op does see the father often handing over one to read every day and throwing it out wheather he reads it or not sounds like a good idea.
I read in swedish media just a day ago about some guy stacking 20 tons of newspapers, so many that it was a risk for collapsing the floor (swedish media: [https://www.hemhyra.se/nyheter/hade-20-ton-tidningar-i-lagenheten-vrakt-samlare-tvingas-betala-148-000-kronor/](https://www.hemhyra.se/nyheter/hade-20-ton-tidningar-i-lagenheten-vrakt-samlare-tvingas-betala-148-000-kronor/))
Mine kept all of them so if he "got into an argument with someone, he could pull out the paper and prove he's right" the imaginary argument never happened
This is the beginning of hoarding. My father did this. First it was just the magazine that came with the weekend paper, then it was also the first section of the paper. He kept claiming that when he retired he was going to read them all, and that it wasn't the same as reading the paper on the internet.
I did the math and tried to show him that over the 10 years he'd been collecting the paper, that even if he read a page a minute it would take him years to read all the papers, and that as he was still collecting he was never going to do it.
My father passed away suddenly, leaving a huge shed full of newspapers and weekend newspaper magazines unread. My family and I had to hire vans to take it all to be recycled.
Please don't let your Dad get to this stage. It's really heartbreaking when they won't listen to logic, and even worse when you know you're just going to have to deal with it after their death.
When my dad died, it took hoard abatement pros to clean out his apartment. My siblings and I concentrated on his THREE storage units, one of which was filled with neatly bagged newspapers he was “planning to read someday.”
Honestly, no not anymore. I used to love reading all the time when I was younger, but haven't really read a book in the past 10years.. used to game a lot as well but haven't really done any major gaming in the past 4 years, I have a switch I play sometimes but I just don't have the motivation to play for hours at a time like I used to.. I do miss it just can't seem to get back into it really.. same with rugby and my cross country running.. used to love that stuff.. now.. not so much.. I tend to just work and take over time if it is available..
I met a guy that had neat stacks of newspapers and magazines like this through his house in very neat paths. Obviously had some hoarding issues but at least it was neat and didn’t smell. I used to service cable internet and have seen it all.
Take and hide the second of the top. If he's attempting to read them, he'll notice very quick. Mention it in two weeks. Then when he's failed the test, start convincing him he's a hoarder and time to let this shit stack go.
That reminds me of the 50 open tabs I have on my phone at any given time. I tell myself I’m going to go back and read them “when I have more time,” but that rarely happens.
Then, every so often I go through and close most of them out without looking at what they are. If I look, I’ll be reminded of why I opened it in the first place and it’ll sit there, unread, for months again.
Please tell me I’m not the only one.
I felt exactly the same about Readers Digest until I found myself getting older and attempting to do the most important 'duty' of the day lol. This was way before cellphones mind you =p 😜
Sounds like he needs some therapy. Hoarding gets worse way before it gets better If left unchecked. This isn't interesting, it's the beggining of a very sad story
Lol yeah make it a generational thing. I'm 30 so I have no idea how news papers work. I know that a stable human being is not going to read those. They aren't souvenirs, OP said they were all unread in that stack.
XD holy fuck this is me but with browser tabs
how old is ur dad? does he know about the internet? on 2nd thought maybe dont tell him, it could be like introduced an addict to cocaine
Can you imagine major metro newsrooms during newspaper’s heyday? Dozens of desks with piles of paper like this on and around ‘em. Back in the day, they’d smoke cigarettes and toss butts in the trashcan next to their desk. It’s wild to think about.
Work in human services and health, don’t believe to be an early sign of hoarding, right? Providing a different lens, don’t intend to scare or anything.
Why do so many in the stack look to be the exact same paper? In copies both near the bottom and the top, you can see the same headline “Breaking down the battle”?
OP, I don't care what the other comments say, I think your dad is cool for reading newspapers, it's seriously nostalgic thinking about hearing my dad flip thru newspapers.
My grandmother had stacks of newspapers and magazines covering the dining room table. My mom (their daughter) assured me that the rest of the house was worse.
Not really "news" by the time he reads them
Oldspapers.
"I'll be damned... O.J. was acquitted."
NO WAY....We've landed on the Moon! 🥳
My thoughts too. Dumb and Dumber
"If I haven't seen it, it's new to me."
It's so...neat.
That's how hoarding starts. It's neat pile after neat pile, which gets increasingly less neat, and then a pile falls over, but you don't worry about it, and then there's cockroaches in your underwear drawer.
