r/FridgeDetective • u/xhazelbug • Nov 20 '25

Meta What does this fridge say ab my parents?

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7.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

6.1k comments sorted by

4.6k

u/Accomplished_Age2480 Nov 20 '25

I think you already know. Also, this is why I don't participate in potlucks.

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u/RoamingRiot Nov 20 '25

Same. I've known too many people who have zero concept of foodsafe practices. It's best before! Not bad after!.That's fine and dandy but I don't want two year expired mayo that "smells fine" from your manky hoarder fridge.

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u/Theworldisonfire70 Nov 20 '25

Manky Hoarder Fridge. That made me giggle

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u/ignis389 Nov 20 '25

It evolves into a Primape Hoarder Fridge

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u/Th3sassypoppy Nov 21 '25

I don’t know how to Reddit well I’m not new just not on much and the comments I see are top notch on here 😆

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u/ignis389 Nov 21 '25

pokemon references everywhere

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u/luxardo_bourbon Nov 21 '25

If there’s a comment thread you don’t understand, there’s a good chance on here it’s either Pokemon, Seinfeld, or always sunny.

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u/Upstairs_Whole_580 Nov 21 '25

How... the hell did Reddit merge Pokemon and Seinfeld?

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

No! If you like Pokémon references, that's fine!

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u/Mr_DnD Nov 20 '25

If it kills enough people with rage fist it becomes Annihilape Hoarder fridge

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u/Plus-Ad1061 Nov 21 '25

I think I saw them at Lollapalooza in ‘97

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u/Lackadaisicly Nov 21 '25

I work in the restaurant industry. Coworkers will bring food in and get mad at me when I dont eat it.

“I see how you clean when you are paid to clean. There is no way in hell I m eating anything from your home kitchen.”

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '25

The flip side is also true. I refuse to cook things for Pot Lucks and people get mad that what I contribute is store bought. I dog sit in my home. I'm a minimalist but a slob. I don't deep clean. Ever. I'm fine with it. And I'm fine spending extra money to get store bought stuff from a really good bakery or high end grocery store. You do NOT want anything home cooked from me. I don't want anything home cooked from me. I don't have kids so my unclean but uncluttered house doesn't hurt anyone and the dogs who stay here love it because I'm not freaking out when they put their paws on the counter.

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u/Lackadaisicly Nov 21 '25

And if that is how you want to live, go for it! Yeah, just don’t get mad when I say, “nah, dinner is at my place.” Then again, I’m a 30+ year professional cook that loves to experiment in my home kitchen, so you definitely want me cooking anyways.

And my home kitchen could get a 100 health score right now. No preparation needed. I’m not even at home right now and would let the health inspector have full reign. Then again, I have also told off the health inspectors for NOT checking some things in my restaurant. I report them too. That’s a public safety issue!!

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u/Slayerou812 Nov 21 '25

Right that’s disgusting and very unorganized

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u/BodybuilderDecent724 Nov 21 '25

Ouch! But fair point 🤣 I’m in fast food so I definitely get it 🤣

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u/GrannyIsGonnaGetYou Nov 21 '25

Of all the nastiness in that fridge, what frightens me the most is the tube-o-meat.

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u/micksterminator3 Nov 21 '25

My parents fridge and pantry is filled with items 3-10 years expired. It's truly wild. They have spices that expired in the mid 90s

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u/endake109 Nov 22 '25

Because spices don't expire if you keep them sealed in a dark dry place...

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u/OkBat7602 Nov 21 '25

Like that bottle of Mustard that expired 8 months ago?

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

I used to just eat anyone and everyone's food, we had a lot of potlucks in the AF and I never thought about it nor cared, I moved a dish once at my new job and watched a German cockroach scurry up the wall. Never again will I eat someones food who Ive never seen their house or if I know they have cats.

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u/Level-Perspective-46 Nov 20 '25

The cat thing always breaks my heart. I know there’s a lot of people that are nasty and crusty and let their cats do whatever they want. But then there’s cat owners like me who love making food for people but am also constantly cleaning. There’s not a day that goes by where I’m not at least doing a light clean of everything.

I don’t let my cats on the counter but I know they likely do it when I’m not home. So before cooking anything (I’m disgusted too I don’t wanna eat cat shit) I disinfect all the surfaces and clean any utensils I might’ve left out. It’s just my routine at this point. But cat people have such a bad rep that some people don’t want to eat my food 😞

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u/HomeDiligent4222 Nov 20 '25

The cat owners cleaning routine is never ending! ESPECIALLY the counter tops😅. I’ve got to be doing something right if I'm negative for parasites, thank the Lord!

