ALL OF IT (WNYC) — “Destroy This House” Chronicles Living With Hoarders

Date: September 11, 2025
Host: David Fuerst (in for Alison Stewart)
Guest: Amanda Yulee, author of Destroy This House

Episode Overview

This episode centers on Amanda Yulee’s memoir, Destroy This House, which intimately chronicles her upbringing in a home where hoarding—particularly her mother’s food hoarding—shaped daily life. The conversation explores the emotional complexity of living with hoarders, the toll on relationships, and the nuances between collecting, clutter, and clinical hoarding. Listeners call in to share their own experiences, and the discussion expands to include considerations about mental health, shame, and best approaches to supporting loved ones facing hoarding disorder.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Amanda’s Motivation and Process For Writing

• Delayed Readiness and Perspective
  • Yulee describes a long period of gestation before writing. Despite seeing her parents as “exceptional” since childhood, true reflection didn’t come until six or seven years after their deaths.
    • “I knew from a very young age that my parents were extraordinary and sort of exceptional... But then years and years passed... It took six or seven years after that for me to see them in a new way and really sit down and write the book.” — Amanda Yulee [01:51]
• Seeking Answers
  • The memoir was born out of questions about her parents’ improbable and often dramatic stories, especially as she tried to reconstruct truth from memory and fragmented evidence.
    • “Once people are gone... you’re left with questions about what really happened... The way my parents lived was so improbable...” — Amanda Yulee [02:26]
• Establishing Truth
  • Amanda relied on chronology, primary documentation (photos, newspaper clippings, letters, voice recordings) to validate her childhood memories.
    • “I wanted to back up everything I remembered with facts... to prove what I remembered about my parents, even the really improbable stuff... I wasn’t wrong.” — Amanda Yulee [16:04]

Defining Hoarding vs. Collecting

• Amanda draws a distinction:
  • Collecting and “stuff” are normal; the problem arises when possessions impede daily functioning and relationships.
    • “When stuff is in the way of how you live and interrupting your functional life and your relationships, which is absolutely what was happening in my house growing up, to me, that's hoarding.” — Amanda Yulee [03:40]
• The family never used the word “hoarding”—only “clutter”—which reveals generational and societal gaps in understanding.
  • “My mother died in 2015, and she never spoke the word hoarding or heard it. We didn’t talk about it that way... We called it clutter and we said it was messy.” — Amanda Yulee [04:08]

Food, Fabric, and the Psychology of Possessions

• Amanda’s mother’s hoarding began with food and expanded to clothing and fabric, often rooted in hope and aspiration (imagining future meals, projects).
  • “With the sewing, she always hoped... the pattern and the material and the buttons would become a beautiful garment... She could see it in the future. She didn't do it. She hung onto it.” — Amanda Yulee [07:12]
• Food was both the most excessive and dangerous part, with spoiled perishables often left out due to an overstuffed fridge.
  • “We had non perishables, but also perishables kind of rotting in the house… she almost never cooked it.” — Amanda Yulee [07:56]

The Family Dynamic and Emotional Impact

• Parental enabling and humor were present, not just dysfunction.
  • “I like to call my parents the Midwestern Bonnie and Clyde. They sort of enabled each other. You know, they just loved each other and, and that's a lot.” — Amanda Yulee [15:01]
• Shame was pervasive for Amanda; she avoided bringing friends home and felt responsible for an unfixable situation.
  • “We almost never had people in the house. When we did, they're all in the book. It's like four or five times in my growing up years... I felt a great deal of shame...” — Amanda Yulee [19:06]

The Ineffectiveness of ‘Quick Clean-Ups’

• Removing the stuff without addressing underlying issues rarely worked, often making things worse.
  • “All the times that I tried to clean it... it only made things worse. Because the root problem... was there. It was always there.” — Amanda Yulee [22:05]
• Amanda’s mother could not accept help, never acknowledged a problem, and insisted she could manage it alone.
  • “If it were brought up, it were like, well, it’s messy, but just, you know, give me a Saturday and I’ll tidy it up. Which was very unrealistic for how it looked…” — Amanda Yulee [21:00]
• Hoarding, Amanda notes, is rarely about the physical “stuff”—it reflects deeper pain and personal challenges.
  • “It feels like it’s the stuff, but it’s not the stuff... my mother’s compulsion to buy things and to keep them... that was the problem. And that was about her, her identity and her pain and her life.” — Amanda Yulee [21:00]