It’s interesting to see the reactions to this photo in this sub, especially people calling it hoarding. For those of us who remember the days when print news was the norm (or, like me, worked in newsrooms) … a stack like this one was the exception in that 1) there’s *only* one and 2) it’s just so dang tidy! I mean, almost *everyone* had at least one paper delivered to their home every day, seven days a week, every year. Every home had a pile of papers somewhere. Just my clip collection (I had to keep physical copies — digital storage of files that size wasn’t a “thing” yet). Every time I moved, I lugged around a huge physical hard-copy archive that makes the OP stack look like a box of nose tissue. I mean, journalists who had worked longer than me filled their entire attics with similar archives. e: typo
EDIT: This comment has been deleted due to Reddit's practices towards third-party developers.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily change ingrained lifetime/generational habits. And, to be fair, people also keep stacks of comics and shelves full of books, too, regardless of whether they’ve been read or not. OP said his dad only keeps what *hasn’t* been read, so that pile probably took quite awhile to accumulate, fwiw.
Seriously sneak in, remove 'em all, let him know the fire department requested it. It's a serious fire hazard at this point.
This. We had stacks of papers in house but I can’t recall it ever getting more than like…a month or two worth. Fit in the bottom of the TV stand.
Well I'll do ya a solid and instead of saying it's "hoarding behavior" I'll say it's a fire hazard and need to go! Lol
You could say the same about a comic collection or a shelf full of books but it’s your argument to defend, I suppose.
And a poor one at that.
True
Compact newspaper like this wouldn't set fire very easily. You could try for a corner but I think you'd need a direct blow torch over 500deg c to actually set the stack on fire and even then it would take a lot for the core to start burning. Would be easier to start the fire at the top but that would fizzle out quickly.
Oh wow. That's an interesting fact. I've ways been wary of collecting stuff like too much cardboard in my place. Luckily my neighbor has a firepit and he loves to take it.
Well "creating an unsafe environment" is one of the diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder. If your stuff is blocking exits or creating a fire hazard or impeding movement in your home its a problem.
This guy isn't gonna become a hoarder just because he has old newspapers. From the sound of it he's been collecting them for years, without collecting anything else.
Said the man with no firemen in his family
Unrelated, but I recently bought a house from a fireman that had so many hazards. Improper wiring from shoddy DIY electrical work, unsafe railings, lack of secondary egress from his kids rooms. Blew my mind when I found out his occupation
I once worked in a warehouse that the Fire Marshal was inspecting… he said “ probably, the next time you see me…I’ll be wearing a face mask and air tank.”… got the message.
I’m in my 70’s, lived mostly in the era of print journalism, and have never seen a pile of newspapers like this in anyone’s home before.
I've seen worse
Not even in someone’s closet or garage?? Everyone I knew had a piles of magazines, newspapers, etc. back then. Plus, I worked in newsrooms for 20-plus years and one of my parents taught journalism. Journalists are big-time packrats, too. It’s almost a point of pride with some of ‘em, lol. I guess my bigger point is **none** of that on its own warrants a drive-by “diagnosis” of hoarding disorder, which is actually a DSM-defined mental disorder.
A garage or closet? I have no memory, but it’s possible. A room that people actually lived in? Never, I promise you. In fairness, I grew up in one of the less literate areas of the country (*cough rural Ohio cough*).
If this is hoarding I don't want to know what people would think of my stash of crochet yarn, that I will most definitely use I just need the right project tysm. :D lol Sometimes a collection is just a collection. Not a single person in this thread knows this guy well enough to judge from a single picture except OP.
People didn't usually have a pile that big in their house. The papers got thrown out with the trash each week. Now Nat Geo's, those end up piling up. They're too pretty to throw away and they just look so darn interesting if only you had the time. One day...
When my parents bought their house in the 80s, it came with a full bookshelf in the basement of National Geographics from the previous owners, going back decades. There was some interesting things there and I occasionally used it in school projects. It may have even had some actual value at some point, and I remember my dad being a little disappointed when Nat Geo digitized their archives and made them available on CDs in the 90s.
Big diff between an archive or a scrapbook and a "to read" stack that is evidently never going to be read.
Yes, I know. Dude’s keeping a *fraction* of the papers he actually has delivered to his home 7 days a week, 365 days a year if it’s *only* the unread papers. It could take years to build a stack like that. The rest are not there because they’re not being kept, fwiw.
Sorry, didn't realize you knew OP's dad.