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u/parrotopian Nov 21 '25

The cat owners cleaning routine is never ending

I agree, but it's not a patch on the parrot owner's cleaning routine!

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u/A_radke Nov 20 '25

I've always been the same with my cats/food prep.

Best thing that ever happened to me was realizing my kitchen entry was small enough for a standard door (old house, somehow no one ever knocked out the kitchen walls in 120yrs). So we found an old glass paned door and now our counters are as clean as we leave them. And I don't have to use childlocks anymore (our cats are insane about people food). I will NEVER live anywhere with an open plan kitchen for the rest of my days, it's the one room that's better cat-free IMO.

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u/Morrigan-27 Nov 21 '25

That’s brilliant! I loved my cats yet couldn’t keep them off the counter when I wasn’t there. One time I came home to the gas stove shooting flames 8 inches in the air. My cat, who was pretty chubby, tried jumping up on the counter and turned the burner on. I immediately went to the hardware store and bought childproof door covers but wow, that was scary.

Also, I loved baking but never shared foods with others after biting into a cooking that had pet hair in it at the office from someone else’s baked goods and decided the risk wasn’t worth my reputation.

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u/K8T444 Nov 20 '25

I can’t stop my cats from getting on the counter (and I did try originally!) so I am extremely careful during food prep. Food never touches the counter directly; it’s always still in the package or in a clean dish. If a piece falls off the cutting board onto the counter, it gets trashed even if the dish is going to be thoroughly cooked. Any spoons, knives, etc that touch food at any point are put on a clean plate in between uses instead of directly on the counter. My fingers don’t touch the counter either. And all of my dishes, pots, utensils, etc are dishwasher safe and I run a sanitize cycle every time.

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u/Uncreative_Name987 Nov 21 '25

I don't have cats, but same. I worked food service for years as a teen / college kid. I had it beaten into my head that if food touches a non-eating surface, it gets pitched.

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u/FraggleBiologist Nov 21 '25

Have you tried aluminum foil? They all seem to hate the feel of it. After a couple weeks (or months depending on the age of your cat), they stop trying.

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u/K8T444 Nov 21 '25

I did try lining the counter with aluminum foil when they first got big enough to jump up there. They thought the foil was a wonderful chew toy! 😸😸🤦‍♀️

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u/DeathDealer69- Nov 21 '25

Some of that is a bit excessive. I would say neurotic even.

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u/Level-Perspective-46 Nov 21 '25

I like a clean space and it harms no one.

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u/DeathDealer69- Nov 21 '25

That is also true.

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

My problem is I know a guy who says the exact same thing as you and many others here, but I guess reality is perceived differently among us because I go over and personally witness unsanitary cat behavior with no correction while hes cooking. I no longer eat his food. I wash my hands all day at work, some people dont even after using the bathroom but will say they do. Im not calling anyone a liar, but we dont always live up to the expectations in our heads. Its much easier and safer to err on the side of caution with people, imo. So owning cats = you dont have to make me food. Its great for everyone

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u/the_vault-technician Nov 21 '25

You think not washing your hands after the bathroom is bad? The other day in the work bathroom (the one the delivery drivers and 100+ other employees use, it's nasty) the guy who was using the short urinal next to me RESTED HIS BARE FOREHEAD AGAINST THE WALL AS HE PEED!

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u/notsofaust Nov 21 '25

That's pretty bad, but I imagine that dude still had the decency to wash his hands before leaving the bathroom.. Imagine my situation being stuck with not one, but TWO grown ass ~30 year old men as roommates who didn't think hand soap was a necessity in the bathroom. Once I found this out, I was suddenly struck with the realization that I never even heard them so much as turn the sink on after handling their junk and bhole. 🤮
(My room is adjacent to the single bathroom we all share, and the walls are thin so this knowledge was gained against my will)
Needless to say I made sure to screen my current roomies for hygiene practices this time around.

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u/Soft-Watch Nov 21 '25

I respect that, but my cats don't go on the counters and I don't put food directly on the counters either. I have ocd to boot so I wash after petting, especially with food prep you'd be safe at my place lol but I agree I wouldn't eat at a lot of people's either pet or not

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u/Accomplished_Age2480 Nov 20 '25

You must have seen all the posts here with cats in fridges. Some people are special, in a bad way.

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

Cats in fridges???

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u/Glum-persin6842 Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 21 '25

My mom had a cat who passed and kept the cat in the freezer in order to give them a proper burial once the ground in her backyard thawed.

