Hoarding with Katie Munoz

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

And Welcome back to the program everyone. We are very lucky to have a guest here that we’ve had me here frequently, but she’s so awesome we had to have her back. Katie Moonios from moving forward. Welcome back to answers for elders, Katie. Thank you, Susian. I’m delighted to be here again. You know, you’ve been a busy girl, I bet, this summer. I bet there’s a lot of comings and goings and movings and all that stuff that your company does. These days we are having a really busy season. You know, right now we’ve got the seller’s market. Right, you list your house and a week later it’s sold. So a lot of people are saying, wow, this is a good time to move because I know I can sell my house. There’s no question, no delay, right. Yeah. Well, and not only that, but I know that this is a good time of year for seniors to be downsizing because the weather’s good, they can you know, like you said, it’s a it’s a settler’s market. They can get top dollar for their home, and that’s kind of where you step in. You’re like the downsizing organizational expert. Oh boy, I like that. Tell us a little bit about what you do. Well, we hope people when they’re planning to move, we can help them downsize. We can do the packing and and packing, but we also do organizing for people who are not moving right. It’s it’s really common, especially for seniors, for houses to get a little out of controlled. You know, and you bring up a really valid point, it doesn’t you don’t have to be moving to get your life organized and especially, I know, with seniors, as their mobility starts to fail, I’m sure that that affects their living. So you know their surroundings. You know there can be mobility issues. For a lot of our clients they’ve actually lost a spouse and so the grief it know, it freezes people in place for a while and you just got other things on your mind than tidying up the newspapers since and it can be overwhelming. I know that. I know that. Even you know to work with the seniors that I know it’s like it’s it’s it big tour to, you know, take a trip to the dump or to, you know, see even sort through a closet. Sometimes you just don’t have the mindset to go there. It’s can be overwhelming on your when your mind is elsewhere or you’re depressed or something like that. And you know that. It’s interesting because I’ve talked to a number of people lately who can are great at organizing other people’s things, but when you have to move your soul for you have to organize your own things. One of my employees is going through that right now. It’s a whole different thing because it every item you’re looking at you’ve got a memory associated with. And when I had to move for your ago, I had employees can help me right because they don’t know what all these things mean to them. It’s just a bunch of kitchen things bout a mittal box. Yes, and that shocks my memory of your previous interview because you talked about every piece has a story, and I love that little just memory because of your previous interviews with us, because it’s true. How many of us go sit down with our parents to say okay, mom, we’re going to go clean out your closet or clean the storage area out, and it’s drives everybody not yeah, because nobody wants to listen and hear it all because you’ve heard it five hundred times before. But you’re right. It is a process and it’s important that those stories are able to be, you know, told and also by somebody that that knows how to handle you know what happens to that item. I think right, right. We’ve got a lot of strategies to helping people when they’re organizing. You know, we get a lot of people who got it one know I’m kind of a horder. They’re not right. Very few people are really technically hoarders, but thinks get out of control in the home quite commonly. And then you look at it and you so, oh my gosh, it’s piling of right, and there are so many ways of thinking about how to deal with that. One thing you can do is just pick a small area. You pick up the area that’s bugging you the most, maybe the kitchen counter, and you just and if it’s really full of stuff, maybe it’s only going to be a four foot by two foot area on the kitchen counter, but you just focus on that one place. You take everything out that doesn’t belong. You put the tray, Che trash she and then you can wash that area, put it back, make it look nice the things that really belong there, and then you know the most important thing is actually to celebrate what you have accomplished. Yes, and you know, this is one of the things that people tend to leave out. They say always about time I got around and doing it. It’s like no, no, it’s a freeing feeling to have, you know, the clutter out of your life. And I know for me, for my own house, when I run the vacuum, I’m happy because I have a dog and I have cats and boy oh boy, it’s amazing after a few days how that carpet looks like it’s hasn’t been cleaned and a month you know, and you just don’t realize the difference is, yeah, so rewarding and you look at the carpet and think, ohever, my house looks so nice. It makes me happy. And you know, that’s the something I think with with our seniors. They are all, you know, they want to live in a you know, in a clutter free environment. Sometimes