Astrological Indicators of Hoarders?

[Deanna]

Here in the US, The Learning Channel (TLC) runs episodes of "Hoarders" and it is a mind-blowing show.  People from all walks of life accumulate behemoth amounts of stuff that overtake their living space.  Some of the people depicted are living in homes where the stove, sink and bathroom are not usable due to the overload of stuff.

Animal Hoarders is a totally different show (on Animal Planet) that depicts those with 30+ feral cats, or chickens living in the home (I kid you not).  I will not go into detail here as it is disgusting.  If you're brave, you can probably watch an episode online.

I see it as a Pluto/Jupiter disease (excess), with a twist of Saturn thrown in (depression/anxiety).  Then, there is the "can't let go" syndrome representative of Cancer, Scorpio, Libra, Pisces & Taurus.  I'm making it sound simple, but surely it's much more complicated than just a sign or a particular aspect.

What is your take on this massive problem?

[Trish488]

I would look at the state of the Moon (security) - to get to the root of the issue.  Signs of Taurus, Cancer (even Virgo) prominent (accumulation of objects for security, object=love), cluttering (Virgo).  Perhaps Uranus aspects (to 4th, Moon) for intensification of  demands for security, unusualness/eccentricity

[Don Borkowski]

There are certain degrees that relate to hoarding.  The 29 Cancer-Capricorn axis is a known one that seems to work.  I can attest to that one from personal experience.

DB

[Deanna]

Don,

I wasn't aware of the specific degrees being involved in hoarding but I do believe it may be a combination of factors.  A woman I was friendly with is an animal hoarder (25 cats in her home) though she is in total denial.  She spends three hours a day cleaning and every part of her home is devoted to the cats.  She does work and has a daughter.  She doesn't see anything wrong with having so many feral cats as house pets even though she knows the law states no more than three pets are allowed per home. Her opinion is because her house is clean and the cats are well cared for she is not breaking any law.

Her chart contains a stellum in both Capricon (but no planet is at 29 degrees) and Scorpio.  Don't know her time of birth but it appears her Moon is in Aries.

This illness strikes me as a form of OCD.  We'll know more medically when it is included in the upcoming update to the DSM.

[Alice Portman]

The worst hoarder I have ever known lived in a caravan and would go to his daughter's house every week for a shower.

When he died they found the caravan together with rooms he had hired for storage were chock a block, floor to ceiling,  with black rubbish bags filled with:

dirty underclothes
Food
Household rubbish
all kinds of things he had bought and never used.
Every present he had ever received
All kinds of junk he had picked up from god knows where.

The place absolutely stank!  The poor family had to wear overalls, gloves and masks to clean it out and it took months.



Note the Virgo rising, giving the appearance of neatness -everything was carefully stored in plastic bags and he presented a very neat appearance in his clothing.

I have always thought that water signs are more inclined to hoard and in this chart wondered if the Node-Moon-Neptune conjunction also gave a predilection.

Here is the chart of another hoarder.  This one hoarded paper - newspapers, books, magazines, junk mail, ordinary mail, really anything made from paper -  from floor to ceiling in almost all of his rooms.  Only the bed and part of the kitchen were free.



Interestingly, both were male and both originally from England and migrated to Australia as young adults.

Alice

[Deanna]

Alice,

What sad stories!  It's a very complex mental illness, for sure.

The people shown on the TV series start out in denial (a commonality for this disease) and don't want to part with even a tissue!  But, as the show progresses, and the therapist gets involved, a breakthough occurs and the excessive belongings are donated or discarded.  The shows ending is always a clean and uncluttered home....because it's TV. 

There are millions of people across the US living with this disease.

It's an interesting one for the study of astrology.  Thank for posting the charts!

[Barbara Ybarra]

Thanks for sharing those, Alice.  Both charts have Sun involved with Neptune with the additional feature of Pisces-Virgo prominent.

 I watch the hoarder tv shows sometimes and usually hear that the problem began when such-and-such happened in their lives.

  However, there is a such-and-such in most of our lives.  The suggestion with Neptune seems to be that when things are overwhelming, organization becomes impossible or has no meaning anymore.  The person simply "does not know where to begin" even with the smallest accumulation of items in the home…and then it goes from there.  No doubt the inner life is in the same state of affairs.  A person is stumped for any sort of order.  Virgo categorizes whenever it can, but Pisces just lets go. 

In the end, when Neptune wins in this particularly misguided expression of it, it is a statement that there is value in everything, however disorganized.  I believe these individuals experience guilt over the wanton disposal of material items, and they instead have the subconscious idea that they are "rescuing" these items from careless abandonment.  That is a Pisces-Virgo dilemma, the recycling of the particular back into the void (or the whole).  So instead of being careful about what they accumulate, they accept everything and anything, sometimes even deadly decay.

