killer documentary. loved it.

Amazing, powerful piece. Suddenly, most of our lives don't seem so bad.

Great film.

check out my Channel: vimeo.com/channelMPH
There are some older films up there.
I am now using FCP 6 and it works very well.

Fantastic piece. Nice job.

very engaging and informative......I can recognise some of the same traits...in me.......whoa

Great documentary. I've been able to control my buying habits and such over the last 5 years and make a path to a more minimalist lifestyle. Ebay is a savior when it comes to parting with stuff. Receiving a monetary reward for "unpacking" is very therapeutic. I was amazed when the woman said she went back into the trash to fetch something she thought she shouldn't have thrown away. I deeply feel for these people, and it's very brave that they can talk about it on camera.

Good Job.

Nice piece very shocking. I now see why my wife does her nut at my ever expanding record collection!

Got the link from getrichslowly.org/blog

Hope to catch some more of these sorts of documentaries.

Wonderful job. I'm a depressed packrat myself, and I felt that you covered the gravity of the problem while still being sympathetic. I particularly identified with the last person, because my messiness also worsened when my mother passed away.

I know these people because I am one myself....and so is my mother.
I am here if anyone needs to relate or ask question about this issue. I've lived like this for almost my entire lifetime and I am 32 now.This film really helps me in that I don't feel so "Outcasted" and some friends have watched it and suddenly have a new look on me. I do have other issues as well that are related...

Thank you so much for making the film (I wish I was there when u filmed as an aid)
And the director if you'd like more info please feel free to contact me.

Frightening, and very well done. Will definitely show it to my friends. Got the link from metafilter.com

At 14:49 it froze. Annoying. Not your fault Martin. Mine. Not enough RAM space here I'm afraid. And think: On line via usb/via wireless card/router down stairs and a ways a way. I got your link via: TMN. The Morning News. I'm an rss of theirs.
This place I live in. It's a mess too. This video, the things it reminds me of. Can't get rid of it. Emotional attachment. How am I going to clear out my storage place? How am I going to clean and keep clean my rooms? And then, too clean? Yes, important subject. Well done my friend. Well done. Good for you. Well done!!

Great to see syllogomania being acknowledged. Good job.

Wow. Well done. A fascinating glimpse into private worlds in disarray. I'm going to go straighten up my living room now.

Excellent! I look forward to more of your work Mark.

I do hope that some of the people in the documentary are seeking help. If not you, Mark, someone closed to them should try to help them seek emotional support. I'm sure it is partly the crafty film-making and clever editing, but their problems seem to lie deeper than that of hoarding.

(I've come via BoingBoing.)

Thank you. This was disturbing and fascinating. I was interested by how clearly each of these individuals could talk about what they were doing. How self-aware they were in their hoarding (whilst not being happy with it). Somehow this has reinforced to me that my being really quite self-aware about my clutter doesn't actually get rid of it either.

I have been gently and slowly clearing and cleaning things in my flat over the last couple of weeks (prompted by my boyfriend, now ex, moving out). I think I will use this documentary as a springboard to do more. I too have often had dreams over the years of a minimalist bedroom with a curtain blowing freely in the breeze.

I'm going to be thinking about this for a while. (I have felt very strange and malformed w.r.t. the clutter and dirt I live in. It *is* good to know I'm not alone, nor even as "bad" as other people.)

Found you via BoingBoing

Thanks for that. I think that I've always had borderline packrat tendencies, and was distressed to realize that I had almost as many books as the first guy (should I be worried that I found him pretty normal?)
The other three, on the other hand, scared me. And I felt overwhelmingly sorry for them. I hope that they will be able to get help and become happier about who they are.

Wow -- nice job on the film! (I followed a link from boingboing.) My mother is a hoarder, and I've only recently become aware that the mountains of stuff that surround her are, in fact, evidence of an illness and not "just her." It's still shocking to see other houses that look like what I grew up with -- the book guy was especially familiar; unfortunately, so was the lady who kept all the empty bottles. My mother has always said she was "saving" things -- from the landfill, so they could be used later, what have you -- but once in her possession, the stuff just decays until it's unusable, because she has too much to take care of any of it. Thank you so much for allowing the humanity of your subjects to come across, and for spreading awareness without judgement. (And thanks for the links -- I sent 'em to my sister, since we both fight the urge to hoard on a daily basis.) Good work!

