Husband keeps hauling home discarded items, wife worries house is turning into a storage unit

A woman in her 30s has shared her frustration over a husband who repeatedly brings discarded items home, saying she is worried about shrinking living space and hygiene.

Her story was featured on JTBC's "Sageon Banjang," a TV advice program. The woman, identified only as A, said she and her husband are the same age and have been married for three years.

She said she was initially drawn to him during their courtship because he carefully compared prices on electronics and did his own grocery shopping — qualities she saw as frugal and practical. After marriage, however, she realized his money-saving habits had gone too far.

It started with an abandoned floor lamp he picked up on his way home from work. He then began bringing home chairs, shelves, flowerpots and camping chairs one by one. "Eventually, whenever the front door opened, I would look straight at his hands first," A said, describing how she had come to dread what he might be carrying in. He also began browsing online free-giveaway listings.

The bigger problem, she said, was that most of the items were never actually used. When something was broken, her husband would say he would fix it — but the items were left sitting on the veranda unrepaired. On one occasion he brought home a broken coffee machine that would not work, and the couple ultimately had to pay to have it disposed of.

When A complained, saying people throw things away for a reason, her husband would get angry in return, saying he could not understand why anyone would discard something still usable.

The conflict came to a head when he tried to bring home a sofa abandoned on the street. The couple already had one, but he wanted to put the second in another room and asked A to help him carry it in. She refused, and he was unable to move it on his own. He then stopped speaking to her for several days.

"I hate watching the house slowly turn into a storage unit, and I'm worried about hygiene," A said. "When I try to talk to him about it, he just says, 'What did I do wrong?' — it's impossible to have a real conversation."

Psychology professor Park Sang-hee advised that it is important to distinguish between simple frugality and a behavioral issue related to hoarding. "You need to look at whether the items he brings home are actually being used, and whether he continues to leave them lying around even after they have caused conflict," Park said.