it they just don’t know how to start. Yeah, I think it can be truly overwhelmed. It’s not just our seniors, it’s no, it’s all of us. Okay, yeah, yeah, so you made a really valid point earlier about the differences between hoarders and not hoarders and and so, by the way, we’re talking to Katie Muonio’s from moving forward and Katie, I would love you to kind of explain the difference, because I talked to families all the time that I’ll say my mom’s a hoarder. Well, maybe she wasn’t, really wasn’t. Many people have been able to keep control of the home, the environment. The House will Sol decorated nicely and the living room was a living room and all the bedrooms were functional. As as life happens, sometimes people get super busy and things fall out of their control. If you become a caregiver for somebody else, all your time is going to be taken up taking care of that person. In other things are they are lower priority. You are going to let things go and that’s that’s the correct decision. And then sometimes people become depressed. Depression can cause clutter to build up. A person can find little relief by shopping and shopping and get in retail. So shop, yes, all right, is they say yes, and you know, all of these things can cause a home to go out of control. But you’re still not a horder. True, the hoarders, the classic type of order is somebody who really can’t tell the difference between the deed to the house and a piece of junk mail. Everything is of equal priority. Wow, so worried about throwing out something that is important that they can’t throw out anything it, can’t make a decision and they’re paralyzed with fear. And that’s really rather uncommon. Right. I run into two in the years I’ve been doing this and other than that there have been other kinds of issues going on. We can’t really somebody who’s a classic quarter. It’s a mental illness. We can write fix it and they probably have been that way for years and years and years and years, where sometimes you know they got that with your parents, its senior parents. They would probably never had these issues until they got older. Right, right, and there’s a big difference there. You know, one of the most important things to me is to to make it known to people that this is so common. Please don’t be embarrassed about it, because I feel like everybody’s in their own little private world saying, Oh, I’m such a terrible person, and the person next door is saying at the person next door and and we don’t all go look in each other’s houses and say Oh, we’re all dealing with this. Yeah, just the amount of junk maal that comes from the door its overwhelming, isn’t it? It is overwhelming for anyone. And if you’ve got some distracting usues going on, yeah, of course it’s piling up. Yeah, the embarrassed. Yeah, your fault. Well, and and not to mention, you know, just with I know there’s a lot of family caregivers out there right now that are dealing with not only their stuff but in many cases they may have a parent and assisted living and they’re getting their parents mail on top of it, right and on, and they’re they’re out in, you know, taking care, maybe caregiving in some way capacity, twenty thirty hours a week and top of trying to hold down a job, right, and this kind of stuff, even for, you know, US baby boomers and younger can be a real issue and and most certainly you’re right. It’s happens to all of us, at every single one of us, for sure. I think the only people that it doesn’t happen to our people who were almost compulsive about being neat and have no social way. Yeah, maybe, Oh, wait a minute, no, no offense to all of you out there who do have organized home. So sure you’re very nice people and you’re very rare. I went you to know that you’re the rare exception. Yeah, so, Um, you know, and I think too it’s also good in in just an overview when when you go see your parent, it’s not to be hard on your parent because they’re disorganized or or to not, you know, don’t make them feel like they’re you know, they’re condemned for doing so. You know, I’m sure that there’s some wonderful ways and to help approach them. And what are some kind of advice that you would give to families that are trying to help their parents if they’re well, like it’s it’s tough to do it yourself, right, it just is, because there’s all of the long history that you have what the parent and probably friction coming up about other issues. When you bring in a third party, all of a sudden the the mother, well, is usly the mom’s because right, we live longer. Well, and they’re the NESTERS. Yeah, right, by nature, and she can start telling her stories to a new audience and we can grasp the meaning in the essence of those story so quickly. And it’s funny because we can speed up the sorting just because we haven’t heard the stories before. That’s wonderful. So, Katie, how do we reach you? You can call me on the phone for two and five seven zero, two eight seven six one, or you can visit my web page. We’ve had a bunch of great articles, little blog pieces and even a couple of little videos. Uh Huh. Go to www moving forward inkcom. Katie, I’m so glad you’re on the on that show today and I look forward to having you back. Sometimes they well, thank you so much. I really appreciate being here. Great have a great week. You Two