Help......My trash hoarding neighbour keep giving me spoiled food and food from her prayer.

Ask a Therapist Coping
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I have this neighbour who is in her late 80s, and she loves collecting trash and hoard them. And most of the things she collects cannot be sold to those galeng guni people.

And once every 3 months there will be town council staff coming over to throw away all the things she collected. And by doing so they also stress her out and she starts looking for place to hide them, and i left a drawer outside my unit, and slowly she took the things from it and slowly fill it with trash like plastic bags she found. And sometimes she bring back things that has very strong pee smell from it, and the whole corridor is covered by the pee odour.

And in the past the family has been fine a few times in the past, and the last time is the fine i heard was $1000. And they have no short of money, the son owns 2 cars and sale fish is the wet markets. But the children that she live with dont really take for her. Every weekend her other children will come and visit her and bring her food.

Still…whenever town council people come throw her things or when she manage to get something to talk to, she will talk all kinds of sad stories and even cry, she will say things like her son dont give her food and money .etc. So, i rarely speak to her, just nod and walk away. Since i know talking to her will trigger her.

And she loves to give all the fruits after they used it for prayer to me, and sometimes fruits her children brought for her, she will also give them to me and some food items her children buy for her during their visit she also give. My brother and mother always take from her when she give it to them, but for me, i will just tell her no i dont want if she see me coming home. If not MOST of the time she will just hang them on my gate or put them in my shoerack.

But the worse part is, she will bring back food she found in the rubbish bin and she even eat them. But most of the time she just give them to other people. And i ever get things from her that has expired 1 yr ago. And she even give away bread that has mold on them that she found in the trash.

There was once she wanted to give me a pack of bread and i was bring my dog out for a walk. And i rejected her, and later she just took a slice and give to my dog. And i keep telling her dont feed him bread, she refuse to listen, and when i told her the bread is alread moldy, she denied and took a slice and eat it, and say its still edible.

And i just walk off with my dog.

But normally i let my dog play with her whenever she sees him, since she loves him. And i was hoping letting her touch him and help her mentally. Still…she is the only person in the family that love my boy, all the rest are with passive or scare of my dog.

And i tried hard to get my MP to help her. Since they might the best people to refer her for professional help. But i guess most of the time, my request is one way.

But really? how do i stop her from keep giving me all the food that she found and those she dont want to eat to me?

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Hey @user1446,

It really sounds like you’ve been stuck between a rock and a hard place for a while. On one hand, you can see how much pain this elderly neighbour is carrying — the hoarding, the tears, the stories she tells… But on the other hand, you’re overwhelmed by the smell, the hygiene, the guilt trips, and the way she pushes past your “no” again and again.

It’s exhausting when you try to help or draw a line, and the system seems to go quiet. And when her family seems to do just enough to check the box — but not enough to really care — it makes you feel like maybe you’re the only one seeing what’s really happening.

I get the sense that part of you still hopes your dog brings her some comfort. That’s kind of beautiful, actually. But it’s also not your job to keep carrying all this weight alone.

You’re allowed to say no. Saying no to the food — especially if it’s unsafe — doesn’t make you heartless. It just means you’re looking after your own health and your pet’s too.

Maybe you could try a small sign near your door saying something like, “Please do not leave food here — thank you for understanding.” If she still leaves things, it’s okay to dispose of them without guilt.

It’s also okay to feel helpless. Honestly, that’s not weakness. That’s just a sign that the problem is bigger than one person can handle. Maybe the next step isn’t about finding the perfect solution — but just about holding space for how hard this really is.

Have you ever thought about talking to someone at your nearest Family Service Centre? They might be able to offer some support or take your report further.

I’m really curious — what keeps you going through all this?

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Not an expert on this but my gut tells me she is trying her best to be independent by not relying on others and contributing generously what she has. It may seem strange but the things and spolit food are all she has (at least in her own world). I guess the only way to “stop” is to avoid her, else, to take it and discard later. If hoarding is an issue then likely her area is also unhygienic and needs attention. Get in touch with volunteer organisations to see if they can assist her in any way.