Excellent work. I was surprised that most of the people you show were very acute with their descriptions of themselves and their problem. Being self-aware enough to be able to describe their internal motivations, past relationships (especially with parents) and other factors means that these people have been contemplating their issue for a while. I guess that makes sense, since they probably contacted you so that you were able to interview them, but I'm very curious to know how the people processed this and for how long. I find myself really wanting to understand the steps they've been taking from point-of-realization to admittance.

Great piece! I actually followed the link from BoingBoing as well. Also, great work with the type.

Wow. My mother... she does this. It was so hard to live with. I was so relieved when they sold their home. I was always afraid I'd be left to deal with it.

Thank you so much for making this documentary. I am a videographer/editor with this problem. Because I live with a family, my clutter is limited to certain areas of the house, but it's always creeping out. If I lived alone, I'm sure my house would look like what you see in this film. But my wife just keeps carrying the stuff I try to leave around back into my office.

The worst thing for someone with this form of OCD is Amazon and overnight shipping. And the iTunes Music Store. And credit cards.

I didn't know that all of the things I struggle with personally had an underlying thread: OCD. Thanks again for posting this documentary. I am going to call a therapist today and start ridding my life of clutter. Your film helped me understand that I'm not alone, and that there's a way out. By the way, I found your film via boingboing.net. And, as a further aside, it does look amazing. I love the close-up of the man's eyes. That was very moving.

I am intimately familiar with a living situation such as this - it strongly affected my soon-to-be-ex-wife and is, in fact, among the main reasons why we separated a year and a half ago and will soon be divorced. As we see from this brief documentary, knowing that one's hoarding is a serious problem does little to help. In fact, it seems to me that it almost makes things worse because the self overlays all of this highly depressing visual clutter with a tremendous guilt at "one's own weakness" for allowing it to have taken such a hold.

In our home, things kept a sort of equilibrium for quite a long time while we still had room to store things (we tended to collect small things) - but then my wife's mother died. One day not long thereafter (and without asking me if I had an opinion on the matter), my wife rented a moving truck and, with the help of two movers, relocated the entire contents of her mother's house (furniture and all) to our house. Furthermore, my mother-in-law was quite a collector herself. In fact, she had a phrase to refer to any one of the vast number of little collectibles that she would buy: "Hyacinths for the soul". Our home went from very cluttered to well-nigh uninhabitable in a very short period of time; we went from having significant floor space in our home (we actually used to have our band rehearsals there) to navigating ever-narrowing footpaths between ever-growing piles of stuff. At first I was gentle and solicitously concerned, but as time went on and our home became more of a disaster area I became more impatient and more vocal and vehement about dealing with the clutter. It took the joy from our lives and isolated us. We gradually ceased having visitors over (except for a small core of maybe three or four people who knew about the problem), and we completely ceased having strangers over. I managed to live in the whirlwind for two entire years after my mother-in-law's possessions entered it. Finally, I could tolerate it no longer and moved out.

I have been back a few times to gather up a few little things I had left behind but, looking at the house now, my wife's clutter has mushroomed to such an extreme extent that it's impossible to tell that an entire other person and his own collection of clutter once inhabited the space as well. She acknowledges that it's a serious problem but, because of her depression she is unable and/or unwilling to do anything about it. For a very long time, I offered to help her clear it out (or at least start to organize it), but she doesn't want my help - she has to do it all by herself and she's just not yet able to deal with it. I only hope that she can find some help before she accidentally burns the place down. I think that, given her choice, she'd prefer to keep everything but to keep it in some orderly way with vast rooms full of shelving and boxes or something.

If nothing else, having to watch this terrible thing overtake our lives managed to cure my own cluttered tendencies before they got similarly out of control. When I moved out I trashed, sold, or gave away the vast majority of my own collections and I now understand how liberating it can feel to no longer be so "buried in treasures". This last phrase was the name of a useful book on hoarding which I read and then gave to my wife. She read it, admitted that the problems it describes fit her perfectly........ and then went right back to sleep on the couch amidst the mountains of irrelevant wealth which imprison her.

May she soon find peace and contentment.

Excellent film, Martin. The film looks beautiful, which only enhances the complex subject matter. What type of camera are you shooting on?

Very powerful. I recogize myself here but thankfully have not gotten to this point. My gramma (who raised me) also is here, she was raised during the depression when nothing was thrown away. I can especially relate to the lady who talks about memories being attached to things. I have been working on letting go but still have a lot of work to do. I got the link from the Long Beach freecycle cafe group.