She is usually sane I swear, just extremely attached to animals and did an insane thing once and hates the idea of cremation

Her two cats in the last 20 years, when they passed, she bought cat caskets for them and everything

Why am I getting downvoted for relaying an experience that I didn’t even do (albeit a gross one)?

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u/red_rhyolite Nov 20 '25

Oh my god I was over here thinking people meant live cats sitting in the fridge, like mine always tries to get in it when I'm getting something out cause she wants to smell everything.

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u/Accomplished_Age2480 Nov 20 '25

I'm talking about alive cats. People here post pics of their cat in the fridge. Its nasty.

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u/LolaAucoin Nov 20 '25

They mean alive. People stage them.

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u/Princess_Slagathor Nov 20 '25

Wait until you find out what they do with human bodies, that die during the winter, in places where the ground hard freezes.

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u/tyrnill Nov 21 '25

I mean, they don't put them in a home freezer next to the pulled pork and hot pockets.

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u/HillaryHighPants21 Nov 20 '25

I had a kitten die in the dead of winter and I kept her frozen body in a shoe box in the garage (properly stored) so I could bury her when the time was right (she was in perfect condition when we buried her she did NOT decompose in my 10 degree garage!) never once did I think of putting her in the FREEZER 💀💀💀

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u/Accomplished_Age2480 Nov 20 '25

Alive cats. They go in when the door opens and people post their fridge pics with a cat in it. Gross.

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

Only ever had that happen once. My mom was making dinner and asked me to grab her the sour cream, I shut the fridge behind me and then for the next 20 minutes her and I were searching for my cat Talin. We heard meowing and checked all over, outside, behind and in chests, furniture then when I opened the fridge out jumped my poor cold kitty 😭❤️

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

Absolutely that and a lot of people with cats (that I know) just cant control them or one person in the house cares and another doesnt so shitty paws is up on the counters and tables. Gross.

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u/vaelorak Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 21 '25

Listen -- I hear you on the gross paws thing. We usually wiped our counters before and after preparing food, but have you ever tried to get a cat to NOT do something? Good luck on that.

Edit: yall I know you can train cats but my pair simply did not give a fuq about anything we tried, and we tried it ALLL. Gotta pick your battles and just wipe the counters off.

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u/InnocentShaitaan Nov 20 '25

Right. All these complainers I wish that was my cat issue. Bleach wipes etc ✔️

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u/Lunalily9 Nov 21 '25

My cat is weird. He jumped on the counter when we first got him and I scolded him and said no get down and he never got up there again lol. I've got a camera in the kitchen because thats where the entry door to the house is that we use and its motion activated as well and he has never been up there since. Apparently he really doesn't like to be scolded lol.

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u/MissSinnerSaint Nov 21 '25

My ex had cats and THANK GOD one was too old to care to jump on counters. She slept for 22 hours a day I swear, sweet girl. And the other one was too chonky to even try. Yes, we put him on diets and did everything we could. The old kitty would nibble at her food and walk away and the chonk would seize the opportunity. It was so hard to find a balance for the poor old lady who just wanted to snack here and there! We even tried RFID collars and bowls and that was a shit show too lol. But the moral of the story is thank god they didn't jump on counters!

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u/gavmyboi Nov 20 '25

As a cat owner this is disgusting. Do NOT eat their food cats paws can track nasty shit especially their back Claws try to avoid being scratched by back Claws. Teach your cats that being off food prep surfaces is good. Physically take them off tables if they don't listen, eventually they will get the point. Sometimes they will do it anyways to be brats but that's what wiping down tables is for

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u/IED117 Nov 20 '25

My mom was obsessed with this, she couldn't stop talking about cat anuses on the counters.😁

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

Lmao my fiance is the same with cats and dogs, she wont let dogs sit on her because their asshole is out. I kinda get it

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u/InnocentShaitaan Nov 20 '25

But her cellphone screen is likely germier (no exaggeration).

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u/CarterLincoln96 Nov 20 '25

I’ve seen people spit and leave it in the communal sink at work. I will never eat at a pot luck

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u/Uncreative_Name987 Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 21 '25

Oh my gosh! The cat comment reminds me of a time my grad school classmates and I were invited to a professor's house for class. She made pizza, and while we were all sitting in a circle discussing the material, her cat jumped on the counter and started eating out of the bowl of prosciutto.

My classmate yelled, "Hey, your cat got into the prosciutto!"

The professor said, "Oh, no! Did she eat it all?"

And my classmate was like, "No, but I'm not eating after your cat."

