14. Game Closet
Like any house full of closets, ours have always been dysfunctional. In our condo now, our linen closet isn't great, and even though I blame it on the angled shelf design, I usually care enough to neatly place folded towels on the shelves about every other time that I put the away the laundry.
As long as I can remember, the hall closet over the stairs has been full of stuff. It was relatively organized for a few months, I remember tearing it apart and folding everything before putting it back. Everything was in there. Sheets, towels, blankets, old Halloween costumes,baskets, bags of craft supplies, and random scraps of unidentifiable things. This is how I found it a year ago.
Off the top I see a basket, sheets, a lamp and cord, pillows, stuffing, and the giant faux fur blanket that my dad made my mom for Christmas several years ago, I took the last year or so that I lived in the house, and then left it when I moved. The problem with this closet, is that it's not strictly vertical like most. To the right it stair steps up and I climbed up to get a shot but it was packed. There's actually a door that shuts off the stair stepped area, but it's crammed so full that the door is stuck behind the pile of sheets and the basket on top, with stuff spilling out of the side area. It doesn't look like it, but there are shelves in there.
The game closet (no picture, sorry) is between the back bedroom and the third, smaller bedroom. As a kid it always had tons of board games, card games, party games, and all of them were in varying states of disrepair and stages of lost pieces. There were also usually plastic grocery bags of random fabric scraps and craft supplies shoved into the cracks, packing it solid. If you wanted a game, you had to prepare for an avalanche. Just after I moved out, I think my mother went through it in an empty-nest rage and tossed everything. Then she called my sister and I to tell us what she had done hoping for a reaction. At that point, I hadn't really identified as a hoarder or COH, but I was so frustrated with my own issues that I told her I didn't care about the stupid games. Now I still don't care about the games, but I wish I had known better how to encourage her and use gentle reinforcement to diffuse the situation.
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