Me and the Collyer Brothers

Homer Lusk Collyer (November 1881- March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 1885 -March 1947) were two brothers who became famous because of their reclusiveness, filth and compulsive hoarding.. The brothers are often cited as a paradigmatic example of compulsive hoarding associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as disposophobia,  or Collyer Brothers Syndrome, a fear of throwing anything away. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby-traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders. Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over one hundred tons of junk that they had amassed over several decades.  That's one of their more navigable rooms pictured to the left.

In total, police and workmen took 103 tons of garbage out of the house. What was salvageable from it fetched less than $2,000 at auction; the cumulative estate of the Collyer brothers was valued at $91,000, of which $20,000 worth was in the form of personal property (jewelry, cash, securities and the like). Eventually the house was torn down as a fire hazard.

On April 8, 1947 (15 days after the search and excavation of the house began), workman Artie Matthews found the dead body of Langley Collyer just ten feet from where Homer had died. A suitcase and three huge bundles of newspapers covered his body. Langley had been crawling through their newspaper tunnel to bring food to his paralyzed brother when one of his own booby traps fell down and crushed him. Homer, blind and paralyzed, starved to death several days later.

The foregoing are selections from the disturbing full story at Wikipedia.

The Collyer boys have been on my mind for the past few days.  I have a tendency to be a bit of a packrat, and not the best housekeeper on the block.  Since I started my latest mania I haven't done a thing to my condo in the way of cleaning.  It's not yet a Superfund site, nor are Haz-Mat spacesuits necessary to enter.  The cat box is cleaned scrupulously (because if I don't, they tend to express their displeasure in the most obvious way on the carpet), the trash is taken out, and I've stopped my subscription to the newspaper, so no towers of newsprint threaten me.  Dishes aren't a problem, because I've temporarily abandoned cooking anything more complex than a microwave diet dinner or a sandwich, and I'm using paper plates.  I'm at least that realistic about my inaction on the Good Housekeeping Seal Approval front.  Still, no dusting, no vaccuming, no straightening, the pile of mail on my dining room table is taking on the appearance of a scale model of Everest, and my laundry has been limited to picking one load at a time out of the hamper (and the pile next to it) to get me to the next week.  The worst example is my craft/computer room, where I've been spending most of my time lately.

I have been filling in the gaps of my necessary (if only in my diseased mind) supplies to becoming an online art entrepreneur.  I do love shopping.  Especially online.  I posted about this earlier.  Between eBay, other mail-order purchases, and the occasional trip to a thrift or craft store, and my lack of attention to keeping things perfectly organized even before I started the website, the room was starting to look a bit Collyer-esque.  Added to the art supplies are organizational purchases from Office Depot and elsewhere to get the room in order -- files, craft storage boxes with little compartments, etc.  Yesterday I had a burst of energy, rolled up my sleeves and started in.  Armed with my label-maker, I began at the bookshelf and armoire, containing books for reference, books for altering, books for ripping stuff out of.  Also there are scrapbooks, completed and in progress, a bazillion photos -- both mine and family inheritances, paper goods and miscellaneous embellishments.  I intend to set up a system that I can keep up to date and that will make my creative process smooth. 

The process of organization starts with sorting stuff into categories.  And subcategories.  The heirarchical decisions are endless -- does this Christmas card vintage image of cats frolicking in the snow belong in the Christmas pile, the animal pile, or the vintage pile, of loose collage images I'm filing by theme?  After a few hours, I made a serious vow never to buy anything again.  A few hours after that, I nearly threw a lit match on all the little piles just to be done with it.  Today, refreshed, I'm digging in again.  There's an amazing amount of crap.  That's the danger of collage/altered/assemblage/found art.  Anything and everything is, in theory, useable.  I am so accquisitive that I take home every rusty bottlecap and magazine clipping.  In time, unchecked, I would be found in a few years, crushed under a pile of "art" supplies.  With the Collyer Brothers as a cautionary tale, I really, really, really, intend to get this under control.  Now.

Evidence of the work in progress:

sorting ephemera, photos, images

destinations for said junk:

Light a candle, say a prayer.  I haven't even gotten to the new shipment of acrylic paint.

Comments

[Blage]

Yes, I struggle with too much stuff as well. Still have boxes from my mothers house and grandmother's house from when they passed away almost three years ago. Have gotten much better at getting rid of clothes though. Good luck. Will light a candle.

[riannan]

I think you have a ways to go. Looks like comfortable clutter to me. Maybe I just want to believe that, as I look around me.