Wow. Incredible film. Great job. So sad. And scary as I look at the few piles of stuff that I have been meaning to get to, but haven't. I saw the link to this film on the apartment therapy website.

Also, I found Robert Moore's post a few above mine very touching and sad. I hope your wife finds peace too.

I have dealt with and am still dealing with a parent who is a hoarder, sometimes I think I should write a book on the experience of moving her into a room of our house and downsizing from an acre of land and 4 bedroom home. Thank you for showing some people who are self aware of the compulsion that drives them to collect material things, and drive away family and freinds

Just watching this gave me the feeling of intense frustration. This link was sent to me by my friend's husband who lives perched on the end of his their bed with his lap top. There isn't any room for him in their apt. She can't part with a friggen paper clip!
This film wouldn't phase her.
Is this a brain dissorder???
Or is it just living in fear of letting go?

Brilliant, love the simplicity of the shots in contrast to the complexity of the people. Makes me think of how much stuff we throw out every day, how much can this planet take? Found you on vimeo.

Powerful--stunning--shocking--and terribly terribly sad. Your film has made a real impact on me and I am resolved to respect what I have and to learn what is enough.

paradoxically the footage is as gorgeous as the settings are squalid -- I think this subtly suggests why some psyches might be so attracted to say, empty shampoo bottles. They're beautiful, aren't they?

Beautifully shot and edited. This is a vice that I don't think most people even think about, myself included.

Excellent work.

I seem to run across these types more frequently than most. Perhaps because I'm aware of the potential in myself so I'm super vigilant against it to the point I'm almost rabid about throwing things away. I've seen it take over my brother's life, my mother's life, and two of my girlfriends and it terrifies me so I become kneejerk in the other direction. I've tried to help both my girlfriends clean up, one when she left me as a housesitter, I tried to surprise her by having everything organized and spotless when she returned by ohmygod was she mad at me. I think it even eventually destroyed our relationship even though all I did was clean and not throw anything away except broken plastic pieces and paper trash. I agree with one of the other comments that said a film like this wouldn't phase them. In fact they would even become defensive and more secretive. And I know the compulsion to purchase is in every American. We're always told to buy buy buy. But to hoard takes it one step further and it is a real sickness. Looking at all the mold and dust in that last guy's flat was just too much. It almost made me physically ill to think of living in that filth.

I linked here from Unclutterer. I found this film very moving and troubling. I'm currently trying to change my hoarding habits, and reduce my own clutter, but nothing like this overwhelming scale. Thank you for highlighting this issue

Absolutely inspired. (And like Denise, I'm coming from Unclutterer too. lol)

I found this through a comment board on SFGATE.com. Like some others I see some of these tendencies in myself.

Hi, Martin: THANK YOU! Found this through health.groups.yahoo.com/group/O-H-T/, where "OHT" stands for "Overcoming Hoarding Together," an online support group for family and friends of hoarders (I guess you could call us "HoardAnon"). Like others, I found this beautifully done -- especially NON judgmental -- and profoundly sad. My dad was a hoarder; so are my younger brother and sister. I find it helps to see this as a condition (maybe curable); disrupted decision making and obsessive thoughts: awareness can lead to a way out, but it takes time and is not easy.

Beautifully filmed and I appreciate your sensitivity towards your subjects. Looking forward to viewing your other videos.

My grandmother was doing things like this before we put her into an assisted living home. I never want to have to clean like that again.

I found this movie on Unclutterer. I worry about my own tendencies, and I think this runs in my family...at least it affects two uncles pretty badly. I felt like crying while I watched it. It's just such an overwhelming, debilitating situation. I'm glad these people are part of a support group so they know they're not alone.

I found it on Unclutterer also. My mother and father both hoard. One brother and I always try to talk to them about it but they are completely in denial, always have been. It began as collecting antique McCoy pottery and they kept branching out into other things. Then as time went on they stopped getting rid of trash. We kids just know we are going to have a hard time ofthe cleaning when the parents die. We grieve now for all the things they cannot do because of their problems. I remember visiting relatives whose homes looked the places in the film. It is/was all hush-hush in the family about this problem.

