Living in the hoarder's basement

Ever since I've been in the nursing program i would get emails from our advisement center about employment opportunities. There was one particular one that I got quite often about an elderly couple looking for someone to rent their basement apartment and take care of the wife sometimes. Rent was only $500 and included utilities and a washer/dryer. We always thought it sounded like a pretty good deal but we were always a little hesitant. Finally, last November, after our apartment went up in price for a second time, we decided to look into this basement apartment.

I called the elderly gentleman and he seemed so excited that someone was interested. We went to look at it that day. The only downside we foresaw was that it was in Pleasant Grove which is about 25 minutes from Provo. He also warned us about the "mess" in his backyard, which we didn't think much of. When we got to the house, it was definitely "messy". Looking back we should have realized something was off, but we just sort of brushed it off. We really liked the apartment but were a little hesitant. The elderly gentleman was quite pushy though and before we knew it we were signing a contract.

Almost immediately after leaving we got a very bad feeling about all of it. But being the nice people that we are, we didn't want to back out and let the guy down. Derek was sure that they were hoarders, and the more I thought about it the more I thought it could be true too. We tried to keep in mind how much we liked the apartment so we didn't have to think about how worried we were about the whole ordeal. We moved in the next month. Within a few days of living there we had confirmed that they were hoarders...What did we get ourselves into?

Here are some of the reasons we knew they were hoarders.

1.  The night we moved in we had to get into two of his storage units off of our apartment. They were both filled to the ceiling with furniture and other items. Somehow we were able to fit his old mattress(we brought our own) into one of them after moving a bookshelf to the other.
2. We found out that his garage is FULL of scrap wood that he keeps "just in case". He claims he uses it to fix furniture, which is one of his hobby's but wow. 
3. There are also two large storage sheds in his backyard that are full also.
4. There house is scary. There is stuff stacked up everywhere with little tiny walkways. We often would hear a large crash and think, "Oh, there went a pile of stuff..."
5. The kitchen was really scary...I helped him do dishes once and found silverware that had been in the bottom for a while and it was molding...blah, so gross. 
6. Upon talking with the ward we found out they had come several times to take stuff to the dump when the city was threatening him. They also told us that most people that live there don't last more than 3-6 months. That is why we never received callings I guess. 
7. Every night before trash day, we would see him raiding other people's trash for who knows what...Oh and we figured out that he was going through our trash that we would put in the same bin as his...kinda freaky. 
8. Oh and did I mention the smell? I don't know how we missed it at first, but wow it was bad. We bought air fresheners to cover it up but it didn't really help. It's a good thing our noses adjust after a little while or it would have been unbearable and it almost was anyways...yuck
9. And I could continue on and on.

We tried really hard to help him get rid of stuff. We even went through one his storage rooms off of our apartment and got him to get rid of extra couches, REALLY old food storage and some board games that had mouse poo all over them. This gave us a little hope that we could actually help him. Most other times we would try to get him to rid of stuff he would always have some sort of excuse for needing it. It really took a toll on us. We started looking for a new place to live so we could escape the craziness. 

The husband was the one who needed help, not the wife like the ad had said. Since I have CNA experience it wasn't too big of a deal for me to help him every once and a while. That was until his wife got jealous of me...She thought we were having "relations", oh dear...She even started yelling at us in the floor vents...it was very creepy. Sometimes she would yell while the baby was sleeping and wake her up, I was getting so MAD. I guess she was having some mental health problems, probably related to the hoarding. We kept praying for something to work our and finally it did. We found a great place in Orem for a good price and it has a washer/dryer. We moved in March and are so much happier.

We feel bad for this couple. We really wanted to help them, but we realized that it wasn't our responsibility. They weren't really ready to change yet either, which makes it even harder. We realized that it was not a good environment for our sweet baby girl to be in. Being in a messy environment really takes it's toll on you too. It is impossible to feel the spirit, which just makes life even harder. We have gotten better at getting rid of stuff we don't need and to keep our house cleaner because of this whole experience. We definitely realized why we were so hesitant and got such bad feeling about it. I don't think we regret doing it though. We are grateful for whatever help we did give them. We are still on good terms with them(well the husband and least, we're not sure about the wife...), which is not always the case I guess. We are much happier now and look back on the experience almost like a bad dream.

Could we survive without facebook?

The answer is obviously, yes...But why are there 500 million* active facebook users then? What is it about facebook that makes it so important to so many people? Are there negative effects of being on it too much?

Here are a few of the reasons why people use facebook/social media. There could be more but here is a good start...

Some of these need a little explanation I think. Lets start with narcissistic. There was a study done that tried to prove that people who use facebook are narcissistic. It could not be proven because there are so many reasons that people use facebook and obviously not everyone that uses it is narcissistic. It is thought that people who spend a lot of time on it could be though. And what about the people who tell us almost every detail of their life?