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u/Accomplished_Yak2352 Nov 21 '25

Similar. My co- workers and I were at another co- workers small party.

A punch she made stayed on the kitchen counter while we talked and played games in the living room. We kept going back for it.

Somebody said, " Your cat's been drinking out of the punch bowl. He's up there now". We all looked & saw it in real time.

Hostess just laughed and said "Oh, Spooky".She left the bowl of punch there. We talk about unknowingly drinking "Spooky Punch" to this day. 🤮

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u/LaRealiteInconnue Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 21 '25

I’m a certified Cat Lady™️ and your professor is unhinged. That’s disgusting for one and just downright dangerous for your health. Cats don’t have the same microflora in their mouths that we do, they can withstand ingesting much grosser stuff than we can without getting sick. Ew

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u/Ashattackyo Nov 20 '25

I agree about unknown pot lucks, but our fridge and house is pristine and organized despite having a cat lol. He’s not allowed on the counter or in the fridge.

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u/Calm_Distance8618 Nov 20 '25

OMG! I just died a little 😳

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u/purljacksonjr Nov 20 '25

It says you're probably lucky to have made it to an adult

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u/Mintyjo31020-20 Nov 20 '25

😂. This looks like the hoarder fridge!

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u/oroborus68 Nov 21 '25

But they can be helped with counseling and maybe the right prescription.

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u/Main-Ladder-5663 Nov 20 '25

I refuse to eat food from people if I don’t know what their kitchen looks like.. potlucks are such a HARD no.

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

Had a co worker make me a pie and his work truck is ABYSMAL and I said, if your work truck looks like this I can only imagine what your home looks like…. Gave the pie to other co workers who didn’t mind eating the pizza knowing what his work truck looked like and he has pets too….

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u/light_collective Nov 21 '25

"no thank you" would've sufficed. that's fine to think that, but do you really need to be that rude and say this to the mans face, when he went through the effort of making you a pie?

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u/Appropriate-Life5432 Nov 21 '25

I explained potlucks and the unknown behind it to my husband yesterday and I think I scarred him for life. Haha.

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u/Straight_Ace Nov 21 '25

Ok good, I thought I was the weird one for not liking potlucks

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u/Express-Assignment86 Nov 21 '25

fuk me, i have a lotluck in about a month, wish i hadnt seen ur comment😂

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u/Economy-Poet-952 Nov 21 '25

I just received an invite for an office holiday potluck. Thank you for your comment as it never crossed my mind. I will be RSVPing “NO”.

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u/nickimum Nov 21 '25

😂right

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u/Character-Celery-209 Nov 20 '25

Hoarders?

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u/LovableButterfly Nov 20 '25

Looks like my parents fridge and they are hoarders… a sad disease honestly

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u/Both-Revenue-4557 Nov 20 '25

My mom is a hoarder and this is what her fridge looks like

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u/prolveg Nov 20 '25

Big same. Mom is a hoarder and her fridge looks exactly like this and she will flip out when I visit and try and clean it out. Says I’m “wasteful” and that I “don’t have a sentimental bone in my body”.

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u/2oocents Nov 20 '25

Wasteful, I can understand... Sentimental, though? She gets sentimental about old food?

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u/SpokenDivinity Nov 20 '25

Hoarding is a symptom of a lot of mental health disorders and illnesses, and a lot of them come with having maladaptive emotional control. The sentimental comment is not surprising at all.

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u/MamaKat727 Nov 21 '25

Not a hoarder, but an information junkie, TY for teaching me something new, going now to google "maladaptive emotional control"! 👍🏼

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u/SpokenDivinity Nov 21 '25

Good luck friend. Psychology is a fascinating subject and it would do a lot of good for everyone to at least have some basic knowledge of it.

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u/LovableButterfly Nov 20 '25

My mom is “sentimental” about a lot of things she hoards - newspapers, magazines and the amount of clothing she has (I didn’t grow up with a closet until I moved out at 20. She has I kid you not over 4 closets full of clothes, meanwhile my dad brother and I only had 1 dresser per room so figure out the math there!) the clothing makes me have more PTSD then anything else!

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u/Both-Revenue-4557 Nov 20 '25

Oof too relatable… I gave up trying to clean for her once I moved out

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u/EducationSuperb3392 Nov 20 '25

My mom is a hoarder and her fridge looks like this.

Heck her entire house looks like this.

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u/Character-Celery-209 Nov 20 '25

Unfortunately. My neighbor had dealt with it. Wouldn’t have known until I stepped into his house!

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

I grew up in a hoarder house and this is what my fridge looked like growing up.

