She needs to accept that this is the way her mother-in-law is, and there’s nothing she can do to change it.

If you’ve never interacted with hoarders in real life, you can only imagine how life-ruining hoarding is. We all have this stereotypical image of hoarders from the TV show: they have eight cats that they can’t help but neglect. The trash in their living room is piling up to the ceiling. They hold onto everything, no matter how useless. They can’t recognize that there is no deep sentimental meaning to an old Coke can. There is some truth to these stereotypes about hoarders, but watching them on TV once a year is very different from living with them every day. 

The children of hoarders often face significant emotional turmoil. Imagine never feeling like you can get fully clean. It’s incredibly distressing to smell bad and know that all of the other kids at school can tell that you smell bad. Your room is never really your own when your parent is a hoarder. You have to take special care to make sure your things don’t get destroyed, but your effort is often fruitless. One thing that kids of hoarders know is that no matter how hard they try to create a clean space for themselves and their family, they cannot stop their parents’ mental illness. More stuff will keep coming into the house, and the only way to get away from it is to move out.