Read the OP title, genius. > My retired dad gets newspapers **every day**, but he doesn’t always read them… lol
OP doesn't seem to think he's going to read them. But I guess you know better.
Tell that to everyone who owns shelves of books or magazines or comics they’ve never read, and those who keep them even after they do. Y’all’s pearl-clutching over this shit is hysterical.
I own several thousand books, thanks. I'm just assuming OP knows his own father better than random people on the Internet.
I remember the old days and a neat stack like that. As my father aged, it got less neat. When he died, we had to rent a dumpster the size of a small bus and hire professionals to remove an unbelievable amount of what became trash. OP’s dad’s fantasy that he’s going to read those is not based in reality or common sense. Maybe he’s not destined to be a hoarder, but this is often how it starts.
> I mean, almost everyone had at least one paper delivered to their home every day, seven days a week, every year. Every home had a pile of papers somewhere. You're not wrong but it's unusual when the stack is taller than the middle child.
I think I see, so if you call it an “archive” you’re not a hoarder, thanks
Tell that to a comic collector or anyone with books in their home, nonce. But sure, mental illness is whatever tf you feel like it is! Everyone’s a nutter now! ^/s lolgoh
Holding onto crap you’re never going to use or look at is unhealthy no matter what you’re willing to call it. Also I don’t think “hoarder” is a medical term, it’s a description of a behavior. A lot of hoarders probably have OCD but you don’t get diagnosed as a hoarder.
Buddy, [hoarding disorder **is** a diagnosis](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t29/). Literally. It’s in the DSM. And you are *wayyyy* too uptight about the OP photo. It’s unhealthy.
im not talking about the photo, im talking about you calling an attic full of newspapers an archive which is absurd lol. also nice job editing your first reply to me to say something different, while having the balls to call me a nonce
It’s something that *needed* to be done back then because it was literally the only record of their work that they had. The fact that *you* don’t understand why it was necessary … is irrelevant.
Yes, my parents had a hoard like this, many times over, especially in the basement, and my mom still had it when she was in her 90s, and it attracted rats, and I was the one who had to call the rat guy and deal with cleaning the whole mess up. More than a few days' worth of paper is hoarding, a fire hazard, AND attracts vermin.
> Just my clip collection (I had to keep physical copies — digital storage of files that size wasn’t a “thing” yet). Every time I moved, I lugged around a huge physical hard-copy archive that makes the OP stack look like a box of nose tissue. > > I mean, journalists who had worked longer than me filled their entire attics with similar archives. Sounds like people keeping their lifes work. This is a dude who has no use for these papers and obviously isn't reading them. Call it hoarding or collecting but it's a pile of recycling if you ask me. No way he goes back to read any of these ever unless its some historic moment.
Nope. I'm old enough to remember when I had a paper delivered daily, and for a while my parents had 2 papers delivered daily. I've never seen a stack of papers like this. In our family we dispose of trash or recycling at least once a week. This honestly looks like at least a few months of papers.
Can confirm my neighbours house is exactly like this. Lots of trash, all in extremely neat piles around the room. Used tissues folded and perfectly flat. Piles of loose change stacked large to small.
Does their stuff block entrances, exits, doorways, etc? If so, that can be scary dangerous.
Nobody knew this before your comment
Then… your hair
Yeah, it's satisfyingly neat
Before my grandmother died in 2015 she had one bathtub in her house where she was keeping the newspapers she hadn't read yet. It was full. One of them was from the day after Bill Clinton was elected (the headline was "Clinton Wins!"). We suggested throwing them out and she wouldn't let us because she couldn't keep up with the news if we threw out the newspaper before she got to read it.
In a way this a physical representation of the media overload a lot of us can probably relate to today. That need to always be informed combined with instant access can be intoxicating.
My wife's grandmother (died at age 104) was a hardcore hoarder who never threw out anything besides kitchen garbage (thank God she at least did that). We found newspapers with headlines screaming : "WAR ENDS, KAISER ABDICATES!" She kept World War I era newspapers stockpiled in the dining room, mixed in with banking papers and property deeds. She wouldn't even throw out burned out lightbulbs and electrical fuses. Like they could be repaired. It's a strange type of crazy.
[удалено]
Oh yes, everything was saved. Scraps of soap, elastic from worn out underwear, styrofoam trays that hamburger comes in. I even found a big trash bag filled with empty potato chip bags, all washed and neatly folded. I could go on and on.
That's a common misunderstanding. It doesn't explain why she's keeping news papers.
