You bring up another interesting point... What happens when Barb's mind starts to go and dementia sets in? Her demands and such will get even more crazy.
Also, I highly doubt she will voluntarily try to move herself into a care facility. Very few elderly people do and Barb is certainly not the kind that would.
Yeah, Barb's situation isn't unique. Lot's of elderly people try to carry on living alone long after they should. My grandmother went through this, and that gave me a good sense of how it can happen. Checking into some sort of assisted living facility because of old age is a fairly irreversible step. You are not likely to gain back the physical or mental capacity to live on your own. So it is a huge step you take towards the end of your life, and can be very hard to take that step voluntarily.
If anything, Chris is a bit of an asset. Not as useful as a competent human. But more useful than not having anyone around. I suppose one big risk is that Barb or someone else will overestimate Chris' abilities and hang on past the point where she would have checked herself in if she was alone.
Chris is already a hoarder himself, or at least very close to being one. The shopping addiction, unwise spending, how his room has more toys every video, being the child of a hoarder and living in those conditions for many years. The area of potential interest is what will Chris do with Barb's hoard after she passes. He has mentioned a couple times in the past that the mess bothers him, and there was even that one video where he bent down to pick something off the floor while muttering about it. But, cleaning out the hoard of a loved one can be a daunting task even for non-autistic manchildren, so most likely he will shit himself and do nothing except start stacking Transformers on top of the Goodwill junk.
I don't think it is fair to draw too close comparisons between Chris' hoarding and Barb's. The scale is not even comparable. Chris buys shit he likes, whereas Barb acquires shit just for the sake of acquiring shit. Chris seems to have a sense of keeping things functional.
But I do agree with you about the sheer immensity of the task that awaits him if he decides to clean up the hoard. If he decides to do it himself, it would be weeks or months of work, and fairly considerable gas and dumping costs. Hiring some junk hauler to do it might be prohibitively expensive, as they charge by weight and volume. He will also probably struggle with sentimentality and a desire to sell stuff and make money off it, and I find it really difficult to conceive of a solution to the problem.
It becomes a really serious problem if he inherits a mortgaged 14BLC and has to leave. He could be in a situation where staying is financially untenable, and leaving, taking the little bit of equity out of the house, and finding a decent small apartment to live in, is a fairly nice option. But before he leaves he has a gargantuan task he is not capable of. Pretty shitty situation.