I see this problem in a friend of mine also. She is broke but she has made over $150,000 a year that she has spent on stuff that she tries to store. She has moved a few times and family came in and rented dumpsters to clean out her house each time. Its like she knows, and leaves, so that somebody can fix the situation, but she recreates the problem all over again. Any attempt to make her conscious of it just makes her defensive.

Jason Scott's weblog, ASCII links here - I'm sure you'll will be getting quite a bit of traffic from there :) This subject is fascinating, and it's good that you didn't "sweeten it up" any but let these people speak for themselves.

The last guy in the film made me cry. I'm so close to being like him, that it scares me. My place is also cluttered to the point that it is unsafe and unhealthy. I can't manage my possessions - there are things under my bed, within inches of me, that I haven't seen in several years. I have nightmares about people taking my books. I live in fear of being homeless because no one wants to live with me. I live with family right now, but if something happens to them I may not be able to make it alone.

Your documentary captured the hopelessness of our situation, but not the hell of it. It really is a living hell - to know you have such potential, to have everything you need to make your dreams come true at your fingertips and just not be able to grasp it, or master it. Trying to find a place big enough to lie down and sleep. Ruining things I love and paid good money for. Running as fast as I can and still falling farther behind. It's an important subject. Thanks for addressing it. If I can be of any help, feel free to contact me.

I wish so much that I could show this to my mother, but all she'd see is the trash and the dirt instead of the underlying problem. She's a "clean" hoarder, who feels that because her floors are mopped and vacuumed and her (cluttered) counters are wiped off that being messy is no big deal. And she thrifts and shops like mad for beautiful things, and she has lovely taste and a great eye for a bargain, but you can only have so many antique dressers and secondhand cashmere sweaters and Madame Alexander dolls at cut-rate prices before you're buried. Her house looks like Miss Havisham's, down to the cobwebs in the corners.

But it runs in our family too -- great-grandmother was a depression survivor, grandma has freezers stocked full of rotting food, aunts on both sides root through piles to find things, just like my sister. When I was a teenager I liked the clutter too -- clothes covering the bed, magazine pages and posters on every inch of the walls, nail polish all over the dresser -- and in college I was the same way. Now I can't get rid of enough stuff, and I married someone who's a bit of a hoarder himself. The only things I feel OK about are the books (4 neatly organized [if crammed] shelves), the DVDs (cases tossed and the discs in CD binders; TV boxsets on shelves), and the music (also on shelves). In some ways I'm grateful for my family being crazy, because it inspires me to keep getting rid of more and more things of the stuff I keep for sentimental value, for fitting into when I lose weight, because it's cute, because I might need it "some day" etc & etc. I just wish I could give that feeling back to them.

hi martin and others.

i found the documentary via apartmenttherapy.com because i wondered if the apartment therapy web site was just fun stuff (fluff) for people who are already minimalists or if it had what i would think of as 'substance.' so i did a search for hoarding on the site and came up with your doc.

i'm working on some of these hoarding problems, myself, and could relate to the documentary very much. it is hard to pinpoint a catalyst that makes a person able to change. i briefly dated someone who was appalled by my apartment (mostly boxes, floor-to-ceiling), and who questioned me about it, asking if it was 'compulsion.' i had never thought of it that way, so i ordered some workbooks about compulsive hoarding from oxford university press. this was recently and i am 34; i've been a hoarder (ascribing meaning to objects that have no value to others such as: things found on the street, papers, doodles, grocery lists, ticket stubs, you name it) my whole life, it seems. i have a stable family of origin (though i have to say they are frugal...) and have been in two long-term relationships in which i lived with each person and made that person mental with all my "stuff." one of those significant others has since passed away, and i learned what real loss is, with his passing.

at this point, for me, what helps is: taking this problem seriously, giving myself -time- to find ways that are acceptable to ME of parting with belongings, me aging (and how aging changes one's perspective about what is -really- important), taking breaks when i'm working on purging my belongings because it is a very emotional and draining thing to try to do, and so on. it takes time. i've stopped being away from my home the majority of the time and have finally started tackling the problem. it's not exactly fun but i am starting to feel as if i have an iota of control over my stuff and i am starting to feel more self-respecting. like one of the gentlemen in the film, i also have several 'spaces,' including a storage space. so genuinely working on my apartment is just the beginning, for me.

i agree that grief and depression and anxiety can have a big part in this. they each tend to be debilitating, at times. but i want to say that i do think little by little we can chip away at the issue, or with serious on-site help (with a trained therapist who comes to a person's house, which i've never tried), bigger strides can be made.

