This is a true personal story, although not quite true, and not quite a story. I have mixed in some lies to give people some privacy, and to shave off some technical details.

Margaret is a hoarder. She maintains a household full of junk. Mountains of clothing, overflowing cabinets of food, bags full of bags, blocked closets full of nobody-knows-what. The top layer is a thin coating of decorative tchochkes. The bottom layer is a collection of packed cardboard boxes, untouched since the house repairs that occurred 15 years ago.

The kitchen has no counter space, and much work is done on a pull-out cutting board, which blocks the utensil shelf directly beneath it. The dining table is unusable, forcing people to set up a temporary table in the space that the front door would open into. There are not one but two expensive television sets, one in front of the other, and the second one partially obscured by other junk. The house is composed of a series of single-lane walkways; people must back up and step aside to let others pass by, and wear close-toed shoes to avoid injury.

Everyone knows this is a problem, including Margaret herself. It’s an obvious hazard to her dog. Her sons are reluctant to visit because the guest bedrooms are crowded and there is hardly a free chair. Her hobbies suffer because she has to temporarily clear out space every time she engages in them. Hardly anyone can assist her with the prodigious housework, because only she can keep track of where everything is. For example, to help with cooking requires asking her the location of each ingredient, asking her where there is preparation space, and where it is acceptable to move the objects currently in that space. She gets stressed by all the questions, and then insists that she’ll do it herself. She is endlessly busy, and that’s why she says she can’t clean up.

If one were to idly examine any given cubic foot, one would uncover the most ridiculous objects. Twenty-year-old college tour pamphlets. Emergency ladders. Foul-smelling candles. A sailor costume for toddlers. Pieces of metal that are certainly not, as she believes, spare parts to the broken couch. And yet, to toss anything out is to cause upset.

Certainly it would be helpful to throw stuff out, but definitely not this thing, or that thing. That sailor costume could be given away as a gift to her grand-nephew. This candle could come in handy if there’s a power outage. Someone could eat these snacks because expiration dates don’t really matter. This blanket could still be used if only she had the time to patch it up. You may have never liked this stuffed toy from your childhood, but it is not yours it is hers, and to her it holds sentimental value. As for those college tour pamphlets, admittedly even she can’t think of a reason to keep them. Her eyes linger on the letters, scanning for a reason. Nope, to the recycling it goes, although keep the folder it’s in. Use this box to hold recycling, and isn’t it terrible that someone keeps on throwing out her stash of empty cardboard boxes?

She has four adult sons. Every single one of them has become repulsed by her habits. While it seemed normal growing up, once they started maintaining their own living space, they realized how unreasonable it was.

And yet, each one of them has inherited a different part of her.

Alan shares his mother’s love of material goods. He is prone to impulse purchases, and buying things in bulk. He shops at Costco, and buys games from Humble Bundle. If something seems vaguely useful, he’ll buy it and try it out. But crucially, he also knows how to throw it out afterwards. When helping Margaret clean up, his biggest strength is replacing aging objects. The electric teapot barely works and could be replaced. He knows how to get one, and the order is already placed, and it’s here. Now we can toss the old one, painlessly.

Brian shares some of his mother’s sense of sentimentality. He recognizes the value in old keepsakes, crafts, books. But he also keeps it in check, avoiding the accumulation of goods, and recognizing that not every single object can spark joy. Since he has a shared understanding with his mother, he is most capable of helping her clean up on her own terms. He can pick out objects which may be of sentimental value, and try to persuade her to discard the rest.

Calvin shares his mother’s sense of efficiency. Each object matched to its use case, let nothing go to waste. If a spare ingredient is lying around, he can come up with a bespoke recipe to use it. If an object is broken, he has a knack for repairing it. But he hates buying things, on the fear it will go to waste. He enjoys the efficiency of empty space, which can be used without the additional step of clearing it out. He lives far away so isn’t able to help much, but he’s good at organizing and making a plan of attack.

David shares his mother’s emotional defensiveness. He is the only son who lives with her, so he feels the strongest responsibility to help her clean up. But instead, they often end up arguing. When she defends any particular object, he yells about it, but rarely gets his way. This halts all cleanup work, because nobody is in a mental state to help. When the other brothers try to help, he takes any criticism personally, saying he’s been busy the last few weeks, and dear mom stands in the way at every step. He is most prone to throwing things out without his mother’s permission, with mixed results.

When working together, are the brothers equal to the sum of their strengths, or the sum of their weaknesses? Perhaps a mix of both. In truth, even under the best of conditions, cleaning up the house would simply take a lot of labor, which no one can afford to spare. At best, they could pick at it bit by bit. Then eventually, when the house comes under new ownership, someone will hire a dump truck to hold the rest.