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Well…whenever she gets injured and has to be hospitalised, her children will clean out their house. Which is a lot of trash, mainly just plastic bags.

Still…their house is pretty neat, asleast neater than mine. Based on their living room wise.

I honestly i dont want to get the authorities involve as they use force during clean out her trash and very often left her traumatised and crying.

I remember there was once she had a argument with a cleaner that is washing the area, and the cleaner actually swing a large box toward her and she didnt wear shoes, i was so scare that she will injured her feet, and lucky halfway her children return home and the cleaner saw them and keep quiet and continued his floor washing.

I actually wrote to my MP to ask him to set of a muilti agency taskforce to tackle the issue since my estate has many hoarders so much so you dont have to worry about recyclable ended up in the landfill. Since they take turns to patrol the areas for recyclables. Some even end up digging the recycle bin.

Still…my suggestion was deny, as he believe TC is capable of handling hoarding issues just but throwing aways things people collected. But, i was like, if hoarding is so easy to tackle, i would be living with a neighbour with these issues since we moved in in 2008

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Thank you for sharing that, and for trusting this space with your thoughts and your lived experience. I want to reflect a little of what I’m hearing, and then hold space with you to sit with all that’s underneath it.

It sounds like you’ve been carrying this situation with your neighbour for a long time since 2008. That’s more than 15 years of living beside not just a hoarding issue, but a human being who’s deeply entangled in it, and watching her age, fall, cry, and struggle while the system seems to only show up when things fall apart — and even then, not gently.

I can sense how much you’ve tried to be compassionate without overstepping, how you’ve tried to offer care without getting consumed. You noticed the way her home actually stays “neater than yours,” and yet still packed with plastic bags and recyclables, as if holding onto them is her way of holding onto something bigger — control, maybe? Memory? Connection?

When you mentioned how the authorities “use force” during cleanups, I noticed something shift in your tone. There’s a weight there — the helplessness of watching someone you don’t really want to get close to being treated in a way that feels too harsh. It’s like you’re stuck between not wanting her to suffer, but also not wanting her behaviour to spill so much into your life. That’s a hard place to be, and not many people talk about that — how exhausting it is to care and to want space at the same time.

That moment with the cleaner swinging a box toward her barefoot — I can imagine how fast your heart must’ve dropped. It’s those moments of “what if” that really linger, don’t they? You weren’t responsible, and yet your body reacted as if you were — scared for her safety, and quietly relieved when her children returned just in time. That’s a trauma imprint. That’s you carrying worry that technically “isn’t yours,” but somehow became part of your nervous system.

And what you did next — writing to your MP, proposing a multi-agency taskforce — that’s not nothing. That’s effort. That’s vision. That’s someone who cares, even when they feel powerless. You saw that this isn’t just about one old woman. It’s about a whole estate of overlooked people who turned hoarding into a way of surviving, or coping, or holding on. And yet… it was denied. Brushed off with a reply that probably felt a bit like, “just throw their stuff away, it’s not that hard.”

But you know better. You’ve been here since 2008. You’ve lived the complexity, seen the pain. If it were so easy, you wouldn’t still be dealing with it.

I want to ask — how are you holding all this? Are you still negotiating that line between compassion and exhaustion? It’s okay if part of you wants to stop caring — that doesn’t make you heartless. Sometimes, wanting to walk away is just the soul saying, I’m tired of carrying this alone. And maybe you shouldn’t have to anymore.

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Feels like a very deeply rooted problem. I used to live beside a hoarder and a very inconsiderate neighbor as well. He would burn his joss papers outside my door instead of his own door so I have to keep my doors closed all the time. We tried telling him to stop doing it but it’s hard to change someone’s world view / character especially if they’re old. Anyway I moved out soon so maybe that’s something you need to think about too. The other thing to consider is fire hazards. Hopefully everyone stays safe.