What are the differences between collecting and hoarding? - seeking research participants 2 2

[batman_fan]

At a high level, I would say collectors tend to have the items organized and stored in a method to preserve the condition while a hoarder has no organization and lacks a storage method to preserve the condition.

Oh yeah, and then there is the cat feces. 

[oakman29]

3 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

At a high level, I would say collectors tend to have the items organized and stored in a method to preserve the condition while a hoarder has no organization and lacks a storage method to preserve the condition.

Oh yeah, and then there is the cat feces. 

My obsessive compulsive behavior keeps me from hoarding, everything has to be neat and clean.

[piper]

Was Church a collector or hoarder?

[thehumantorch]

Hey Amy, survey is filled out.  If you need to fly me to Australia for further research I'm available.

[lizards2]

1 hour ago, oakman29 said:

1 hour ago, batman_fan said:

At a high level, I would say collectors tend to have the items organized and stored in a method to preserve the condition while a hoarder has no organization and lacks a storage method to preserve the condition.

Oh yeah, and then there is the cat feces. 

My obsessive compulsive behavior keeps me from hoarding, everything has to be neat and clean.

I can visualize you there..., licking and grooming the bags.....,

[GoBucs]

14 hours ago, catman76 said:

I never liked the term collector, I just search for things that I like and catch my eye and just am drawn to for some reason and have them because I enjoy them, they make me feel good, give me a sense of wonder, inspire me etc. To me collector and hoarder are almost the same thing, most collectors need entire runs of a comic or everything with Garfield on it or whatever. Collectors to me are hoarders with just a more defined focus on specific things they hoard, while a hoarder just hoards anything and everything.

It sounds like the only chatboard you've ever read is this one. Believe me, these people here are not your normal collectors, they are way more anal retentive and obsessive than regular collectors. Check out some other comic chatboards and you'll see that most collectors do NOT need entire runs of comics, etc. Collector and hoarder aren't even close to being synonymous in my book.

[GoBucs]

7 hours ago, oakman29 said:

My obsessive compulsive behavior keeps me from hoarding, everything has to be neat and clean.

Anal retentive, not OCD.

[batman_fan]

15 hours ago, piper said:

Was Church a collector or hoarder?

I have never heard mention of cat feces so collector 

[entalmighty1]

12 hours ago, GoBucs said:

Anal retentive, not OCD.

And how do we clean?  Let's start with our latex gloves...

:PhilHartman:

[AmyResearcher]

Thanks for all of your insight! Some of the questions in this study might seem harder to relate to than others. We're doing our best to cover all sorts of different experiences, as there are few studies in this area as of yet.

There are differences in the definitions of collecting and hoarding and so we recognise them as two very different behaviours, which share the similarity of acquiring material items. Once we have enough responses, we'll start looking at what the key psychological differences are, and hopefully this can lead to better therapies for hoarding difficulties while ensuring that collectors aren't diagnosed by mistake.

[BorderlineHoarder]

On 6/22/2017 at 6:27 AM, DavidTheDavid said:

@BorderlineHoarder Your bat signal just flared up. 

Yep...the missus thinks I lean hoarder since I collect a lot of things, but I've watched the show enough to understand that you've not quite descended into hoarding if you can still locate all the household pets 

[thehumantorch]

1 hour ago, AmyResearcher said:

Thanks for all of your insight! Some of the questions in this study might seem harder to relate to than others. We're doing our best to cover all sorts of different experiences, as there are few studies in this area as of yet.

There are differences in the definitions of collecting and hoarding and so we recognise them as two very different behaviours, which share the similarity of acquiring material items. Once we have enough responses, we'll start looking at what the key psychological differences are, and hopefully this can lead to better therapies for hoarding difficulties while ensuring that collectors aren't diagnosed by mistake.

[ThreeSeas]

Collecting versus Hoarding. I filled out the survey. Interesting.