i used to think that i was only an artist because i 'had' all of these neat multiples of things (like the woman in your film) but an artist can have everything stripped of him or her, and still be an artist. i really used to think that my things were what made me different and special, in a good way. but now that i have some perspective on it, i see that the ways in which a person is different and special have nothing to do with their 'Objets.' to anyone who reads this who wants to pare down, just keep trying again and again, try to find out a bit more about your own psychology, and know that there are resources out there for you. certain antidepressants are thought to help with the compulsion, but i have not tried any.

it's amazing how this subject is coming to the fore. i know that this problem has caused me to push other people away and has inflicted people around me (including me) with quite a bit of stress. i think we can change our habits without extinguishing this light that humans have, inside, but we need new behavior, first. i've stopped crying when something gets broken or i have to throw something out, or i lose something. i've changed the way i look at it but the new perspective was actually -because- i lost bigger things in my life that weren't objects; they were people. it's hard, but it can be done, and it can liberate us. i'm just beginning so really i don't know anything but i'm trying, IN EARNEST, for the first time in my life, after saying i would, for many many years.

martin, thank you for your film.

Hi - I found this through today's Guardian (Weekend/This Column Will change Your Life). Well done on the power and sensitivity. There but ........ so this is a good wake up call that things should get better, not worse. Emerge, not submerge! Keep up the good work.

Martin, this is a wonderful and very moving film (I too found it via Oliver Burkeman's column in the Guardian). I'm lucky to be at the milder end of this spectrum, but I can relate to the extreme. For me, I've gradually starting overcoming the 'need' to buy new things; and I'm working to break the tyranny of thinking I need to keep lots of things 'just in case they're ever useful'.

That said, it would be very interesting to see a film about people who are obsessively tidy, too. (Someone once lectured me 'a tidy desk is a tidy mind' - but it could be a rigid and uncreative one too.)

That was beautifully crafted (shot, edited) and remarkably sensitive to the subjects. Well done!

a fascinating and very informative film. I am a second year illustration student and have just written my own brief on pretty much the same subject – Obsessive collectors and hoarders. I also discovered your film through Oliver Burkeman's column and see some of the issues of the people featured in the film in myself. That was one of the reasons why I decided to look into this sad but interesting disorder. A great film

I am a total neat freak and my uncle has only plucked up the nerve to send me this link to this..... Whilst concerned at the idea of this, I was very moved by this wonderfully sensitive approach to a real problem and these bravely honest people... My heart goes out to all people featured especially "the book guy". Why? Because he is my much loved Uncle John!

They showed this film at the ICA last week and I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the way that you had each of the characters just as a voiceover to begin with, so we had no idea what they looked like. I also liked the way they seemed so normal, yet so odd. Very powerful.

This is a very moving film. I recall an abandoned house in Forest Gate in the 1980s that my mate and I sneaked into. It was wall to wall with some old guy's stuff, including dozens of pairs of brand new black shies, sadly none of which fit us. How did you determine at the length, 21 mins, and how you dealt with audio of your interview questions?

My dad is clearly a hoarder and I see some tendencies in myself. What do you think about going the opposite way--being obsessed with getting rid of possessions. It seems like another side of the same coin to me, which I find worrisome, because I have strong anti-hoarding behaviors and I often find myself looking for (obsessing over?) things to give away. So: is that hoarding or not?

My paternal grandparents and father all had varying levels of the problem. They lived through the Depression. He had their immediate example. Me, I never lived in one place longer than six months from age eighteen to age thirty. From age twenty-nine to age thirty-six I traveled seventy-five to ninety percent of the time for work. This made few, high-quality, versatile, and portable possessions important. If I couldn't bring it with me, I effectively didn't have it and might as well not own it.

Others charitably called my life-style "sparse."

great documentary. bravo

I found this site through Unclutterer.com As I watched the video I got that "uh Oh" feeling. Just looking at my desk right now, I am well on my way to being like that first person with all the books.

The trouble is, I am overwhelmed by paper as a teacher. There is stuff I have to have on a daily basis, reams of information to process each year for committees, the administrative missives, credential documents, special education student records, updated and original lesson materials, continuing education records, materials received from workshops and conferences, household records, investments, reference materials. It all seems important. Some stays at school. Some gets toted back and forth and some sits in my home.

