Henry the Hoarder and a Vote.

The new occupant of Carl and Barb's old house is Henry.
When he moved in, it took over a week of NONSTOP movers, and full sized moving semis.

Henry has a lot of crap.
Literally. I've been inside the house. There is crap on the floor and there are bugs everywhere.
Henry is a Hoarder.

For real. A REAL hoarder. The kind that gets buried under piles of their own crap and they die and no one finds them for weeks.

Carl and Barb would DIE if they saw what has happened to their home.
I'm aware that I have a ton of crap in my garage and that my yard/landscaping needs to be kept up better. But at least I don't leave my crap filled garage door open 24/7!

Henry! Are you kidding me?! Close the door! I hate looking out my front window and looking at everything that everyone everywhere has ever thrown away piled up in your garage!

And, it's not just the garage. Henry doesn't run his A/C, and instead, leaves his front door and the door to his house from the garage open all day. He even props the screens open.

What the heck? Is he not aware that screens do not prevent a breeze from blowing. Screens are merely there to SCREEN the sight of your crap from my view. Let the screen do it's job, Henry.

On Sunday night, Henry shows up at our front door, holding his hands against his chest. The wife beater that he has been wearing (for at least a week from the looks of it.) was covered in blood. HALF of a bloody thumb has in his messy grasp. Sweaty Henry was shaking and said, "Oh I did a number on this one. I need ya ta take me to the hospital."

Aaron went down the hall to grab his shoes and keys, and settle the kids down while I grabbed an old towel and an ice back and ran outside barefoot to aid Henry...who didn't look so hot.

He'd cut himself with a circular saw.
He showed me the cut.
His thumb was BLACK. Henry had bled all over pretty much everything in the area (pile of garbage) where he'd been building a wooden shelf to store some of his garbage.

He said, "the house is sort of a mess, but I'm gonna need you to go in there and get my cell phone, my billfold from the pocket of the trousers on my bed."

I took a deep breath and we went inside.
I know you are thinking, Meg! You terrible person! Who cares if his house is messy?! He could lose his thumb! What's wrong with you?

But LISTEN, people.

This is not your ordinary messy house.
I do not use the word hoarder lightly, ok?
I knew that going in there meant hoping that there was a path left clear for me to walk on so I didn't step on any of his treasures.
It's like that episode of Friends, where Ross dates the girl with the messy apartment, and tried to describe it to Joey:

Ross: You know how you throw your jacket on a chair at the end of the day?
Joey: Yeah...
Ross: Well, like that, only that instead of a chair it's a pile of garbage. And instead of a jacket it's a pile of garbage. And instead of the end of the day it's the end of time, and garbage is all that has survived.

Actually, it's a lot like that.
I really didn't want to go back in there. But of course I did, because who wouldn't do that for someone...especially someone in pain.
I knew that Henry had lost a lot of blood and had probably bled all over the area he'd been using the saw, and then left a bloody trail through the house while he figured out what to do, and that I'd be walking through that biohazard.

and remember...

I. WAS. BAREFOOT.

I crossed my fingers, took a deep breath, and went inside with a hope that any disease living on what used to be the carpets of Henry's house had been eaten away by the penicillin growing on a moldy piece of food that had been left out.

Henry was really starting to fall apart at this point. His sentences were broken, he was stumbling around a lot and forgetting things suddenly, and I could tell he was in shock. I hollered to Aaron to grab a towel from the house (to wrap around Henry when he got in the car.).

We began the search for the phone. With incomplete instructions from poor Henry, I made it to the bedroom, and located the billfold and the cell phone. We headed out of the house and Henry stopped on the front step edge. He went white and just stared into space. I was really worried he was going to pass out, but he was non responsive when I asked him if he was ok. I told him to sit down and then he just looked at me and held his wounded hand tight.

"HENRY. You need to answer me. Are you ok?"
no answer.
"HENRY you need to sit down. I'm going to help you sit down."

"mmmm......uhhhh..."

I think this was the first time he'd left his house in awhile. He was freaking out. But he wouldn't MOVE. He was just swaying on the step and I knew that if he tipped over, I would not be able to break his fall. Aaron had just pulled the car to the front.
I decided to go TV Cop on him and get in his face.

HENRY! YOU LISTEN TO ME. You are going to pass out. You need to get into the car. Now.
Can you walk?

"I....uh...."
TV Cop Meg wasn't working, so I went with Mean Mom Meg instead.

"YES OR NO, Henry. Are. you. alright? YES or NO. I need an answer now or I am going to help you sit down right here on this step." In a normal situation, the lack of ability to give an answer would be considered a no. But in this case, I couldn't tell how much of it was just Henry's typical bizarre antics, or if he was wigging out due to his accident.

"uhhhhh....uh..."

"I'm going to count to three. ONE."
"I can. I think I'm fine."

"Of course you are. Now let's go get in the car." Ha! counting to three. works every time.

We helped Henry into the front passenger seat of the Civic. Aaron looked over at the wound and then immediately looked away. I just said, "you're going to be fine, Henry" and he said, "We can make it to the VA." Aaron said, "UH, VA? Is that the same place as the closest hospital?"

"No. I don't have any insurance. VA. You better go fast." Then he gave me instructions to go back inside, find the keys to the Buick (parked in the driveway, also full of crap) retrieve the so I could lock up his house and use the garage door opener to get out.

The VA is in Fayetteville, 45 minutes away from our house.
They passed like 5 hospitals on the way there. Poor Henry.

The only report I've gotten so far is that Henry's thumb was salvageable, but we don't really know. He came home the next day, but we haven't seen him. He had Aaron call his friend to come get him, then he was taken back to be stitched up.

So while they are en route to el hospital, I am putting 3 kids to bed....two of which have a LOT of questions about Henry.
What happened to his thumb? Was he playing with scissors? Did he use the sharp knife? Did he touch the saw tools? Why was he so stinky? Why did he have blood? Why is his house messy? Why did Dad drive him?

I did my best to answer them. But as I scrubbed the first 3 layers of skin off the bottom of my feet using scalding hot water, I had plenty of questions and thoughts of my own.

What drives people to become hoarders?
What does Henry even eat if he never leaves the house?
What was all that crap on his bed?
I wonder if those boxes of rotten strawberries that were there the last time I went inside his house are still by the back door? I bet they are, but they're covered in more garbage.

Hmmm....I wonder IF those strawberries are still there.
Naw. They're not there.
Are they there?
I'm supposed to find keys in that place? That puts a new perspective on the "needle in a haystack" saying.

Marge's broken arm, Marge's broken ribs, Marge's bruised tailbone and cracked hip, Marge's chipped tooth.
Carl's 1st stroke, Carl's truck accident
Disarming Ross
Henry's severed thumb.

Yup. We're officially neighborhood geriatric caretakers.

So here's where your opinion comes in.
You're going over to a house that is so messy, that no one believes you when you try to describe it. Instead, they'll just look at you like you are a terrible person for wishing you'd put on some shoes before going inside.

Vote: This situation is happening to you. You are headed over to "find the keys". Do you take your camera inside when you go back over?

Yes or No?

I did.