Seen Any Hoarders Out There On A Cruise?

[SargassoPirate]

Just finished watching a couple of episodes of "Hoarders" on TV and was wondering if people with a hoarding disorder would ever cruise and if so, what would they hoard during the cruise? Then, what would they do with their hoard when they disembark?

[aohkay]

I wouldn't think that they'd venture very far from home. This would be a terrible disease to have.

[peacebeach]

Maybe they would hoard food items from the buffet and stack them up in their room?:)

[Keith1010]

What is the hoarders episode about.

[bluehenfan]

I don't know about hoarders at sea, but the little town I live in has the dubious "honor" of having had 2 different residents featured on TV shows about hoarding!! LOL!!

 

The closest I've seen to hoarding on board was when I cruised with a friend of mine from work. She saved every paper she saw. I can understand her saving the FunTimes, but every spa ad, jewelry sale ad, every brochure,etc. She carried off a plastic grocery bag of useless paper at the end of our cruise.

[chipq]

Specialty dink glassware and the buffet trays. This is where all the trays went.

 

 

http://luv2cruise.blogspot.com

[cb at sea]

One of our employees is a hoarder....it's a horrible condition. We have to keep after him to clean up his area ALL the time....usually takes 3-4 warnings...

We know his home is a disaster....it truly is a sickness.

 

In one week, I can't imagine there is enough on a ship to "hoard"...if they can afford to cruise, I doubt there is a problem.

[Lady Chew]

On the longer cruises we've taken, I've seen some cabins that look as though someone in there is a hoarder. Suitcases, bags, clothes, food of all kinds, covering every possible surface, hardly any space for walking. There are bags of trash (plastic shopping bags with food wrappers, etc) around ... pretty yucky. I'd say these folks are just slobs, but one of my sons is a slob, and these cabins make him look like Felix Unger.

[kitty9]

A few years ago, a woman who was cruising one of the upscale, luxury lines was found to have a lot of the ship's china, flatware and glassware hidden under her bed. I'm not talking one or two of each, but 8 or 9 of each. She was asked to leave the ship and not return.

[Suitcasefull]

I wouldn't think that they'd venture very far from home. This would be a terrible disease to have.

 

Hoarders can leave home; many function well away from their houses (or wherever the hoard it) and live "normal" lives when not around it.

 

and cb

Hoarding is not a finance-specific problem. Rich, poor, in-between all can be affected (although perhaps those with money hoard more expensive items)

[ChevyCruiser]

I was a collector for years, old tools, books, car magazines, movie memorabilia, and more. I wouldn't say hoarder because I also have OCD tendancies and everything was organized and nicely stored. At one point I had 25 boxes of old car magazines dating to the early 1960s.

 

Then, I took a five-week motorcycle trip and lived off the bike with only what I could carry. Sometime into the third week I realized that, at that moment, the only possessions I had in the world was with me on the motorcycle and I didn't really need all that stuff back home.

 

I started ebaying and giving some things away and now someone else is storing all that stuff. I was amazed how free I feel without all that stuff that I had been saving because it was worth something. Turns out most of it was worth something - to someone else.:cool:

[Krazy Kruizers]

So far I have not seen any hoarders on any of the cruises we have been on -- which is quite a few.

 

Have gone by cabins that looked like a bomb hit them. Those aren't hoarders -- they are just messy people -- slobs -- JMO.

[meggie711]

I was a collector for years, old tools, books, car magazines, movie memorabilia, and more. I wouldn't say hoarder because I also have OCD tendancies and everything was organized and nicely stored. At one point I had 25 boxes of old car magazines dating to the early 1960s.

 

Then, I took a five-week motorcycle trip and lived off the bike with only what I could carry. Sometime into the third week I realized that, at that moment, the only possessions I had in the world was with me on the motorcycle and I didn't really need all that stuff back home.

 

I started ebaying and giving some things away and now someone else is storing all that stuff. I was amazed how free I feel without all that stuff that I had been saving because it was worth something. Turns out most of it was worth something - to someone else.:cool:

 

My dad collected train everything. He has every Train magazine from the 70's until this year, when his subscription will expire. Trunks of trains. Bookcases full of train books & movies. Log books listing every train he has ever seen. He actually has a train room. He died in March of this year (still hard to believe), and we haven't ventured into the room much yet, as it still feels so new. I think we will be amazed when we see what all is in there.