I spent literally my entire summer break purging my resource notebooks and got down to about 30 large binders which are stuffed to the gills. I recycled several carloads of paper.

After 20 years of teaching you would think I should know what I use and what I don't use. The trouble is partly that I don't know if I will need the material some year when they tell me I am switching grade levels or if the state curriculum changes and I go from needing materials on physics to a unit on oceans. This happens on a fairly regular basis.

It's not like I am saving empty toilet paper rolls. Oh yes, I AM saving them! I have a cabinet at school loaded with coffee cans, egg cartons and cardboard rolls. I often access that for labs and storage (mineral collections in egg cartons for each lab group, for instance). Yes, I also spend a lot of my own money on supplies and equipment.

I used to have a small barn at home with tote bins of my stuff. My current classroom has most of the seashell/mineral/activity book stuff. This year one person in my department had to travel and had no permanant classroom. I threatened to quit if they did that to me!

Times are always tough in public schools. I keep papers from the recycling bin to print on the blank sides. Still, I end up throwing away dumpster loads of stuff. The digital camera has allowed me to take pictures of good science projects and send the display boards to the garbage.

I have a scanner for digitalizing my collection of 4000 slides to be used in my classroom. Can I throw away the slides or can I trust the technology? Arizona heat is making that decision for me. The slides are degrading.

Now take this problem and double it. My husband is also a teacher of the same subject. He is working on a masters degree and had another career from which he saved materials. He has an even larger collection of resource books and several file cabinets in the garage. His struggle with depression keeps him from purging either.

I don't think there is a particular place on the internet to discuss teacher-clutter. The closest thing I can compare it to is the scrapbookers who save anything they can use to decorate their creative pages and end up with entire rooms full of (beautifully organized) materials that cost a fortune.

Just came across this. It's beautifully done - great filming, and your sympathy to the subjects is really touching. Thanks.

do you know Alan Zweig's documentary "Vynil" (2000), about collectors of vynil records? Check it out, I think you will enjoy it.

cheers,

Ricardo

Now I have seen my future and I know I have to change it.

Last week I used the term "Hoarder" to describe myself for the first time in almost 40 years. I know I have a problem now. A real problem. It's always been there, but I guess I haven't. The day I blocked the front door I realized this was just too much. I had an impromptu garage sale---sold very little. My thrift shop to which I donate just happens to be closed for repainting and re-stocking this week. I am finally ready to part with stuff, and I hit this wall. Will I still be able to do it next week?

What to do? I know all the psaychology behind it; I've read all the self help books; I know the techniques, what to say to myself when I have to make a decision on what to do with something in my hand RIGHT NOW. Yet I still have to clear paths for my kids to play, tables for the family to eat on, doorways and staircases to avoid the firetrap and trip hazard zone we are living in.

I tell my kids, "What is the worst thing that could happen if you give that toy away?" On the occasions that I am patient and understanding, they eventually understand and part with it. Then I keep it in a box in the garage, thinking one day they will love it again, after a long absence. Or perhaps it's because I am not ready to part with it, even though they made the leap. I am the baby in turn.

Perhaps I need to write this all out more often. I remember that my therapist has told me to journal as a release. If only I knew someone would read it. If you are reading this, thank you. If you'd like to start a dialogue or know of where I can join one, please email me at 14shopping@comcast.net.

I won't leave with "Happy Hoarding!" That would be truly morbid. May you discard in peace.

Ciao
C-

PS-- I must now copy this and save it. Just in case.

Amazing documentary. Moving, disturbing. Perfect title: "Possessed" ('the stuff you possess... possesses you')

Good film. I myself have many magazines, computers and soft toys which I find impossible to get rid of.
The toys and computers appeal to me in ways I can't describe. It's like throwing them out will somehow upset them. Deep down I know they're not people and they can't feel like that, but it's nigh on impossible to throw one away/give it to someone.
The magazines are things like music magazines, mensa magazines, history magazines, and then some catalogues of music and clothes, furniture... I keep them because I have just this feeling which goes against any logic, that someday I will need to read them again or refer to them somehow.
The space I'm sitting in has paper covering the floor and stacks of magazines. If I put my feet down, I stand on clutter. The only clear places I have are my bed and the path to my door.
So I can empathise with the people in the film greatly, even if my hoarding hasn't quite got so bad yet.

This is just excellent. I know a family that is exactly like this.

Especially @12:39 thats just obsessive