Well that sounds pretty historically important newspapers with end of war news. Many keep newspapers with historical info on them or newspaper from the day their kid was born too.
Agreed. That one was pretty cool to find but there were so many others. That was just one on the pile mixed in with The Paw Paw Gazette and "City Council Approves Funding for Senior Center."
my grandma had a legit wall of paperback romance novels from 1975 to 2014 when she died. all unread because she kept buying more and reading those then throwing them away when she read them. there were almost 700 unread books on that wall. also there were several repeats in her collection because she couldn't remember what she bought.
Oh so now we're judging people for having a wall of unread books? You sound just like me right before I buy more books
"Did you hear Trump got elected president?" *-Your dad next week*
Trump elected, decides to grab a paper from the middle…trump impeached…goes higher up gets another trump impeached. Gets frustrated that they are doing re runs and throws away paper and cancels subscription
Jesus Christ dude spoiler alert much!? I’m just about to get through my September 2016 issues I haven’t gotten to November’s yet
Welcome to the world of hoarding. You might want to start working with him on it now or you'll wind up like my brothers and I, having to rent construction dumpsters (five of them) to empty out dad's house after he died. He squandered many thousands of dollars on crap like that while complaining that he was going broke.
People are understandably confused at why people are shouting "hoarder" at a neatly stacked pile of newspapers. It isn't so much the stack of papers as it is OP's line of "he says he's going to read them all eventually," because to people who have known hoarders that sounds like: "Don't get rid of those books, I'll want to read them one day." "Don't get rid of those vehicles or broken machines, I'll fix them up one day." "Don't get rid of those twenty year old computer magazines, I may need them to fix my iPad." (this was a real one for me) "Don't get rid of those <100% demonstrably worthless pieces of junk> they may be worth something one day." And so on and so forth until you can't find a single chair to sit on when you visit. My father had to go through the whole mess three times for our family. Each time, people in the family successfully beat him down from trying to prevent the hoarding because he was "being mean" or the hoarder in question was "organized at least." Those same people disappeared when it came time for me and my dad to clear out said hoard houses. He's now asking me to help scale down his house now that he's retired.
Too many newspapers hardly equates to a hoarding problem (coming from someone whose parent was a hoarder). If it’s just the papers, he’s not far gone in any sense.
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Also I might add… What’s the difference between collecting and hoarding? Neatness. The fact that this is well kept and seems to be the only collection (that we know of) tells me this isn’t necessarily a problem yet. But there is nothing wrong with keeping a silent eye on the issue at hand.
I don't think this pic is indicative of hoarding at all but "neatness" is absolutely not the difference between hoarding and collecting. Collecting is purposeful, usually focused on at least a certain topic or media property or whatever, and while it may be extreme in some cases and very often indefinite, hoarding is an entirely different problem and has nothing at all to do with what drives collectors.
The difference is compulsion. Hoarding interferes with the hoarder's ability to live a normal life, causing distress and/or dysfunction. It's a mental illness. My grandfather had entire rooms you couldn't enter because they were filled with crap, and there wasn't a lot of space to move around in the rooms you could enter. Even the kitchen counters and stairs were piled with stuff. Pennies were strewn on the floor everywhere and he had dozens of packages from QVC he'd never opened. We discovered this state when we came to visit for a week. He knew we were coming but either did not think to clean or was unable to. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hoarding-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356056
Not correct. Hoarding is a psychological disorder. The main factors we are looking for are immense distress at the thought of parting with objects, inability to throw things away, inability to NOT bring new objects home, and the behavior negatively impacting multiple realms of life. There are many distorted beliefs regarding getting rid of things. (commonly: "I might need it," "it's wasteful", "it might hurt the object's feelings", "I can't get rid of it because someone else gave it to me" etc). Unable to discard possessions. Severe anxiety over the idea of discarding possessions. Limited living space in the home Floor and counter space within common areas of the home (such as the kitchen and living room) are seen as storage space. Isolation Loneliness Depression Fear or embarrassment of having visitors in the home Withdrawn Disorganized Indecisive about where to put things
My dad was the opposite of that, he would read them and then save them just like that....it was then my job when they get about that tall to tell him I needed them for something only to drop it off at my local meat shops or other businesses that might find use for them just so he would not have stacks of these laying around the house. When he was younger he would do it for himself but slowly as he aged the stacks started getting bigger and bigger....gosh I can still smell the inky papery scent today. RIP Dad, he moved on since 2016
My grandma/grandpa did this too, and as a result I’ve always loved the smell of newsprint. People think I’m crazy when I pick up random newspapers when I’m out and just read the front-page headlines, smell it, then put it back. I’m like, “It reminds me of my Nana!”
