Viral post renews talks on colelcting vs. hoarding.
A house clean-up turned into a nostalgic trip down memory lane after a Davao City resident discovered his mother’s decades-old collection of forgotten items—some of which had not been seen for years.
On Facebook, a user posted how he would not have found out about his mother being a “weird collector” if their house had not been flooded.
Davao City recently experienced river swelling and flooding due to continuous rains brought by the southwest monsoon or habagat.
Featuring various items paired with witty captions, the post turned ordinary objects into humorous discoveries.
A defective brush was jokingly described as “Spanish Paint brush from the colonial time,” while a very rusty dagger got labeled as “Punyal ni [P]anday,” a reference to the Filipino fictional character who uses a sword-transforming-dagger for his weapon.
The post quickly gained traction as many commenters shared how they could relate to the difficulty of letting go of old possessions.
“Very me, hirap i-let go ang mga bagay-bagay ultimo wrapper or box tinatago ,” one comment said.
Others shared how their own mothers had the same habit of putting things aside.
“[M]ama ko ganyan sabi nya itatago nya muna daw kase magagamit pa sa susunod,” one commenter wrote.
The original poster continued sharing more discoveries while organizing their home.
Among the items featured in later posts were coins saved by his mother from the 1970s, an old camera released in the 1990s, and stacks of familiar red biscuit containers.
While many expressed being able to relate to the posts, some shared about the difficulties that came with hoarding.
“[S]a totoo lang hirap ng may kasamang hoarder ng kung anu-anong gamit. Ako din naman nagtatabi ng gamit pero ung mapapakinabangan ko pa,” one user said.
Collecting vs hoarding
The viral post also renewed conversations about the difference between collecting and hoarding.
became widely known in the 2010s for her organizing methods, particularly her question “Does this spark joy?”—a guide she popularized for deciding which possessions to keep.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, collecting and hoarding are different behaviors. Collecting is usually organized and intentional, often centered on a specific interest. Hoarding, meanwhile, involves persistent difficulty discarding possessions due to a perceived need to save them.
A person can only be diagnosed with hoarding disorder through professional assessment. The condition may affect relationships, health, and daily functioning.
In a 2025 Philstar.com report, storage company BOXIE24’s study ranked the Philippines seventh globally in hoarding-related Google search volume—making it the highest-ranked Asian country on the list.
The Philippines had a hoarding-related Google search volume of 17.91 for every 100,000 residents—700% more than the global average. However, search interest does not necessarily mean a person has hoarding disorder, which requires professional assessment.
While hoarding disorder is more commonly associated with older adults, research on younger populations remains limited.
A 2023 study by Rhalf Jayson Guanco of the Adventist University of the Philippines developed the Youth Hoarding Rating Scale and conducted preliminary validation among Filipino high school students. The study found that the tool showed high reliability and validity, with similar hoarding tendencies observed among male and female participants in the sample.
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