#hording

NOTES Me, and my two flatmates who have just moved out, have adult ADHD and are all hoarders. My third, longsuffering flatmate who helped me with the cleaning, is neurotypical and is our main support network when we need to borrow some executive function. All four of us work in messy, muddy construction-related fields, and our response to two years of being discouraged from going to the pub was to just party in our own home every weekend. After 24 months of this, This was the result...

“We’ve destroyed the homes of thousands of innocent woodlice, not to mention the spiders, and this is just the preliminary clean, so we can FIND the spice rack.” “Move the blender and the toaster before we clear the spice-rack, that way the dead woodlice rain won’t get in them.”

“Why the fuck are there cobwebs IN THE TOASTER!”

“We have thrown away enough cinnamon today to crash the economy of medieval Europe.”

“Dune had less spice, and smaller critters.”

“Is this really fancy tea, or really cheap poi pori? I can’t tell.”

”Why are there two dozen open bags of flour, each one more stale than the last?”

“We need music to improve morale: the cheesier the better: meatloaf, and then our playlist of 80’s and 90’s female powerballads.”

“Why do all our flatmates open packages like a racoon who’s still learning how thumbs work?”

“I’m not the filth wizard. Well, I can be, but not like this, this I next level filth wizardry.”

“The incense got into the vegan egg substitute and now it taste like sandalwood.”

“I’m siting on the manky sandwich toaster, and I don’t even care anymore.”

“We are haunted by old broken blenders, each more evil than the last.”

“You found that pasta maker in a skip! If you want to keep it you need to keep it in your cupboard!”

“The wall socket was full of old flour. That’s a fire risk right there.”

“Why is our life turning into the mathematical average of Black Books and Withnail and I?”

“There’s more stuff under the oven.” “Okay, I’ll get the stuff-stick.”

“I was wondering is we can remove these shelves and scrub the walls: they’re black.”

“It smells like mushrooms, there are things growing on the wall.”

“I don’t want to touch that, it’s wet and black and mouldy and the house smells of the fucking mushrooms growing on the wall!”

“We can use that stick to stir the compost bin. It could do with scraping down. I’m going to put that stick back in the cleaning cupboard especially.”

“We’ve found the secret woodlouse burial ground.”

“All the spilt cleaning products are dissolving the linoleum.”

“We’ll have to pull the floor off in strips, and then wash it in the sink.”

“How do people who have not cleaned in two years own so many bloody cleaning products?”

“Is that hair? Look at the goo sliding down.”

“There is a deep strata of black goo under the cupboard.”

“So, the vinegar from the pickles leaked, and now there is a lake of vinegar with mould-islands growing on it.”

“The chopping board has gone off: it’s covered in mould. We need to burn it, the corruption has got into the wood.”

“Why are there so many Tupperware lids under there? Get the broom: It’s like stirring an ocean of Tupperware with a stick!”

“This is more horrifying that I expected: I didn’t expect mushrooms. Stop writing this down!”

“Why is there cloathes-moth lavae on the forks? The forks are not made of wool.”

“There’s a second, more 1960’s lino under the lino!”

“There were spider eggs UNDER the floor.”

“Shina twain, save us from the floor mushrooms!”

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happed in this kitchen, and there have been fucking horrors before.”

“How is this worse than the Ötzi Nipple we found in the fridge?” [Half a blackened preserved lemon we once found frozen to the back of the fridge and named in honour of Ötzi the ice-man].

Menenius’ defense of top-down government policies ends with him telling the crowd to back off; they are mistaken in believing that the stockpiles controlled by those in power belong to the people, for the government is in fact “the store-house and the shop / Of the whole body,” and that any “public benefit which you receive . . . proceeds or comes from them to you / And no way from yourselves.” It is startling how closely his argument presages what Jared Kushner said when he was challenged recently on why the government was hoarding lifesaving resources.