NEED TO KNOW
Vayda Kero shares her childhood experiences growing up in a hoarder house with her grandparents, mom, uncle and brothers
She began sharing her story online after initially gaining attention for documenting her dental health journey and surgery
Kero hopes her videos offer entertainment and understanding, as many viewers relate to her experiences and express gratitude
Vayda Kero didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary about the house she grew up in until she started going to friends’ houses and realized their homes looked very different.
Kero, now 22, has been sharing what it was like growing up in a “hoarder house” online. In one video, she recalled a moment when her grandfather was in his office, “which was really just the dining room that he installed shelves and cabinets in,” when he saw something “hairy” on the floor.
“He went to reach down to grab it, thinking it was my grandma’s wig and it was a squirrel that was no longer with us,” Kero shared, later adding that she also once woke up to a chipmunk in her bed.
The content creator, who now works as a house cleaner, said her toys “would either get lost or ruined within days of getting them” due to the garbage and grime.
Inside Vayda Kero’s house.
Credit: Vadya Karo
She also said it “usually smelled so bad in the house that when I started spraying room sprays, I got accused of vaping because it smelled too good.”
“I was so tired from the mold exposure that I would regularly come home from school, eat dinner at 3 p.m., asleep at 4, and not wake up until 6:30 in the morning the next day to get ready for school,” she shared in her now-viral video. “I failed every single class from sixth grade all the way to my sophomore year.”
Kero tells PEOPLE she lived with her grandparents, uncle, mom, and brothers in that house full-time until she was 12, then lived there on and off until 17.
Kero became a full-time content creator after sharing her dental health journey online to raise money for her surgery. However, she was scared that once she stopped sharing videos about her teeth, “people were gonna stop caring about me.”
“I started thinking about, ‘What are some other things that I could talk about that I know a lot about that people would be interested in?’ Then the thought of sharing videos about living in the hoarder house ‘popped up,'” she says.
Kero admits that, when she was a “very young kid,” her living situation felt “very normal.”
“It wasn’t really until I started going to friends’ houses and spending more time with other family that I was like, ‘Wait, why is my house the only one that’s like this?’ ” she recalls.
“Obviously, my mom was raised by my grandparents; she didn’t really know much else. She struggled with supporting habits too, but thankfully she’s broken free of most of those,” Kero says. “It was mostly my grandparents, but considering that we were all raised in that environment and didn’t really know anything else, it took a toll on all of us. We all started contributing.”
Inside Vayda Kero’s house
Credit: Vadya Karo
Kero recently moved back into the house to take care of her grandpa and says it is still in “pretty rough” shape, “but I try my best to keep up with it now.”
“Because cleaning other people’s houses has really taught me to try my best, at least, to keep a hold on my own,” Kero adds.
While she has been open about the experience online, she hopes people “try to leave the judgment out of it.”
“You never know why someone’s house looks like that. Cleaning other people’s homes has taught me that everyone’s different; everybody goes through different things,” she tells PEOPLE. “It could just straight up be that they’re lazy, but it also could be that they’re physically unable to keep up. It really helped me look at things differently.”
Still, Kero admits that it’s hard to give “advice” about the situation, because she was “lucky that we were able to move out.”
“I think it’s really just about keeping the mindset of ‘it’s gonna be okay,'” she says. “I’m very big on manifestation and all that stuff, so I think it’s important to remind yourself that this is a temporary situation.”
Inside Vayda Kero’s house
Credit: Vadya Karo
Kero hopes people coming to her page see that she’s doing “a lot better than I was.”
“I get a lot of pity comments, and I don’t want pity. My videos are for entertainment purposes. I want people to be able to look at my situation and laugh,” she adds.
However, she is also “grateful” for the people who have reached out after going through similar upbringings and feel validated after watching her “talk about these things so openly.”
“The reason I’m able to is because of people like that who are telling me, ‘Hey, I’ve been through the same thing. Thank you for making light of it.’ “
Read the original article on People