Post by G on May 10, 2010 17:32:20 GMT -5
Typically on my way home from work late in the evening, I will have my radio tuned into Loveline with Dr. Drew. It's actually pretty entertaining and it makes me laugh a lot as I drive my 45 miles home through the dark woods of the country area I live past.
The majority of the conversations involve sex, but a few of the issues vary and head off into different directions of normal/abnormal psychological behavior. One night a listener had a particular problem and I forget what the problem was altogether, but they likened the problem to a form of hoarding and gave a comparison saying that collectibles and the people who collect them is a light form of hoarding. He went on to say that people hoard to control their environments. And that is where the damaging hoarding occurs. In extreme cases of collecting.
Over the weekend my wife happened to be watching an episode of "Clean House". Have you ever seen this show? These are the people that live in amazing conditions of not throwing away trash. I've seen episodes where people kind of keep their junk organized but it's overpowering their way of living, to as far as people throw absolutely no trash away and their is feces and dead animals living in their house and their house is basically a contamination site. This episode I seen over the weekend was more of the former.
Here was a guy who was 60 and kinda groovy acting who married a decently attractive woman who was 30 years younger than he was. Their house though, was overcome with comic books and collectibles. You see, the guy was a former comic shop owner and in the late 90s, he closed the shop down. He had most of his comics in storage, but that became too expensive, so he moved them home. He had over 200,000 comic books in what appeared to be a small to mid sized house. They had comic boxes in every room of the house. It wasn't that they were being messy about it. It was just too many of them. They got creative with it. They made walls and shelving systems out of comic boxes. Finally the wife was getting sick of it. He had made a promise to take care of the issue and she said she was at the point of leaving her husband.
In comes the Clean House crew who basically put all the comics and other memorabilia on sale in a yard sale to help pay for the home improvements they make. When the yard sale was going on, they were selling entire boxes of comics for $20 each. In the end though, there was still hundred of boxes sitting in the front yard. Did they try and give them back to the owner? Nope, they all got shipped out to charity. In basically 1 day, the owner went from 200,000 comics to zero.
Although I could see how controlling the comics had become and disruptive to their lives, I felt bad for the owner. It was hitting home with me watching it. What few comics they did show that he had was virtually all comics I did not own. I hardly ever seen one I owned the whole show. This dude had a collection! But, it had come down to the comics, or his wife. The wife won.
In the end, she was all "I love you honey" and he was all "I did it for you"......but I was sitting there thinking "Bitch, you better love him, he done let go of 200,000 comics!" Even my wife felt bad for the guy.
I personally have about 7,000 - 8,000 comics and I know how disruptive that little bit (in comparison) is. So I guess I'm asking....how do you guys weigh in on it? Is collecting comics a horrible low level form of hoarding? Or a purely healthy collectible hobby which has very little danger unless we allow it to be dangerous?
What are your thoughts and experiences?
The majority of the conversations involve sex, but a few of the issues vary and head off into different directions of normal/abnormal psychological behavior. One night a listener had a particular problem and I forget what the problem was altogether, but they likened the problem to a form of hoarding and gave a comparison saying that collectibles and the people who collect them is a light form of hoarding. He went on to say that people hoard to control their environments. And that is where the damaging hoarding occurs. In extreme cases of collecting.
Over the weekend my wife happened to be watching an episode of "Clean House". Have you ever seen this show? These are the people that live in amazing conditions of not throwing away trash. I've seen episodes where people kind of keep their junk organized but it's overpowering their way of living, to as far as people throw absolutely no trash away and their is feces and dead animals living in their house and their house is basically a contamination site. This episode I seen over the weekend was more of the former.
Here was a guy who was 60 and kinda groovy acting who married a decently attractive woman who was 30 years younger than he was. Their house though, was overcome with comic books and collectibles. You see, the guy was a former comic shop owner and in the late 90s, he closed the shop down. He had most of his comics in storage, but that became too expensive, so he moved them home. He had over 200,000 comic books in what appeared to be a small to mid sized house. They had comic boxes in every room of the house. It wasn't that they were being messy about it. It was just too many of them. They got creative with it. They made walls and shelving systems out of comic boxes. Finally the wife was getting sick of it. He had made a promise to take care of the issue and she said she was at the point of leaving her husband.
In comes the Clean House crew who basically put all the comics and other memorabilia on sale in a yard sale to help pay for the home improvements they make. When the yard sale was going on, they were selling entire boxes of comics for $20 each. In the end though, there was still hundred of boxes sitting in the front yard. Did they try and give them back to the owner? Nope, they all got shipped out to charity. In basically 1 day, the owner went from 200,000 comics to zero.
Although I could see how controlling the comics had become and disruptive to their lives, I felt bad for the owner. It was hitting home with me watching it. What few comics they did show that he had was virtually all comics I did not own. I hardly ever seen one I owned the whole show. This dude had a collection! But, it had come down to the comics, or his wife. The wife won.
In the end, she was all "I love you honey" and he was all "I did it for you"......but I was sitting there thinking "Bitch, you better love him, he done let go of 200,000 comics!" Even my wife felt bad for the guy.
I personally have about 7,000 - 8,000 comics and I know how disruptive that little bit (in comparison) is. So I guess I'm asking....how do you guys weigh in on it? Is collecting comics a horrible low level form of hoarding? Or a purely healthy collectible hobby which has very little danger unless we allow it to be dangerous?
What are your thoughts and experiences?