Mental Health, Compassion, and Forgiveness

• Amanda expresses compassion and forgiveness for her parents, acknowledging that understanding them alleviated anger.
  • “I’ve forgiven my mom for sure. I don’t have those sorts of feelings. I have a lot of compassion for her now.... I have to think that my parents did their best and that’s all we can... ascribe to people.” — Amanda Yulee [10:23]
• Taking care of aging hoarding parents was emotionally and practically draining. Amanda described her choices as “imperfect” but made with the best intentions.
  • “Those were very, very hard years... I made the choices I made in the best way that I could. Imperfectly, I guess, but...” — Amanda Yulee [20:12]

Community Calls & Resources

• Shared Experiences:
  • Multiple callers recount relatives’ and friends’ hoarding, echoing Amanda’s struggles with shame, frustration, and helplessness.
  • One caller (Rachel) links her own collecting tendencies to ADHD and expresses guilt about how it affected her children.
    • “My girls tried to tell me I didn’t ruin their lives, but I just don’t know if they really ever can forgive me.” — Rachel [10:04]
• Professional Insight:
  • Diane, a retired organizer, points listeners to the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (challengingdisorganization.org), noting the overlap between ADHD and hoarding behaviors.
    • “It’s a research and education organization... That’s how I got trained... and how I learned how ADHD creates a lot of challenges for people around order and managing their lives.” — Diane [12:06]
• Important Distinctions:
  • Amanda and callers discuss how hoarding is often misunderstood as simple laziness or messiness, when it is more accurately related to mental illness and emotional trauma.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I wanted to destroy my house, just the way you fantasize as a kid about running away.” — Amanda Yulee [Paraphrased at the opening]
• “It’s not about the stuff. That was the problem. And that was about [my mother’s] identity and her pain and her life.” — Amanda Yulee [21:00]
• “I felt like I was the only one that could see it. I felt like my parents couldn’t see all the multiples of things.” — Amanda Yulee [19:06]
• “Some people feel, ‘Oh my God, you threw out my stuff;’ other people think it’s a blessing—‘Thank you, you gave me my life back.’” — Wayne, caller [05:17]
• “We never had a word for hoarding. It was always ‘clutter’ or ‘messy’… but looking back, it was diabolically messy.” — Amanda Yulee [04:08]
• “We almost never had people in the house. I always had to socialize at other people’s houses. I felt a great deal of shame…” — Amanda Yulee [19:06]
• “If you just focus on the stuff… and think, ‘If I can just get this stuff away, everything will be resolved’—not true.” — Amanda Yulee [21:49]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:09 Introduction to Amanda Yulee & memoir context
• 01:51 Yulee on the process and motivation for writing the memoir
• 03:13 Defining hoarding vs. clutter/collecting
• 04:08 Amanda’s first recognition of “problem” vs. “normal mess”
• 05:05 Wayne in Queens shares experience with a friend’s mother (nine tons of belongings removed)
• 07:12 Food as the centerpiece of her mother’s hoarding, other “aspirational” hoarding (fabric, clothes)
• 09:00 Rachel in Rockland County describes guilt linked to ADHD and mothering with clutter
• 12:06 Diane shares resource: Institute for Challenging Disorganization
• 13:43 Allison, another caller, discusses difficulty supporting a friend with hoarding/ADHD
• 15:01 Yulee on her parents’ enabling, mutual love, and the humor in their relationship
• 16:04 Amanda’s research process for truth in memoir writing
• 16:55 Randy in Greenwich describes generational hoarding, family shame, and mental illness
• 19:06 Yulee recounts shame and social challenges due to home conditions
• 20:12 The emotional toll of caretaking hoarding parents
• 21:00 Her mother’s denial of a problem and the futility of cleaning up
• 22:05 Host and Yulee reflect on the limits of simply “removing the stuff”
• 22:51 Episode close & details on Amanda’s book event

Tone & Language

The conversation is empathetic, frank, and suffused with moments of warmth and humor despite the subject’s seriousness. Amanda speaks candidly—open about the “gross-out” aspects and her family’s pain, but also highlighting the love and agency in her parents’ lives. Callers' contributions underline a communal experience of both heartbreak and resilience.

Final Note

Destroy This House serves as an invitation to re-examine what “clutter” really means, and how compassion—both for others and for ourselves—is essential when confronting the complexities of hoarding. The episode is particularly valuable for anyone grappling with hoarding in their own family, offering insight, practical resources, and a reminder that at the heart of it all are people doing their best with what they have.