[flamomo]

Several years ago I cruised with a friend who I didn't know was a hoarder until after she passed away. She packed 2 enormous suitcases, much of it stuff not needed for the cruise, and it took her till day 4 of a 14 day cruise to unpack and put her suitcases away. The cabin was in constant disarray, with her stuff scattered everywhere, including on my bed and nightstand at times. As someone else commented, she saved every bit of written material that showed up in our "mailbox" to bring home. Several times a day I had to waste my time tidying up the cabin because I could not stand the mess. Just about made me crazy, and I am not OCD!!

 

Lovely lady, dressed nicely, had her hair and nails done at the salon onboard, and was well traveled, well spoken, and very sociable.

 

It was only after she died a couple of years later, and her son asked me to help sort through her clothes and help him decide what to do with some of her "stuff", that I realized she was a hoarder. None of her friends had ever been invited inside her home, and never knew why, and I, as well as other friends, were shocked to find it crammed full with "things" she had been accumulating for years. As well, she was apparently a compulsive shopper, as there were lots of clothes still with price tags still on them, and many things still in the boxes they had been packaged in, and never used.

 

Sometimes, you think you know a person, and are amazed by what you eventually learn are their well hidden secrets.

[MrsPete]

Years ago -- my oldest child was an infant -- I had to help clean out the house of a hoarder. He was a distant relative, and none of us knew that he had this problem. Cleaning out the house was horrible: Boxes of empty candy wrappers. Really, who says, "I might need those!" Boxes of pocket knives, more canned food than anyone could use. At least he did use the toilet and didn't have animals.

 

Anyway, I knew this man for years and never had any indication that he had a problem. A hoarder's disease doesn't necessarily manifest itself in every aspect of the person's life: Many individuals, like this man I knew, are able to confine their illness to their own homes. At work (this man had a long career as an Air Force pilot) and out in public they look and behave just like everyone else. Often they know that their behavior is unacceptable, and in public they know how to hide it. They don't necessarily feel compelled to steal the silverware or buy out the tee-shirt store. They don't want every random item they see; they want specific categories of items, which mean something to them or things that they perceive as having value.

 

The man I knew was odd in other ways, which can be typical for a hoarder. For example, he was determined that my daughter was a boy. I'd dress her in little pink cordoroy overalls or cute little dresses, and he'd comment on MY odd choices, and he'd warn me that my boy was going to grow up girly. She has a common, feminine name, and he did call her by her name -- but somehow he was always convinced that she was really a boy. To the point that he gave her a football when she was a baby. My husband and I decided that we just had to ignore it. We saw him only occasionally at big family functions, so he wasn't around enough to do any damage to our child.

 

He was also excessively cheap. I don't mean frugal. When his wife was dying, he wouldn't buy her simple things that would've provided comfort for her -- and he had money a-plenty -- so their daughter, their only child, took over and provided for her mother. In the end, that cost him his relationship with his daughter.

[ChevyCruiser]

My dad collected train everything. He has every Train magazine from the 70's until this year, when his subscription will expire. Trunks of trains. Bookcases full of train books & movies. Log books listing every train he has ever seen. He actually has a train room. He died in March of this year (still hard to believe), and we haven't ventured into the room much yet, as it still feels so new. I think we will be amazed when we see what all is in there.

 

You are "sittin' on top a gold mine" as Grady used to say on Sanford and Son. There are other train enthusiasts out there who will love to bid on the stuff. When you are ready, check out ebay. I turned my collection into a 1960s-era Chevy that I was able to pay cash for from the proceeds. It's a lot more fun than looking at stacks of boxes of stuff.

[PennyAgain]

One of our employees is a hoarder....it's a horrible condition. We have to keep after him to clean up his area ALL the time....usually takes 3-4 warnings...

We know his home is a disaster....it truly is a sickness.

 

In one week, I can't imagine there is enough on a ship to "hoard"...if they can afford to cruise, I doubt there is a problem.

 

We had a hoarder as well and she got fired. Not only was her work area always a filthy mess, but so was she. She appeared to be fine when hired and had good references, but we wondered if they were eager to be rid of her. No, she didn't travel at all.

