Tim Wise
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thread 1/5
Not my normal fare, but please follow along; there's a thread coming. So, hoarding disorder is fascinating. My mom had it bad. She passed in March and ever since we've been digging through mountains of bullshit. But one small bit of comic relief (or at least psychological insight) amid the madness..
07:05 PM - May 10, 2023
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Tim Wise
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thread 2/5
So, yesterday I went to close out her bank accounts and transfer whatever funds were in them into a newly formed estate account. Among her accounts was a savings account with .01 in it. Now you might think, hmmm, weird, but what does that have to do with hoarding disorder? Ah, let me enlighten...
07:06 PM - May 10, 2023
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Tim Wise
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thread 3/5
So, I asked the financial specialist who was helping me, "How does one even end up with one penny in a checking account? Seems odd, no?"

She laughed and then explained: you have to keep at least a penny in it or it automatically closes...
07:07 PM - May 10, 2023
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Tim Wise
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thread 4/5
So at some point, my mom had withdrawn whatever else was in there but left one penny. Are you getting it now? She couldn't allow herself to take the last penny because that would have amounted to getting rid of something -- in this case, an account worth exactly one one-hundredth of a dollar...
07:08 PM - May 10, 2023
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Tim Wise
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thread 5/5
She couldn't bring herself to do it. As I said, fascinating. I didn't deposit the penny, though I'm tempted. I'm framing the cashier's check as a form of psychological performance art. END
07:08 PM - May 10, 2023
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Blair Houghton
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In response to Tim Wise.
It may have been the bank's doing. She may have emptied it and expected (or not) that it would just go away, and the bank applied a penny of interest or a rounding error and the penny was just there, and she never cared. (cont'd)
07:31 PM - May 10, 2023
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Blair Houghton
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In response to Blair Houghton.
Some banks won't close zeroed accounts. Some -- the real fuckers like Bank of America, who did it to me -- will start to take huge fees for "inactive accounts" (I'm talking like $50 a month) and then close the account when it is drained. (more)
07:33 PM - May 10, 2023
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