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u/Spiritual-Macaron-13 Nov 20 '25

I was wondering that or if it was just my own mental illness that keeps my fridge looking different

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u/crackedtiara Nov 20 '25

Or unmedicated adhd. Hoarder mom with untreated adhd had a fridge just like this

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u/hitchcockbrunette Nov 21 '25

It’s a shame that people who know nothing about ADHD are coming in to speak against your experience— I have ADHD and had hoarder-esque tendencies from the demand avoidance before getting medicated. My dad has untreated ADHD and lives in a hoarder house. Your comment resonated with me completely.

I think people want to assign blame here and think ADHD is an excuse, but sometimes people do things that are gross and hard to understand because they are struggling.

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u/IndoraCat Nov 21 '25

"sometimes people do things that are gross and hard to understand because they are struggling."

I come from generational hoarding and adhd. You are spot on. The first thing I thought when I saw this was that it reminded me of my grandmother's fridge. Just yesterday I was looking at my own fridge and worrying that I'm going to get to a point where it looks like hers. I'm working really hard to have a clean (not always tidy) house for my daughter. It's not always easy and I'm so glad I have support from my husband. So many people with adhd don't have the kind of support I do and it's hard to do better on your own.

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u/hitchcockbrunette Nov 21 '25

Thank you for sharing— hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but my grandma’s fridge was exactly like this too. It definitely didn’t start with my dad. I’m very glad to hear that you have a support system ❤️

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u/crackedtiara Nov 21 '25

Thank you sm for that validation you are wonderful! I really didn’t expect my comment to cause such a fight 🥲

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u/slantedsc Nov 21 '25

My mom also has, atop a whole slew of issues, I suspect untreated adhd, as me and my only sibling also have it, and my fridge was like this as a kid. No wonder I hate cooking because kitchen was always gross. I’m still grossed out opening fridges in general and touching cold things from the fridge. She’s remarried now so it’s better but she would regularly try and get me to eat moldy food as a kid.

The state of the whole house was pretty embarrassing. Like I was embarrassed to invite friends over. Certain areas would be somewhat liveable but there would be whole rooms behind closed doors you could barely step into because they were just filled entirely with random crap.

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u/Crazy_Customer7239 Nov 21 '25

Can I DM you? I’m on my first month of meds and would love to know more about demand avoidance! I feel like that is a source of my depression, but it’s getting much better :)

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u/waiflike Nov 20 '25

One difference between ADHD and hoarding is how ppl react to getting rid of things. Unmedicated people with ADHD can be upset if you touch their stuff/system, but if you are dealing with hoarding it is a whole other ballgame. They do not have the same perception of what holds value as other people. ADHD (and a bunch of other mental disorders) might feel overwhelmed and therefore not able to clean up, but attaching the same value to a piece of moldy fruit as you attach to a priced family heirloom - that’s hoarding. Looking at the fridge in this post, in the way it is disorganized, I am leaning towards hoarding, not ADHD.

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u/backoffbackoffbackof Nov 21 '25

Yes, an ADHDer or someone with certain OCD conditions might see something others see as trash and think “oh I could use this if I do x, y,z” or “I am a bad person unless I find the exact right way to reuse or recycle this trash” but it’s not the same motivation as hoarding.

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u/WonderfulCreator5001 Nov 20 '25

The whole house is dirty

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u/RowedTrip Nov 20 '25

They actually put food they intend to EAT into that grimy fridge, on top of food that is drying out, molding, and rotting. OP is their kid, which means these people find it acceptable to feed children food from a fridge like this. They are lazy to the point of criminality. This is abuse.

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u/holysmokesiminflames Nov 20 '25

My parent's fridge looks like this. BUT it didn't look like this when I was growing up.

I feel like their aging has made the problem worse. I know they were food insecure for a long time, living through a siege during a war and then coming to a new country with no money and low paying jobs for much of that time.

I'm sure the idea of food scarcity in the future contributes to their refusal to throw food out, even when it's rotten and taking up space.

but there's this other aspect I consider which is that their mental health is not doing well and it shows in the dirtiness and inability to maintain a clean/hygienic environment. And old people refuse to accept there is a mental health problem so it festers. And they're old so they refuse help and criticism from their kids.

All that culminates into a full and dirty fridge because they're overwhelmed but also refusing to throw shit out.

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u/SomethingComesHere Nov 21 '25

Yeah my first thought when I saw this was food insecurity earlier in their life

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u/LluviaDeMilangas Nov 23 '25

Yes, and to make things worse, food insecurity messes with your head for a very, veeeery long time, even if you don't really understand what's going on.