[Betty]

That's nothing. Just a little clutter. It actually looks pretty neat to me. You should see my place. It's borderline Collyer, a three story Victorian that's packed to the gills and in dire need of cleaning to boot. But even my heap doesn't compare to my mother's. She definitely has a severe obsessive compulsive disorder. She rented a huge office building downtown and filled it to the ceiling with junk. Everyone in town talks about "that crazy lady downtown."

[My Dum Luk]

My Dad has OCD hoarding...

Trying to get him to admit it is as far away as mars.

Add to the clutter a bunch of cats and dogs, yuck.

Have been helping him, but it's an emotional rollercoaster ride since he puts off all his paranoia, fear of the landlord/neighbors on me.

It's been tough on my family too since I come home late and snap at my wife. Reaching out for help was a good sign, but I wish he would just let me handle it and trust my judgment.

He'll pull a smelly rotten and torn stuffed animal back out of the trash and say I might want it for my kids or it could be donated to someplace that helps children.

He talks like he's sane most of the time except that he's BLIND to reality. He's gone around his neighborhood and trucked in all their disposed items and brought them inside. It's like Shallow Hal sees a hot chick in every ugly woman...he sees treasure in broken, rusty, torn and useless garbage.

I really don't see ANYTHING of value.

He is in denial of any disorder and just gets angry when I mention it and says I'm ignorant/naive. Says he's not unlike people who buy large quantities of items at Costco. Same story he doesn't have time, and that he was saving this or that for some reason he can't remember but he needs it and that he just needs to get a little more organized.

Says he keeps this stuff in case he needs it and that he can't afford to buy everything new, etc etc etc.

All his appliances are broken and rusted, the ceilings and some floors have water damage, no hot water or gas. No way to bathe himself, wash his clothes, or heat food. Lives off of cold canned food and candy bars.

He's dirty and stinks and never puts on the clothes I give him. I have to put a moving blanket over my seat just to take him to the store.

Sometimes when I call to check up on him he rips me with accusations of tipping of his landlord or authorities from some detached thought bouncing around is his maddened mind. It's tough to give what you can in help and support and get treated like crap and called an untrustworthy liar. I've backed off a bit since I get the clear picture he may not even remember what I'm doing to help and goes on the same rants and stories I've heard a thousand times.

Just sit there and take all his crap and jump to help him at a moments notice....but he's insane. What can you do?

There must be thousands like him out there.

I feel sorry for all the kids of OCD parents.

We've started purging all our collected junk since this whole thing sickens me so much. I want to shed every trace of the symptoms from my life for fear of becoming him.

Hope I can get through his head that he needs help and maybe there is even some benefits that could help him get the basic necessities.

Will be checking in for news and info on this condition.

Thanks for reading.

MDL

[I know what your going through]

I feel for you, been there done that. My Mom is now in the psychiatric unit in the hospital (hates me cause she thinks I put her there and she is perfectly normal) Lives like that most of my life. I am so sorry for you and all of us that have mentally ill family members to care for. May God give you strength and patience as he has me. God Bless IKWYGT

[J]

DUDE!

I am, and have been for weeks, prostrate on the sofa, overwhelmed with the enormity of sorting out all the detritus from the variety of events I've designed recently and my recent wedding show I produced. WHAT WAS I THINKING!

We renovated a '40s house last year and have very little room to move to begin with and the two of us are incredibly active people with WAY too many hobbies and not enough time. Reader, musician, photographer, knitter, event designer, painter, woodworker, and running a home-base office.

Add to that fun existence - I'm now 7 weeks pregnant and have the energy and usefulness of a chair with a broken seat.

I've been trying to bribe friends to just entertain me while I sort out the paraphernalia into recognizable categories so that I can move them out of the way to make room for shelving. I even rented a storage unit.

And yet, on my back I languish, completely unable to overcome the...what? I don't even know what's preventing me from getting to it! I even have a place to take these things! At least I got rid of the tradeshow sandwich board signage and six boxes of unused surveys...

Any tips on getting this 'dog' back to it's bowl?

[Kristian]

they are my idols.They are the greatest

[fragile industries]

Kristan, really? I think you have them confused with the Jonas Brothers. The Collyer Brothers weren't a rock band, they were OCD disasters whose craziness KILLED them. It's a real disease and not a lot of fun, as the foregoing comments illustrate. My heart goes out to anyone with this problem and their families, IKWYGT.