(UNEDITED) Hoarding is a psychological sickness; cluttering one's house up with light bulbs, newspapers, tinned dog and cat food, clothes, plus other mindless amounts of things, is basically incurable.
However, a house in a tiny hamlet in Germany, not a Pied Piper venue, he only collected kids, was recently exposed as being extremely unusual even among hoarder standards!
The female inhabitant was renowned in family circles as having a shoe fetish, but the extent of her shoe 'collection' became public when family members dared to agree to a holiday house exchange for longer than a day.
It started with discovering a plethora of ancient, out of date, packets of food stuffed in the fridge and other places. Then, in every available corner, under every bed and cupboard, babies' and tiny-tot clothes were hoarded; her daughter is now reaching puberty and wearing make-up!
Further exploration revealed tons of dried up make-up, lipstick, shampoos, softeners, mascara, false eyelashes, etc, etc, in her hundred handbags, and bathroom cabinets!
Her poor husband and daughter just ignored her strange habits until the most bizarre discovery was made! Fresh fruit, always going rotten, they removed from several fruit bowls scattered around the house believing no hoarder could go so far. However, the next morning, their fruits bowls were filled with shoes of every shape, model, age, and size!
She had been secretly hiding her shoe collection in the cellar and attic and thought it was time to show the world how wonderful shoes are, and fruit; who needs that anyway, only fruit and nutcases!
In the interim, a white van was seen removing the rather deranged lady, with a 10 kilo, filled to the brim handbag, plus 10 mobile phones tucked under her arms, from the house in the hope a dose of rehab in the local loony bin would cure such strange habits. Sadly, to no avail. In the loony bin she started hoarding PPE masks and toilet paper just in case a space ship filled with aliens visited her house!
One never knows!
