[Mean Mr. Mustard]

You can see a lot of this behaviour in the elderly, especially those who lived through the great depression and who literally had absolutely nothing as kids. It was only after my grandfather died did I realize the burdens that he must have lived with throughout his life and how lucky we are relatively speaking. However when people have grown up with nothing it is easy to see how they have held on to everything that they own.

When my grandfather died there was a dumpster outside that was filled with objects that were legitimately useless, such as old hats, garbage electronics, old mattresses, appliances, national geographic magazines from the 40s-90's/00's... but one of the things that he would do is he would find old bikes, lawnmowers and things that people would throw out because they were disposable and he would fix them so they were usable once again. At the time I thought that he was crazy but after hearing of his childhood in which he went to be hungry more night than not, having brothers die because they couldn't afford medical attention and just leading what had to have been a pretty miserable existence, I can now at least partially understand why he was what some people would consider a light hoarder, he just didn't know how to throw anything away.