I'm a Mortician, My main responsibiblty is removing the deceased from the place of death to the funeral home.

This is usually a very rewarding experience dealing with familys...HOWEVER....tonight I was dispatched
to a residence in Vancover WA...we were met in the drive way by the Washington Department for wellness investigations
and were told the living conditions were that of extreame hoarders...We were floored by the stacks of junk
and garbage, n I mean kitchen/bathroom unhealthy garbage.
There were litterally pathways from room to room...the fleas were rampant, the smell was so
over whelming that my assistant almost could not assist me....

I will not describe the conditions that the deceased 95 year old was forced to lay/live in...The family made it clear
from the get go that they were not paying for any funeral costs...HOWEVER...for the diginity this Marine Vet
deserves I chose to do the removal anyways...My heart goes out to anyone that has family that has little respect
for them that they have to live their last days in filth n pain....

RandyJoe...Ride Strong.......I consider myself a tough biker type but writing this welled up my eyes....

First, let me say thank you, RandyJoe, for taking care of this man and giving him the respect that you did.  It is awesome that there are still people in this cruel world who do the right thing even if it means a cost to them. 

If I may (as a newbie to this site) offer a little different perspective on a thing or two?  I understand the feelings of negativity you all seem to have toward the family - but not for the reason you may think.  You see, I am a reformed hoarder who was "sick" for a very long time.  But for the grace of God, I would be ending my days in the same shape this poor deceased Vet did.  The squalor in which he lived was not thrust upon him.  On the contrary, his family had probably tried for years to help him get a grip on it and then finally gave up because he refused to change (as I did for many years).  They were most likely fed-up or "over it" and decided long ago to have nothing more to do with (in their mind) a selfish and obstinate man...even though he had proven he was not selfish by what he did for our country.

OCD Hoarding truly is a real psychological illness that is difficult to understand and deal with.  Much of the time, families are torn apart due to it.  The one who suffers from it can be blinded to their own destructive habits and obsessions, and the family members who care suffer because it seems to them that the afflicted one doesn't love them enough to change.  Fact is, without the right intervention and therapy, that person CAN'T change even if they want to.  It often takes a combination of therapy as well as medicines in order to help the person be able to make the kind of decisions (to toss or not to toss) that normal people make every day.  There were days when I was so overwhelmed by all that had somehow mysteriously appeared around me that I couldn't function to even throw out obvious junk mail.  Other days, I was so sure that there would be a need for "this" item that to let go of it meant I might never get a chance to have another and would have to suffer because of my decision to get rid of it.  On yet other days, I just knew that unless I made sure there was a good home for my stuff, then somehow it would be too horrible a situation than I could manage.

All the thinking of a serious hoarder is totally skewed.  It doesn't make sense and is no where near reality to feel like one will die if they don't keep certain things, to believe that things have an actual life of their own so we must take care of them or be considered a bad person, to have such anxiety that to even get rid of garbage is unthinkable...yet this is reality for the hoarder (which is not the same for the simple pack rat).  When sharing my story with some, their responses have varied from "I had no idea - I just thought you were lazy" to "there's no way in hell that this is true".  I was an embarrassment to my family and I never had friends over.  My dirty little secret was just too difficult to explain away or hide.

Like I said - if it wasn't for grace, I would not have a family today who cared about me.  Matter of fact, they probably would respond much like this family did... angry, resentful, and unable to get past what they perceived as rejection from someone they had once loved.  For more information, check out this link: http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/diagnosing.aspx

Thanks for letting me share.