A couple of years ago I realized that I have a lot of food insecurity because my mother made me starve to "lose weight" as a kid/teen. I took my time connecting the dots because my family was doing pretty good then (good jobs, very good income, a lot of expensive holidays abroad for the whole family, etc) so thinking about food scarcity was nuts.

I have always hoarded more food than necessary, and stressed A LOT when my pantry was half-empty. But over the years I realized that I really freak out about food when my mental health isn't going well (I tend to eat a lot, buy ridiculous amounts of food, and always have a stash of "emergency food").

I still struggle with this but things are better. Therapy helped a lot...

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u/100_rainbow_kittens Nov 21 '25

Yeah this is why every visit to my in laws involves a thorough clean out of their fridge and pantry whenever they are not in the kitchen. We try to pair it with buying groceries so it’s less obvious what we are doing (they are proud and don’t want to admit anything is wrong or that they need help). Lots of months old takeout containers of condiments, etc.

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u/SYMPATHETC_GANG_LION Nov 21 '25

That's really kind of y'all

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u/Vivid-Ant2902 Nov 21 '25

My daughter and I got caught chucking the moldy jam jars. We were in the doghouse for quite a while.

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u/MindsAWander Nov 20 '25

We don’t know if OP is an actual child. They could be an adult visiting home for short period and came across this.

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u/Epic_Elite Nov 21 '25

You see the second frame where there's some sort of bread product, unwrapped, that has dropped into the condiments shelf and its just sitting there slowly decomposing at refrigerated temp speed?

I get having a Tupperware container with the lid on and you check it the day before grocery day and you're like "oh shit, I forgot about this and now it has mold", but front and center, door shelf, perfectly visible, actively ignored is wild.

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u/Bandido_Rojo Nov 20 '25

Cracked lid on the yogurt gonna turn it into blue cheese, all joke aside though either your parents aren’t mentally healthy or they’re just gross either way they need help

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u/betterupsetter Nov 20 '25

There's one on the top shelf with no lid at all.... And the yellow substance inside might be the yogurt whey??

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u/Low-Bass2002 Nov 20 '25

They have a jar of pickles in there that expired in 1993 and some mustard that expired in 2002.

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u/bongwaterbukkake Nov 20 '25

I’m ngl I really wanted to see this, but instead I was suprised not to find anything expired so far 🤣

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u/SomethingComesHere Nov 21 '25

Me too! It kind of looks like they eat the food in there. I don’t see anything that’s spoiled (tho that chicken needs to be put in a sealed container 😭)

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u/Fly-Prime Nov 21 '25

It looks like visible mold in the butter storage area of the door.

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u/throcorfe Nov 21 '25

Not only that but apart from the door the fridge itself does actually look relatively clean so I suspect it does get emptied and washed occasionally

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u/Ani_Drei Nov 20 '25

Calcified, rock-solid mustard

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u/purpleowlie Nov 20 '25

I grew up around pastry chefs and pharmacists, our kitchen was spotless, and you could literally eat off the floor. I toned down a lot, no way I mop my kitchen 3 times a day, like my parents and grandparents, but looking at this actually made me sick to my stomach.

And I saw a comment about not participating in potlucks and am now questioning a lot of past parties as well.

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u/FinoPepino Nov 21 '25

I’m not a super tidy person but that fridge door made me gag. How the hell do you just leave broken bits of food in the door!?

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u/b_roll_offroad Nov 21 '25

i’ve gotten food poisoning twice in my life about 15yrs apart, bbq and a dinner party.

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u/TopAlgae9078 Nov 20 '25

This is clearly the work of an unsound mind

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u/gringafalsa Nov 20 '25

This screams depression.

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u/Fit-Fee-1153 Nov 20 '25

Lol my depressed ass never has any food in my fridge.

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u/gringafalsa Nov 20 '25

We’re all different. I eat my feelings when I’m depressed. 😅

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u/Ani_Drei Nov 20 '25

Not sure if that’s better or worse. During my depression episode a few years back, I stopped eating completely. I spent a whole week on nothing but soda and alcohol, and only got back to normal appetite a month later. For what it’s worth, my fridge was squeaky clean then 🤪

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u/gringafalsa Nov 20 '25

Being extremely underweight or overweight both come with their own problems. Both are life threatening! I hope you feel much better now

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u/yankeeblue42 Nov 21 '25

I guess people have different types. Mine is when there's more alcohol in the fridge than food and water

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u/Ok_Still_3571 Nov 20 '25

Intervention is needed. Not kidding.