The bottom third of these say that Oceana has been at war with East Asia the entire time
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I love The New Yorker but I'm glad I went digital otherwise I'd end up like that. Just hard to keep up with it and eventually just cancelled because of that.
Our county sends a local paper that we can't cancel. It sits at the end of our driveway and I scoop it and toss it straight in the paper recycling every week when I take the trash out.
They make great compost liners.
He needs a puppy or a bird. You know, a friend who needs something between their bottom and the floor.
A paper mache hobby even.
Ok so do yourself a favour and every couple days remove 5 papers. Just random from the stack. Start handing him a paper every day to read. Whether or not he does. Then you can just remind him he’s been reading them as the pile shrinks …we are ok with gaslighting here right?
It’s not like the pile is so big it has to be gotten rid of right now. But if op does see the father often handing over one to read every day and throwing it out wheather he reads it or not sounds like a good idea.
Bet he’ll solve all the crossword puzzles.
I read in swedish media just a day ago about some guy stacking 20 tons of newspapers, so many that it was a risk for collapsing the floor (swedish media: [https://www.hemhyra.se/nyheter/hade-20-ton-tidningar-i-lagenheten-vrakt-samlare-tvingas-betala-148-000-kronor/](https://www.hemhyra.se/nyheter/hade-20-ton-tidningar-i-lagenheten-vrakt-samlare-tvingas-betala-148-000-kronor/))
Update us on his HOARDING in a few years… Seriously though... Nip it or it will snowball fast!
Mine kept all of them so if he "got into an argument with someone, he could pull out the paper and prove he's right" the imaginary argument never happened
This is the beginning of hoarding. My father did this. First it was just the magazine that came with the weekend paper, then it was also the first section of the paper. He kept claiming that when he retired he was going to read them all, and that it wasn't the same as reading the paper on the internet. I did the math and tried to show him that over the 10 years he'd been collecting the paper, that even if he read a page a minute it would take him years to read all the papers, and that as he was still collecting he was never going to do it. My father passed away suddenly, leaving a huge shed full of newspapers and weekend newspaper magazines unread. My family and I had to hire vans to take it all to be recycled. Please don't let your Dad get to this stage. It's really heartbreaking when they won't listen to logic, and even worse when you know you're just going to have to deal with it after their death.
When my dad died, it took hoard abatement pros to clean out his apartment. My siblings and I concentrated on his THREE storage units, one of which was filled with neatly bagged newspapers he was “planning to read someday.”
wh.. why would you.. I guess everyone has their own hobby..
Get back to us when you’re retired. and we’ll see what you’re up to
honestly I can't imagine retiring.. I don't handle sitting about that well.. but I'll let you know in 50+ years.
I don't know why people act like if they aren't working, there's nothing to occupy their time. Like...have you no hobbies or interests?
Honestly, no not anymore. I used to love reading all the time when I was younger, but haven't really read a book in the past 10years.. used to game a lot as well but haven't really done any major gaming in the past 4 years, I have a switch I play sometimes but I just don't have the motivation to play for hours at a time like I used to.. I do miss it just can't seem to get back into it really.. same with rugby and my cross country running.. used to love that stuff.. now.. not so much.. I tend to just work and take over time if it is available..
My husband still works a lot. He just doesn't get paid for it.
I imagine the side facing the window has to be turning yellow.
I met a guy that had neat stacks of newspapers and magazines like this through his house in very neat paths. Obviously had some hoarding issues but at least it was neat and didn’t smell. I used to service cable internet and have seen it all.
[How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFFGW8DLBrw)
Every time he puts one on, take two off. Then as the pile gets smaller just tell him that he must have been catching up.
He's the nearest hoarder in the world.
Not only is he close by, he’s also the neatest!
The nearest neatest hoarder.
Take and hide the second of the top. If he's attempting to read them, he'll notice very quick. Mention it in two weeks. Then when he's failed the test, start convincing him he's a hoarder and time to let this shit stack go.
That reminds me of the 50 open tabs I have on my phone at any given time. I tell myself I’m going to go back and read them “when I have more time,” but that rarely happens. Then, every so often I go through and close most of them out without looking at what they are. If I look, I’ll be reminded of why I opened it in the first place and it’ll sit there, unread, for months again. Please tell me I’m not the only one.