Barbara Ybarra 
 

[crabman]

I had  a neighbor and dear friend who was like that.  He completely filled up his apartment with Halloween decorations.  There was a path from his door to his couch where he slept.  (He filled up his bedroom first and then gradually filled up the rest of his apartment floor to ceiling.)  There was another path to the bathroom. I don't have his chart handy, but he was born September 7, 1948.  He had Leo rising  and the moon in Scorpio. I believe he also had Jupiter close to the ascendant and had trouble with obesity.  He had a brilliant mind on many levels.  He's the only truly original thinker I've ever known, but he was awfully strange on many levels, too.  He  left town many years ago and told me that he didn't like me and had never liked me.  (I had known him for more than 30 years!)  I have no idea what has happened to him.  He was very industrious and hard-working and had no trouble making friends.  He was charming and outgoing, but of course never invited anyone to his apartment.  I never understood  why he was  a hoarder or why he hoarded the things he chose  to hoard.  His parents divorced when he was a baby and his mother remarried when he was about 11 or 12.  He had a good relationship with his stepfather.  His mother had two other sons later.  He was rebellious as a teenager and dropped out of college as a freshman and came to New York.  He had a history of being a bridge-burner.  When he  moved on, he never looked back.  He never had trouble finding lucrative employment, but later just dropped out of the corporate world and became a junk dealer.  That  was hard for him because he hated part with the things he was supposed to sell!

[james m]

i think this is a cultural phenomenon, especially in the consumer culture of the west where holidays are about shopping according to the walmarts and etc...

one only has to consider the explosion in storage lockers for the past 20 or more years to know something is out of whack in the culture we live in.. okay - bigger houses mean more stuff to fill rooms.... when a person can't sustain it, or has to downsize what are their options? sell, or put stuff in storage lockers...

okay, that is just part of it, but i see this as coming out of the more is better - jupiter run amok - approach, that certainly favours corporations in the business of selling stuff, but is of limited short term value to those who have the stuff...

the other thing i think here is trying to fill a need on a physical level when the need is happening on an emotional or other level...

people hang onto stuff as a substitute for hanging onto a memory of a person or time or place that held meaning for them... obviously with those who hoard (and it could be argued our society has reached this level) are trying to hang onto something that they need to let go of...

the letting go is the neptune part.... it seems to me we live in a society that doesn't know how to let go on a number of levels... these folks who suffer from this in an extreme case would seem to suffer from the inability to let go...

astrological indicators of hoarders?  they probably come in all different shapes and sizes astrologically, but i guess you knew i was going to say that already...

[Maz]

Hoarding must surely be considered as a sort of obsession and if so, the quindecile must feature prominently.

[Deanna]

There are some very good opinions here.  It will take years to gather enough data of hoarders to attempt to compile a list of commonalities in charts.  Getting the data, though, is not easy.  Wish TLC & Animal Planet would list birthdates (at the very least) for all involved, lol.  That would be cool for those who wish to study this topic.

The woman I spoke of above (with too many feral house cats) has Sun square Neptune, Sun opposite Uranus and a Mars/Saturn conjunction.  However, her childhood was very normal (both loving parents), 3 siblings (all normal -- no hoarding problems) -- but her life took a wrong turn when she divorced many years ago and that is when the cats began moving in -- and they've never stopped.  My biggest fear is the 24 year old daughter also has this "hoarder gene" and it seems to be going strong.  Both feel they are "helping" feral cats.  The daughter is a Sagg with a Taurus Moon (don't have the rest of the chart).

The friend has two (separate) friends with the same cat OCD and house these ferals in their small homes, which are close to ruin.  One is a Capricorn (divorced - no children), but that's all I know of her chart.  She does suffer from depression and panic attacks and I believe has the (20+) cats for comfort and a feeling of connectedness.  She doesn't like people and feels the cats won't abandon her.

[Thoreau]

Does have the exact birth times and place for Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 3, 1885 – March 1947).  They were two American brothers who became famous because of their bizarre nature and compulsive hoarding.

[Don Borkowski]

I don't have their data, but you could always run solar charts to check some of the aspect patterns.

DB

[Thoreau]

The worst hoarder I have ever known lived in a caravan and would go to his daughter's house every week for a shower.
Alice

OK... They started their hoarding when they were in Australia?  What year do you suppose the might have gotten into it?  And where in OZ did they live when the hoarding took place?

[Alice Portman]

The first hoarder lived in Adelaide, Australia.

I think he always had this tendency because during his marriage he insisted on having a room that was entirely his 'den', his wife wasn't allowed in, even to clean.  One day she did manage to get a peak and the place was full of stuff he had collected.

After the marriage broke up no one, not even his daughter, knew where he was living until his death.  Obviously the worst hoarding started after the marriage broke up, but I have no idea of the date! It must have been in the late 80's or early 90's. They were never divorced but lived separately for many years.

The second hoarder lived in Sydney, Australia.  I have no idea when the hoarding started.  He came out to Australia with his wife and son in his 20's (I think)  but they left and went back to England after a couple of years.  He had always wanted to be Australian so he stayed.  

So it looks as though a common factor is separation from their wives.  Pre-separation both had strong indications of mental illness that made if very hard on their wives, one through not speaking to his wife for months, the other through suddenly lashing out with his hands or fists if he felt angry or overlooked.

Another common factor was both men had lost a child.  The first hoarder had a son who died of leukemia in late July 1962, the second hoarder never saw his son again because the son didn't want anything to do with him.

The first hoarder died sitting in a chair outside of his caravan and no one noticed for a day or two.  He died because his immune system collapsed through living in that filth for so long.  He died on 6th January 2008.

The second hoarder died of pancreatic cancer in the mid 2000's, perhaps 2007.     I think his Ascendant was really late Aries, rather than early Taurus, but haven't done any rectification on his chart.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific with dates but I lost so much data when my computer crashed in 2000.

Alice McDermott