Forces Bearing on Our Lives

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19, NIV)

Recently our neighborhood was offered to watch as the home and property of someone described as a hoarder was emptied over a several-day period. I’m unclear on the truth of the circumstances. A relative newcomer to the neighborhood, I had walked by this property many times on walks both with and without purpose, and I had puzzled over the mounds that had taken ownership of the front porch and what could be seen of the backyard through a slatted wooden gate, and for awhile a wreck of a vehicle that sat derelict-looking and filled with stuff in front of the house. The yard was simply a dirt blanket of dried up sprigs of grass and a few scruffy trees.

I speculated on who must live in such circumstances, imagining that it might be some old person who couldn’t take care of the property and who had apparently had a long life of keeping everything, including the trash, which had spilled out onto the front porch. The story I’ve now heard is that the woman was probably in her 50s, perhaps 60s. She had lived in the house with her sister, who had died within the last year. Supposedly the parents had lived in this house as well until their deaths. I don’t know whether the family owned, or had at one time owned, the house. Toward the end of the year, my friend Tom was told by a man who seemed to be in a position of authority relating to the property that the woman living there had been evicted and that she had been given 48 hours to remove whatever she wanted. Several weeks prior to that, Tom had encountered the woman outside the house removing what appeared to be trash from her stalled van to the front porch. He asked about buying an old garden glider visible through the gate of the back yard fence sitting in the midst of the debris and chaos. She wasn’t interested in selling the glider—”nothing is for sale,” she said emphatically.

So ensued the emptying, allegedly with the help of people from the woman’s church, again hearsay. Furniture spanning a period of 60 years was hauled to the front yard, along with dishes and plastic tubs of fabric and shoes and 1950s-vintage Samsonite luggage and more, oh so much more. I watched as women wearing masks to avoid breathing in the matter let loose from disturbing all of this accumulation worked, bagging some of the discards into large black plastic bags and packing things that were apparently to be kept. Mounds and mounds filled the front yard, and dumpster after dumpster was filled and hauled away. That’s what came out the front door.

On d-day, trailers hitched to pickup trucks were loaded with the furniture and with many tools from the garage, supposedly being carried to a Christian resale shop. Late on the day of the deadline, Tom and I encountered a couple of the men working. I asked what was happening, and then I asked if the woman who had been evicted was going to benefit from the sale of the things that were being salvaged from her home. The reply seemed a little vague and left me a little puzzled and concerned—as if any of this were my business. Shortly before, and again hearsay, a woman from the neighborhood who had been “helping” told me that the evicted resident had returned late in the day and that she had been upset and crying. She added that after 5 p.m. the stuff in the front yard was available for the picking. Misguided information, I’m thinking. Nonetheless, Tom and I went to look. It was dusk and things were barely distinguishable. While we scanned the piles of debris, the neighborhood woman who had been “helping” and her husband backed up to the front porch to load up old firewood into a small pickup. “They told us we could have the wood,” she offered to the two of us, as if either of us had any rights concerning the property. We were scavenging, just like she and her husband. It seemed a little pathetic at the time, and even more so as I thought about it over the next few days.

The backyard of the property remains cluttered with stuff, and from the sidewalk you can see into a small outbuilding filled to overflowing. Apparently, the garage is laden, waiting to be emptied. Meanwhile, plumbers and heating and cooling workers have been at work. All the scrub growth in front and along the side of the house has been removed. Yet much remains to be done, as the property is readied for whatever comes next.

The lives lived in this house over the last several decades most likely will remain a mystery to me. I suppose I will get to see a property brought back to where it surely must have been early in its existence. What I’ll never know is the what and the why that led to this seemingly sad end. Who knows. Hopefully the woman is somewhere safe and much happier, having finally escaped the clutches of habit, even if not by her choice. Though she might not have chosen to get there, the forces that bear on our lives met her and life changed dramatically for her. Perhaps this is what it takes for any of us, regardless of how and what we accumulate and hold close to us, regardless of the presence or absence of some pathology.

Forces Bearing on Our Lives— Albuquerque, New Mexico (January 22, 2012)

R. Harold Hollis