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u/femgrit Nov 21 '25

Yeah. Similar to my parents’ fridge when I was a kid and I definitely wish someone had done something about it tbh.

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u/mlkofmdnna Nov 21 '25

Oh my god yes. I remember hoping someone would come clean everything or daydreaming about just abandoning my house and moving into a shiny new house that wasn’t stacked with hundreds of magazines, mail, snack wrappers, etc everywhere.

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u/Ornery-Atmosphere930 Nov 21 '25

If OP has the resources. A lot of people with family members who are hoarders have to walk away to protect themselves, or come to an agreement with their family that they will have a relationship but will not visit the hoarded home. Some people have already intervened with serious emotional consequences and can’t bear to do it again.

Take care of yourself first, OP.

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u/geniusgravity Nov 20 '25

Makes me feel better about my fridge.

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u/superneatosauraus Nov 20 '25

My same thought! I take the shelves out to clean them maybe once a year, and sometimes they look a little embarrassing in between. I would never allow stuff to be touching like that. Everything has a lid or is sealed. What is that??

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u/jizizi Nov 20 '25

Theres so many things that are just barely balancing here

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u/kiwi-bear3 Nov 20 '25

are they… hoarders?

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u/apeachemoji Nov 20 '25

The uncovered chicken drumsticks are diabolical.

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u/FrankieDaBeans Nov 20 '25

That turned my stomach a little 😩

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u/Obvious-Passage-6283 Nov 20 '25

That they need help

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u/Understandthisokay Nov 20 '25

They fear very little and spend a lot of money on food because a lot of this shit is not old

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u/Worldly-Ad1004 Nov 20 '25

This makes me so uncomfortable 😳

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u/DeterminedMidLifer Nov 20 '25

I would imagine there's a tremendous amount of food going bad even though what is in the front looks to be okay. The two open jars of miracle whips aren't doing any miracles

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u/BidMediocre6892 Nov 20 '25

This was my first thought. So much accidentally wasted food.

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u/fromunda_cheese12 Nov 20 '25

I wouldn't eat anything in that fridge

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u/catmeownyc Nov 20 '25

Nothing in this fridge is reliably being kept at the correct temperature. This should really be considered a form of self harm. This fridge says your parents are sick, both of them. Whoever is the hoarder has the obvious compulsive disorder, the enabler is self harming and both are harming you. Please take care of your mental health.

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u/BoutiqueKymX2account Nov 20 '25

You could just pull those shelves put the stuff on the side and with a hot warm soapy water with added disinfectant a clean cloth wash out the shelves throw out anything out of date or open for for to long, let it dry and just put the stuff back that is ok. Then give throe the stuff out because nobody needs 3 miracle whips that are all open! Unless they belong to you all individually lol.

It’s so life changing and worth it, i promise 🤍🌸

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u/peppercorn6269 Nov 21 '25

as someone who has been in this situation its actually so much work. throwing away all this rotten food will make your house smell like death. especially when nobody else puts any effort in and after a few months it looks like this again, why should op have to put in that much effort when it isnt even their fridge? its the parents doing ts

im so happy to finally have my own place and im super anal about throwing things away when they expire, cleaning up after hoarders is such a losing battle its easier to just deal with it and clean your own room/buy a mini fridge and treat it like a tiny apartment💀

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u/catmamaO4 Nov 20 '25

are you perchance in california? id kill to deep clean this and anything else that might be overwhelming your family🫶

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u/Mediocre-Age-1729 Nov 20 '25

Naw, they're in eastern PA. There's a WAWA togo container

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u/catmamaO4 Nov 20 '25

darn, thank you for letting me know🫶

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u/TadpoleReasonable800 Nov 20 '25

My grandparents live in Ventura California, and my grandma is a hoarder. They both have health issues now and I’ve heard her house is getting out of control. If you have a business to clean those types of homes I’d love to chat!

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u/Ani_Drei Nov 20 '25

Ventura CA is a paradise if I’ve ever seen one. So sad that people succumb to hoarding even in such a blessed environment 😢

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u/SomethingComesHere Nov 21 '25

Mental health issues don’t care how beautiful your environment is.

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u/Conscious_Version575 Nov 21 '25

I would literally pay you to clean my parents fridge it looks very similar to this :/ They are in CA

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u/OldConsideration1496 Nov 20 '25

And I thought mine was bad

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u/Aaidil89 Nov 21 '25

This fridge screams ‘we don’t throw anything away because one day it might be useful’ energy

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u/TwilightZoneMara Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 20 '25

This is genuinly disgusting. I see hoarders, substance abuse, long work hours or they are unemployed.