This goes along with the notion that some people need attention, or to feel important. They may feel like if other people "like" what they say that they are validated in some way.

Is facebook just a big popularity contest though? Is it all just a big competition between our friends to see who has the most interesting life? I think on a mostly sub-conscious level, yes. Some people think that if they have more friends than someone else that it means something. Others think that if their statuses or pictures get a lot of likes that people really like them. I think what it really comes down to though is the need to feel like they matter. 

Everyone needs to feel like they matter in one way or another. Facebook seems to create a community where people can feel like they matter in a virtual world. Some people are able to express themselves in ways that they may not have been able to before social media. People can join groups, post memes, and upload photos to help people know who they "really are".

The interesting thing about facebook is that it's a virtual world that often coincides with the real world. We can find out more about people we met in person by looking at their facebook profile. We can keep track of friends that have moved away and reconnect with childhood friends. It is hard to say though whether this allows us to connect with others on a deeper level or a more superficial "fake" level.

Opponents of facebook claim that we can use the "old fashioned" way of communicating like phone and email that existed before facebook. But does facebook allow us to make connections with people that we otherwise would never make? 

I think that the bottom line is that there are good and bad things about having a virtual world, like facebook. I think that we need to be careful how we use such a thing. It is ok to use facebook as a tool to aid us in keeping in touch with others as long as we also connect with them in the real world as well. It is ok to want to feel like we matter, but we shouldn't end up mattering only in a virtual world. 

Here are some of my sources:

*  http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/psychology-of-facebook/

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/09/why-do-we-hate-facebook-so-much.html

https://www.openforum.com/articles/yes-b2b-needs-social-media-marketing-too/

https://www.openforum.com/articles/top-10-reasons-people-dont-like-your-facebook-posts/

http://socialtimes.com/what-can-psychology-tell-us-about-why-people-go-to-facebook_b27531

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/facebook-friends-how-many-is-too-many/

Life has been a little crazy but is finally calming down

So I guess I'm not so good at blogging. After Eden was born life was pretty crazy. I got to be home with her for about 4 months which was so great. It was still hard though. She loved to eat, sometimes that felt like all I did all day was feed her. It was hard to do much else. We went on little adventures to the laundry place and mailbox and that was about it. She didn't sleep great either. She would always fall asleep while eating and then I would try to transfer her to her crib, usually I was successful but then she would only sleep a couple hours at a time and we would start all over. I was sure that something was wrong with my milk that made her want to eat all the time but the Dr. told me that everything was fine, that some babies are like this...I was so overwhelmed during this time that I didn't feel up to doing much so that is why I never updated my blog...

Oh and then we moved...twice in three months...that will be a story for another post i think. It was a little crazy but we survived somehow. I also started back at school in January. It felt good to be back into "normal" life but it was hard to leave my sweet baby girl for entire days! Mostly Derek would watch her but we had a couple baby sitters as well. Everything worked out fine but was very busy. I pretty much felt like all I did was  take care of Eden and do Homework. I had a hard time even keeping the house clean or doing anything fun. It was ok though because I loved my time with Eden. She wasn't eating quite as often, which helped me have time for homework. I figured out that I was causing her sleep problems by feeding her to sleep so we started some "sleep training" as they call it and she started to sleep better...not great, but better, haha (maybe I'll do a post about this too...). We moved for the second time while Derek and I were both in school so it was a little nuts. We were so happy to be out of the other place though so we were happy. I made it though my first semester back with a couple A's, A-'s, B+'s and a B. I was happy with it considering how hard it was.

 I was able to have a week off, so I went home to Washington to visit my family. They were so excited to see Eden. She had so much fun, even though her schedule got all messed up. She even had her first camping trip! Well camping with electricity and a cabin to sleep in. We had a fun get together with my cousins too. One of them has a baby boy a couple months older than Eden. They had fun playing together.

 I am in school for spring term but it's much easier. We are doing our global health experience and my group is working with the Refugee population that lives in Salt Lake City. It's been pretty exciting and overwhelming so far. We visit 3 families from different places in Africa. I'm learning a lot! I've finally been able to organize our apartment and I even made some fun decorations for the wall that I'm excited about. We are trying to cook more meals as well. It was pretty rough for a while. We pretty much lived on fast food and freezer food and like sandwiches for quite a while. All of this crazyness has been so worth it though. Baby Eden is growing up fast! She will be 9 months old on the 21st. She's not crawling yet, just rolling some and scooching a little bit on her tummy. She sits up though and loves her toys. She loves going on walks and being outside. She is happy except when we try to get her to sleep when she doesn't want to(even though she is clearly tired). She's pretty stubborn, but so sweet and cute as well. We love her so much and are so grateful for her.