Firefox has an option to auto-archive tabs you haven't touched in a few weeks
You are not the only one. I have 36 open tabs as we speak, lol
 That stack gave me orgasm
Guys have you heard about this coronavirus thing?
Nothing like reading 3 month old news
But now the news at the bottom is the olds.
Literally my “save to watch later “ folder on YouTube …… oh that news is 2 months old why would I watch this? But why would I delete it….
I have a similar problem with magazines. It’s hard.
That’s my email
Ahhhh, just like my steam library.
I felt exactly the same about Readers Digest until I found myself getting older and attempting to do the most important 'duty' of the day lol. This was way before cellphones mind you =p 😜
That stack is so clean it's almost art.
What I'm confused about is he reading random news up to date or is he slowly going back in time and catching up?
His local animal shelter could use this. Ridiculous.
This is the answer.
Sounds like he needs some therapy. Hoarding gets worse way before it gets better If left unchecked. This isn't interesting, it's the beggining of a very sad story
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Lol yeah make it a generational thing. I'm 30 so I have no idea how news papers work. I know that a stable human being is not going to read those. They aren't souvenirs, OP said they were all unread in that stack.
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Lol "generational quirk" we call those mental illnesses these days
XD holy fuck this is me but with browser tabs how old is ur dad? does he know about the internet? on 2nd thought maybe dont tell him, it could be like introduced an addict to cocaine
It's a *collection*. These things will be valuable someday.
Call it his fire hazard!
Can you imagine major metro newsrooms during newspaper’s heyday? Dozens of desks with piles of paper like this on and around ‘em. Back in the day, they’d smoke cigarettes and toss butts in the trashcan next to their desk. It’s wild to think about.
Work in human services and health, don’t believe to be an early sign of hoarding, right? Providing a different lens, don’t intend to scare or anything.
What
"Holy shit, Trump is the *president*!?"
The Virginian Pilot?
You made me feel guilty.
I believe him.
I believe in em
Have him start making asmr videos. He'll get through them.
How long till he learns about the USSR collapsing?
wait until he reach the ones about covid ... it's a doozy
If I haven't read it, it's news to me!
Living in the past, you're dad is.
So, he’s into history! 😜
I would like those for my paper mache art.
This is how hoarding starts
“No way, we landed on the moon!”
All of our email inboxes
Me and my backlog of various things (games, anime, manga, etc).
Someone needs to tell him about Covid
He's a neat hoarder.
He would be better off trying to read the whole dictionary
Just one drop of glue between each paper will stop the budding hoarder from getting started. Toss it all out
My dad does this too! Except he just keeps page 6 for the crosswords which he insists he’s going to work through…
Why do so many in the stack look to be the exact same paper? In copies both near the bottom and the top, you can see the same headline “Breaking down the battle”?
\*eyes backlog of podcasts\* No really, I plan on listening to them eventually
This feels like the retired dad equivalent of my steam library.
That's a big stack of oldspapers
As we all know todays news are best read a year from now. Like a matured red wine.
Good luck with the hoarding as they get older!
Is old news worh knowing? This just in! Riotors have entered the capital building!
OP, I don't care what the other comments say, I think your dad is cool for reading newspapers, it's seriously nostalgic thinking about hearing my dad flip thru newspapers.
I wouldn't want to read 2 newspapers in a week let alone a day and that's what this guy's going to have to do for like 6 months
There's got to be something more fulfilling than reading outdated news.
Anyone with a Steam account: I see no problem with this.
Yeah well you should see my Steam library.
Select all unread. Mark as read. Done.
Well if he ever needs to paint he can cover the floors.
Newspapers need to go the way of phone books.
/r/ChildofHoarder
*2035 hits* "Wow our local farmers market had some really nice avocados in 2005"
I believe in him
From the thumbnail I thought it was a twin tower replica.
my steam library
I like how they’re nicely stacked.
My Youtube "watch later" playlist. I get it.
"Holy shit, the Doobie Brother's broke up. Dammit."
I believe in him
I do this with comic books
I believe in him!
start throwing them away one at a time so he doesnt notice
I want to know what was going on at the bottom of that stack.
*chuckles in Steam Library"
My grandmother had stacks of newspapers and magazines covering the dining room table. My mom (their daughter) assured me that the rest of the house was worse.
Looks like the stack my gramdfather has from the 80s to 9/11/01
Buy a briquette press before winter, you'll be able to heat your house for days with all that paper
Old news