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Learning that your parent is hoarding can be a challenging and even a devastating development. If you are like many adult children with a hoarding parent, you spend what may prove to be a significant amount of time weighing and balancing what options might be available in regard to your hoarding parent’s housing options. In the final analysis, your hoarding parent may not be in a position to continue to life in his or her own home without some level of supplemental support.
One option available to you and your parent with hoarding disorder is having your mother or father move into your home with you. There are a number of important strategies to employ in order to transition your hoarding parent into your home as smoothly as possible. These include:
- Do not force your parent to do anything
- Obtain support from professionals, family, and friends
- Transition your parents to being a fulltime resident over time
- Develop an agreed plan to obtain hoarder property cleanup
Do Not Force Your Parent to Do Anything
If you believe that it is in your parent’s best interests to no longer life alone and to move into your home, you simply cannot force the issue. Of course, the reality is that hoarding disorder can leave your parent living in less than ideal and even squalid conditions, you cannot force your parent to move into your home.
There is one caveat to this admonition. If your parent is no longer in a position to make decisions for his or her self because of a significant mental or physical health condition, you may have obtained the power to serve as your mother or father’s conservator or guardian and conservator. The fact that your parent is diagnosed with hoarding disorder doesn’t mean that he or she is not capable of making decisions for his or her self like where to reside.
In the grand scheme of things, the decision to move your hoarding parent into your home needs to be a cooperative endeavor on the part of you and your mother and father. You parent must be able to have input in this important decision making process.
As is discussed next, a therapist or counselor that works with people with hoarding disorder can assist in the process of determining where your parent should live going forward. This includes being able to aid in developing a plan for your parent to move into your home.
Obtain Support From Professionals, Family, and Friends
As was noted a moment ago, there can be an important role for a mental health professional to play when it comes to addressing certain issues associated with your parent with hoarding disorder. These issues can include the process of determining whether or not your parent should continue to live at his or her current residence of whether your mother or father should reside with you.
In addition to a mental health professional with a background in working with people with hoarding disorder, you will also want to enlist the assistance of other trusted family members when it comes to transitioning your hoarding mother or father into a new residence, including your home. There may also be trusted friends who can play a helpful role in aiding your hoarding parent to consider and then move to a different home.
Transition Your Parent to Being a Full-time Resident Over Time
Rather than quickly moving your parent with hoarding disorder into your home in one full swoop, transitioning your mother or father into your residence may make the most sense. For example, you can have your hoarding parent spend increasing amounts of time at your residence before he or she moves in full time. The gradual movement into your home has the potential for making the whole process more palatable and less stressful.
A transitional move into your home also gives your parent a greater sense of control over the overall process. A transitional move into your home works to prevent your parent with hoarding disorder from feeling as if he or she is being pressured to abandon his or her home and take up residence in your own. In other words, a transitional move into your own home best ensures that your parent doesn’t feel forced to abandon his or her home.
Develop an Agreed Plan to Obtain Hoarder Property Cleanup
When the decision is made to move your hoarding parent into your own residence, you still have the task of remediating the hoard that has accumulated in your mother or father’s home. Hoarder property cleanup can be a complicated and even dangerous task. For this reason, you need to consider engaging the services of a qualified, experienced, and compassionate hoarder property cleanup professional. The well-trained, reliable professional team at Eco Bear has the background and experienced necessary to fully undertake a comprehensive hoarder cleanup at your parent’s residence.