As a collector I collect many things. I do not ever consider myself as a hoarder, even though I have never sold a comic. I have other collections and one year I had to sell a couple of coins to pay my taxes due to the ex's spending habits. Besides that I do not think I have ever parted with anything from my collections which includes comics, numismatics, board games, fossils, and old cook books even.

I have two real life friends that are what I would call true hoarders. Just like the ones on the Hoarders TV show.

One friend is now in an assisted living facility because of his knees plus he is over 70 years old too, but before he went there he had two properties seized by the local county governments due to the junk.

The first time that happened was when he lived a county next to mine, 25 years ago, and when they took his stuff, he video taped them doing it. His son was in the service for Desert Storm and the county took the son's licensed and insured vehicle he had as his dad's house. My friend took them to court as it was an illegal seizure, and not only got his money he paid in fines back, but got a few thousand on top of it. He still could not recover his items as they disposed of them.

This same friend I made the mistake of letting him store a couple of things in one of my barns one year. I came home from work to find my barn nearly filled up with his purchases. I have nice folding chairs, old wooden oak school chairs and a whole mess of stuff, but it is all high and dry and only getting dusty so once he leaves this mortal realm, then I will get rid of it, but only if he does not come and get it.

My other friend that is a hoarder, is 67 and lives in the town where I work. He has his house so full of junk that you cannot walk inside without stepping over stuff. His front door will not even open all of the way. He has narrow pathways to the various rooms. He said he is in the process of cleaning his place but this guy cannot part with anything.

One time when I took him to his VA appointment as we were walking in a parking ramp where construction was going on and up ahead I saw a small piece of wire on the ground, sure enough he swooped it up to take with him. He saves bags and anything imaginable. His van is literally filled to the roof with stuff. He had to have special springs and shocks put on it due to the weight of the hoard inside. I asked him why he has to have all this stuff and he explained how he needed every item and what their purpose was.

One time I was with him and he got a flat. I thought oh man now we are stuck. Nope, he had two spares, and six, not one, not two, but six jacks buried in his stuff. I said "why six?" He said "in case one does not work". Sure enough when I tried his first jack to lift the van it failed, but the second one worked and he said "See, that is why I carry six". After I got his tire changed it took 45 minutes to reload the van. He had to do that as every piece of junk had to go back into it's proper spot and this guy knows where it all is and in the mountain of stuff, if he sees something is out of place, he knows it. It must have been a picture for the passersby to see all the stuff on the ground.

Both of my hoarder friends seem to have the same m.o. (modus operandi). They both get stuff they say they have no attachment to, both tell me they buy stuff with the intention of selling it for a higher price, but they never get to the selling part, or rarely do that.  As a collector I buy stuff to see and enjoy and never sell unless I have to, but the hoarders I know have no intention of keeping their stuff, but they always do. To me a collector is organized, a hoarder lives in chaos. This is only my personal experience and I cannot state this of all hoarders.

The friend that has stuff at my farm asked me to try to sell it for him, but then when I did he put the selling prices so high that no one would even touch the stuff, so he now had a reason to keep it.

My two hoarder friends have never met each other and if the one was not in an assisted living facility I was thinking of getting them together to see how it would turn out lol.

Anyways both of my hoarder friends are nice people and are normal in all other appearances. Both are divorced too.

I have, in the past, asked each of them if they ever come across comic books in their travels. Each said they had and had not given them a second thought, but my friend that still lives in his house told me that he has some comics on his dining room table and one day he will dig them out for me. I can only imagine that they will be mid-90's drek, but I will remain optimistic.

[FineCollector]

I can't imagine the sadness and loneliness that turns people into hoarders.

[Bird]

Hoarders have an OCD related behavior that, at its core, is based on a belief that they need the items, essentially to survive. Hoarding is due to belief that you will need the things being hoarded despite logic suggesting otherwise and that belief is so strong as to render the person incapable of discarding the items else they will not be able to function adequately when the time comes for those items to be utilized.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Bird