I should be puttering around the apartment getting everything all tidy just in case our unit is one of the randomly selected ones for inspection on Monday. There’s stacks of books on the dining room table, some plastic crates of Blacklight’s things, the laptop cases, the iron and the tote bag of tote bags to stash in my car trunk. The bathroom could also use a clean. The clean dishes should be put away before I need to use them to make Blacklight’s breakfast. Basically, our apartment isn’t spotless but it could use some love.

But after reading Kimberly Rae Miller’s Coming Clean, a memoir of being the child of hoarding parents, my apartment doesn’t seem untidy at all. You can walk across the room without needing to block out what sort of filth and rot strata you’re stepping on. All the plumbing works. We don’t have to eat only sealed convenience food because our kitchen isn’t functional. And once Blacklight lurches into the living room, the only thing keeping him from sitting on Mr Couch will be my reluctance to give up my sprawling throw pillow nest and share the darn thing with him.

As an adult, Kimberly Rae Miller strives to be clean and tidy. Maybe she strives a bit too hard because a dear friend notices that she purges things when she’s upset. But as a child, living in houses packed so full the only working bathroom door couldn’t be shut or not having hot water was her normal. And those conditions weren’t because her parents didn’t know any better. Her father has a genius IQ and a need to collect and retain things most people would call trash. Kimberly’s mother, herself the child of hoarders, initially fights the encroaching tide of things but herself falls victim to depression and hoarding when medical issues cause her to become disabled. From early childhood onward, Kim learns to conceal the mess and paper over with a veneer of perfection. In the days before Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive who would believe the straight A student with all the extracurricular activities was living in extreme conditions that forced the neighbors to complain?

Coming Clean is a slight book but man does it carry an emotional heft. There’s fear, shame, hope and trying to make a difference even when her parents can’t seem to change. You don’t know if you should stop by Home Depot for contractor size roll of huge black trash bags and industrial strength rubber gloves to help Kim rescue her parents from another mess….AGAIN…or if you should grab Kim’s phone, stomp it into bits and implore her to just let her parents rot before it ruins her life so badly that there’s no coming back. But what you should do? Read Coming Clean and give thanks to Kimberly Rae Miller for opening up and exposing the raw wounds of her childhood. If her opening up helps one person dealing with a hoarding loved one or gives them comfort that they are not alone? It’s worth it.