Hoarding

For the first time the other day I watched an entire episode of Hoarders. I had not done that before—typically I find it too disturbing to watch. But I made myself do it. I wanted to understand the addiction better. Even the show Intervention is less gruesome. Watching an addict stick a needle in their arm is unsettling, but seeing a family live in absolute filth is much more troubling.

Samantha was my first child to go off to college. And I was fortunate that my niece Sara was a year older than Sam-- Sara and my sister-in-law Jodi walked me through the entire college packing process. My niece even took me to Bed Bath and Beyond to advise me what containers to buy and how many space bags were needed. And Sam and I spent the better part of a month getting it all ready for school. Everything was well organized and labeled and color coded.  The Suburban and the Thule were fully packed.

We stayed in Bethlehem PA the night before moving Sam into her dorm room (she went to Lehigh). I didn’t want to worry about traffic on move-in day. I needed to be prompt. I needed to be there before the roommate and her family got there. So we arrived at 7:45 am-- her dorm opened at 8:00. I needed to get my princess the better side of the room and the better bed. I needed to wipe every single surface down with a Clorox wipe. And I wanted to get things setup as quickly as possible with maximum efficiency. I wanted to control everything that was within my power to control. Control gave me comfort. And my comfort gave Samantha comfort.

And when Samantha’s roommate showed up two hours after we had I couldn’t help noticing how unconcerned the family and her roommate were. All the girl’s clothes were thrown in a cardboard box unfolded. And the jeans and the tank tops and underwear were all mixed together. And her bedding was expensive but nowhere near the coordinated effort I had made. Samantha had a zippered case around the mattress then a mattress pad, then some memory foam and then a second mattress pad and then the sheets and comforter. And Sam had throw pillows and a reading pillow thing and an area rug so her foot could always touch something of her own. Sam’s roommate simply had a mattress pad, and a comforter set-- and they had purchased it all the day before. And the disorder and unconcern and lack of organization was a harbinger of the future maintenance of her roommate’s side of the room. Samantha’s side of the room looked like it had come out of an ad from PB Teen—her roommate’s—not so much.

When I went to pick Sam up for her October break, she warned me that while she had cleaned up her side of the room, her roommate had not. And she wasn’t kidding. All the roommate’s clothes—clean and dirty were piled on and were hanging off of her bed. I mean all of them. And her roommate had an extensive wardrobe. One could not even see the bedding let alone the bed. Her dresser had so much spilled contact solution on it that all her other toiletries were permanently affixed to the surface. And there was a vase of flowers that was not just dead, it was putrefying-- the water was brownish green and the flower stems were rotting—disintegrated. It stunk. And there were also empty bags of food and wrappers left in between the clean and dirty clothes. The mess extended to exactly one half the room. And the multiple half-drunk cups of coffee had layers of mold floating on top. There was not an available space on her desk. And of course there was the ever present stench of old beer.

The good news for Samantha was her roommate’s side was so filthy that her side looked pristine. Samantha’s bed was made (lumpy but made) and the clothes were in her drawers and closet. Things were not house-tour worthy but they could never be construed as an health hazzard. Her side of the room was “normal” dirty. I did not have to worry that vermin and dead cats were creeping under the covers.

The state of Sam’s roommate’s room is not unique in college. I have personally witnessed it with friends of Briana and Kara too. In fact Briana’s downtown house at Bucknell was nicknamed     “Blackfoot”---it described what happened to your feet if you walked barefoot through it. I doubt these students are hoarders but one can see how a disease like that can quickly progress.  Like hoarders, the dorm room mess becomes so extreme that the students become desensitized to it.  And it becomes so overwhelming that they do not know where to begin even if they want to clean it up. And the negative cycle perpetuates itself. It is why I think Universities very smartly do not allow students to reside in the same room for 4 years. When the year is over—everything must be moved out. And the room is sanitized and painted. And it is a good thing. Imagine if they didn’t? A parent like me would have to pack at least a case of Clorox wipes—and my Suburban was already over capacity as it was.