This is probably going to be some useless venting because the answer is obvious—I need to move out ASAP.

Anyways, here I go.

My parents have a serious hoarding problem. Ever since elementary school (I’m now a college senior), we’ve had a terrible mice problem that was exacerbated by their hoarding. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mice were the reason for our bedbug problem a couple years ago. The hoarding is so bad that they would have to get rid of 60-70% of their possessions to have some access to the walls. We’ve had countless discussions with the apartment building managers, but all they can do is give us mouse traps because they can’t access the walls due to their hoarding. My parents are aware of this and refuse to throw things away, only making empty promises to me. When I left for school last year, they told me that I’d come back to a clean couch. Today, it’s still piled with junk and doesn’t have room for anyone to sit on it. Even if it had room, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting on a couch that mice have scurried, pooped, and peed on for god knows how long. The hoarding doesn’t even stop. Ever since the beginning of high school (8 years ago now), I told them that they needed to throw things away before bringing in new stuff, otherwise we wouldn’t have enough space to walk. Every time I walk in the kitchen now, I always knock something down or trip over something because it’s just that cluttered. My worst memory of how bad my mom’s hoarding got was when I had to stay home to let the AT&T guy install a router. I was embarrassed of the place, but still wanted to leave an open space for them to place the router somewhere. That would mean that I would have to toss a bunch of useless items occupying the only area the router could go away. When I told my mom what I did, she lost it. I had made sure to throw away things she would never need—scraps of paper, toys of mine, broken pens, etc. She lost it. She woke me up at 3 am on a school night demanding where the stuff she never used but suddenly needed was. I told her that it was gone, and she went down to the trash chute in our apartment building’s basement with a bucket and brought up all the stuff I had thrown away back up. The stuff I threw away wasn’t even bagged, so she sifted through trash mixed in with our neighbor’s junk. I couldn’t believe it.

Fast forward to an hour ago, I just saw two mice jump down from a cabinet where we store our cups in the kitchen onto the floor inches from my feet. A day ago, I saw a mouse scurry across the floor numerous times. Before I left home for the spring semester, I saw the mouse on our stove. I have no idea what to even think anymore. I’m tired of telling them that hoarding is literally killing us, and that it’s unsafe to live with mice everywhere. The mouse traps don’t even work because they hoard so much food and leave it lying everywhere (the kitchen, living room, and even the bathroom). This is one of the many reasons why I refuse to be close with my parents. They don’t listen to what I have to say and are willing to put my health in danger from when I was young until now. My mom, who contributes to most of the hoarding, knows how troublesome the mice are. She can barely sleep with them scurrying and making so much noise at night. She has seen them near the TV, on the TV stand, and throughout the entire apartment. She should know that this is unsanitary and dangerous and negatively affects people besides herself.

Situations like these now make me rethink whether the bed is a safe place. I used to love our bed because I thought it was a place mice couldn’t climb onto it, but that clearly isn’t the case, especially since there’s now a pile of clothes next to the bed that the mice could climb to get on it. I’ve seen mice scurry under the bed numerous times (often in pairs), but never on it. Part of me never wants to find out if they’ve been on it but I’m sure they have before.

I haven’t even gotten started on the mold that’s covering the bedroom and bathroom, which no one can get rid of unless my parents sort out their hoarding. There’s literally a wall of black mold next to the stove that has been sitting there for over a decade. I don’t know how to tell them that this place is a biohazard. I’ve told them that I will move out and even that isn’t enough for them to get a wake up call and change. I have no idea what to do besides weather senior year out and move out ASAP.