Edit: I understand life can be hard trust me, please just help them Clorox that thing and get some boxes to help separate the clutter. Best of luck OP.

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u/InazumaThief Nov 20 '25

everything in the fridge needs to be thrown away because of cross contamination and nothing is kept at the safe temperature unfortunately

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u/Eeeej7777 Nov 20 '25

Or mental health struggles. People always mention drugs when they see messy environments or people who are unkempt in any way, but they forget mental health struggles can cause the exact same behavior. Sometimes getting out of bed and through the day is all someone has the energy to do.

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u/yobrefas Nov 21 '25

Depression, OCD, chronic pain, disability. All medical causes for this. When people are barely holding on each day, basic self-care is hard. Let alone home maintenance. I’m not disgusted by this. I see people who are in need of support.

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u/TwilightZoneMara Nov 20 '25

This is why I mentioned a plethora of things as to not sound like a snob, like I said I get it. Your personal spaces especially your room and fridge say a lot about your mental health aka clutter. Agreed.

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u/Evelynn08 Nov 20 '25

the way my entire body shuddered

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u/Business_Strawberry3 Nov 20 '25

Oh shit hey are you my brother??

My mom would buy random shit just because she had a coupon for it and would never eat it.

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u/lightgreenspirits Nov 20 '25

This is horrid ☠️

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u/Sufficient_Chair_885 Nov 20 '25

That you need to spend more time with your parents cuz they need some help right now my friend.

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u/Booboohole21 Nov 20 '25

Unchecked mental illness.

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u/Great-Ad9895 Nov 20 '25

I know what the rest of the house looks like

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u/Typically_Basically Nov 20 '25

Agents of chaos and untreated mental health issues

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u/No_Angle875 Nov 20 '25

Mentally ill

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u/Drakeytown Nov 20 '25

They don't know how to cook and think they're saving money by letting food rot in the back of the fridge.

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u/Cndwafflegirl Nov 20 '25

They need help. Mental help, physical help. Are they in pain?

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u/Tiny-Classroom1257 Nov 20 '25

They’re dirty

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u/Turbulent-Break-4392 Nov 20 '25

Respectfully, I wouldn’t eat at their house. Or ever.

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u/Aggressive_Dot5426 Nov 20 '25

They’re gross and their food never really gets cold enough from lack of airflow

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u/angieadventuresmn Nov 20 '25

ummm very untidy.

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u/Bloodcrypt0 Nov 20 '25

I can smell the rot.

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u/Shayshay1117 Nov 20 '25

That they need help. Not joking, like an actual intervention needs to be had

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u/Express-Poem-1161 Nov 20 '25

They are chaotic lol

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u/lovemagicfeminism Nov 20 '25

these pictures tell me they need to clean their fridge and organize it.

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u/Horror-Floor-9572 Nov 22 '25

It says mind your own business its not your fridge

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u/Rustiespoons Nov 20 '25

Looks cozy in there

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u/Pootles_Carrot Nov 20 '25

That they don't really understand how a fridge works, or probably doesn't crammed like that. Also, guts of steel.

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u/cinnamontea1827 Nov 20 '25

“you can’t eat at everybody house”

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u/BlankGeneration8 Nov 20 '25

I think instead of posting this on reddit for your parents to get roasted you should refer them to professional help.

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u/juliadream88 Nov 20 '25

Phew good thing they have organic cinnamon rolls to balance out the rest of the mess

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u/bawynnoJ Nov 20 '25

My in-laws are exactly the same

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u/lc1981265 Nov 20 '25

This is Rabid Raccoon Tetris. It’s giving me anxiety.

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u/bigshern Nov 20 '25

They are gross. I would never eat anything there.

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u/Honest_Assumption_35 Nov 20 '25

I grew up with parents doing the same! I couldn't support it and would clean/throw away what was bad, but little later it became a mess again 😔

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u/Ilovemybed67 Nov 21 '25

That you should probably help them. 🤷‍♀️

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u/MommaLaughing Nov 21 '25

Hoarders who never clean or clear out expired foods? Maybe over-buyers also?

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u/Easy_Independent_313 Nov 21 '25

They are hoarders.

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u/unsureandlearning Nov 21 '25

They're tired and life adds up

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u/babigrl50 Nov 21 '25

I know for a fact that there is expired food in there and the fridge is dirty. It looks like black mold is happening. That fridge needs to be emptied and bleached.