Someone posted online recently about inheriting their father’s house. The house is mostly fine. There’s one room that isn’t. The father had enclosed the carport years ago and turned it into his smoking room. Two to three packs a day for over forty years. The photos looked exactly like what you’d expect, which is to say, like the inside of an old pub that was never cleaned and then sealed shut for a decade.

Someone posted photos of their home online recently, asking whether it qualified as a hoarder’s house. They’re 21. They grew up there. Their grandmother had dementia and was on oxygen for years, fighting with their mum through the nights. Caretakers came and went. Depression set in. The house accumulated. And now they’re the one left holding it.

Reading through the thread, I noticed a lot of people debating the label. Is it a hoard or just clutter? Level one or level two? The garage photos apparently settled the argument for most people.

Someone posted in a forum recently about trying to feed three kids, soon to be four, on a single parent pension. No car. Burnt out. A high-income household one day, then not. Trying to hold the line at $100 to $150 a week for groceries while pregnant and relying on delivery because she can’t drive.

The responses were mostly generous and practical. Bulk cooking, freezer meals, slow cookers, food banks, jacket potatoes on a tired Tuesday night. Real advice from people who clearly know what it’s like to stand in a kitchen at 6pm with nothing planned and children who are hungry right now.