 

If something went missing around the office, likely it was in her work area or she'd taken it home. It is a very sad situation.

[Irishman45]

Just finished watching a couple of episodes of "Hoarders" on TV and was wondering if people with a hoarding disorder would ever cruise and if so, what would they hoard during the cruise? Then, what would they do with their hoard when they disembark?

 

I think they should send the "american pickers"-History channel guys into the hoarders homes have afew cross over episodes.

 

Hoarded items onboard: Daily papers, DOD cups, anything from the buffet or MDR place settings, towels, little bottles of shampoo and soaps (if the ship still uses them), beer bottle caps, casino chips, ash trays, drink coasters and anything else not tied down.

[RoofingPrincess]

One of the guys who works for my brother has this terrible problem.

I flew out to spend a week working on a Habitat for Humanity project with my brother and a bunch of his co-workers, including this guy.

Walking down the street to lunch one day with two of the guys, we went past a car that was filled with trash (food, wrappers, papers) up to the bottom of the windows, except for the driver's seat. I expressed my shock, and they replied, "Oh, that's Jack's car! He's been forbidden to park it in the lot at work..." (concerns about insects and vermin, not to mention the smell in the summer)

[SuitCaseBears]

We have a relative by marriage who's a semi-controlled hoarder. He would be in full hoarder mode if not for his wife. BUT when he travels he has a box or two (as much as she'll allow) of his "things" that he cannot be without for the week or two of their vacation.

 

The box has nothing that he needs for the vacation, and in fact is not even opened. It usually contains old magazines. But he just gets panicky about leaving his "things" so he takes the box- a symbol or small token of his things.

 

I think some things that look like hoarding, may be, as someone said, being a slob or being a kleptomaniac.

[geoherb]

DH is somewhat a hoarder. His biggest thing is trying to overpack--taking way more clothes than he can wear during the time we'll be gone. I've finally gotten him to pack a little less for cruises, especially when we're flying to the port. He is a lot worse when we go away for a weekend at the beach. He'll take six or seven shirts for a two-night vacation.

[jocap]

Sadly, a woman hoarder in the UK recently died of her problem, when there was a house fire. The firemen were unable to force a pathway through the crammed rooms to reach her in time. When the house was shown on TV, you couldn't see in any window, nor walk through the door because items were crammed tightly into every space....she must have had a crawl path somewhere through all the piles of stuff.

Jo.

[fleckle]

Okay, I confess that I was a cruise memorabilia hoarder when we first started cruising. I would save all those cruise papers, room key cards, the daily handouts they leave in your cabin with the activities for each day, invitations to special events, excursion brochures, names of officers, special menus, port handouts, etc.

 

In my first few years of cruising, I kept accumulating more and more bulky folders crammed with all that stuff.

 

After about 5 years, it dawned on me that I never looked at any of it and had no need for it. So I tossed about 95% of it, saving only a few things.

 

I miraculously cured my own addiction and do not need to attend Cruise Hoarders Anonymous meetings after all.

[Love.II.Cruise]

We had a family member that had a best friend that was a hoarder. Her house was beyond filthy. She had cats that did their business everywhere in the house. Unfortunately, this woman took her own life in front of our family member. Nearly everything was left to our family member and the effort it took to clean the home took a lot of work. Everything needed to be redone in the house to prepare for it to be sold and it took a long time to find a buyer since it had to be disclosed that someone died in the home.

 

This woman also had a condo that she did not live in. However, it was completely stock piled as if she was waiting for Peak Oil to hit and the bottom drop out in the world economy. She had calculated exactly how much toilet paper she would need (estimating she would live probably to be 100). She had everything you could imagine to survive for a very long time without grocery stores, handyman stores, etc. It was unbelievable. :eek:

[iheartbda]

One of our employees is a hoarder....it's a horrible condition. We have to keep after him to clean up his area ALL the time....usually takes 3-4 warnings...

We know his home is a disaster....it truly is a sickness.

 

In one week, I can't imagine there is enough on a ship to "hoard"...if they can afford to cruise, I doubt there is a problem.

 

Hoarding has NOTHING to do with what someone can or cannot afford. It crosses all socio-economic lines. There are all sorts of professionals, PHD's, lawyers, etc. who are hoarders.

 

Of course you'll never see this since you never post more than once on a thread.