Looking for advice on how to deal with hoarders?

Here's the situation. Some fifteen years ago my aunt moved from another state to the town where our whole family lives. This aunt was a GIGANTIC shopaholic, buying purses off of QVC, cheap plastic made in China junk from dollar stores, books on secret methods of winning the lottery, VCR cassette rewinders shaped like pink Cadillacs, and the like, and she wouldn't buy just one, she'd buy five or six of these things. Her stuff wouldn't fit into her new apartment so it was stockpiled elsewhere all over the place, including a spare room of mine. There was so much junk it was literally piled to the ceiling. My other aunt (her sister) who I rent my house from, kept saying over and over that she was going to come by and sort these items out, but never did. This is because she had no room for this stuff- her two car garage was so filled with stuff from other people that she has to park her car outside. I was told her basement was chock full of stuff too.

Fast forward to today. My shopoholic aunt died and this junk hasn't been touched or even looked at in years. My mother's place is now being refurbished and she needs to live with me for a few months, so I cleaned 3/4 of this junk out. I donated the good stuff to church auctions, threw the cheap plastic junk away, threw away bags and bags and bags of clothes and left the remaining items that looked to have some value for my other aunt (who never showed up to look through this stuff) to claim. I even kept a sample of the junk we threw away (consisting of an unused in the box plastic recipe card holder you put on refrigerators, an unused in the package plastic pill cutter, an unused in the box penlight, and an unused in the package miniature ironing board. I think I left a tax code book from 1989 too, I forget.

When my aunt came by last night to see what I've done, she became absolutely livid. She threw a temper tantrum and was sobbing literally in tears on how dare I throw out her belongings, how she can't trust anyone anymore and how badly I let her down, and demanded I make a list of EVERYTHING I threw out. Clothes, receipts from Australian lotteries, fake collapsible Christmas trees, pots and pans, everything. I even asked her if she HONESTLY wanted a still in the package plastic pill cutter that my other aunt never even used and she snarled yes. She was yelling how dare I give a clock away to my brother because "she might have wanted to give it to someone" which makes zero sense to me. She cradled the small pile of pill cutter/recipe holder/pen light/whatever, like they were some valuable rare antiques and jumped in her car crying. She drove ten feet, put in into reverse, drove back to where I was standing, and yelled once more that I make a list of everything I got rid of, and drove off. I called my mother to let her know what happened so she'll call her to smooth things out.

I don't know how to handle this. Everyone else in the family I talked to about this concurs that my aunt isn't upset over my throwing out anything valuable or that she has sentimental attachment to this stuff, because let's face it, if she has emotional attachment to a cheap plastic pill cutter that noone ever used then she's got a screw loose. Everyone occurs that she wanted this junk becuase she wants to hoard this sh*t. She grew up durning the depression when people had to learn to make do with what they had so she'll see even the most worthless POS valuable. It's my position that she if she wanted any of this stuff she would have come by sometime within the last TEN YEARS to come get it, and lets's face it, if there really was anything genuinely valuable in this pile she would have magically found room for it at her house regardless of how filled up it was. I even made a conscious attempt to keep anything that looked valuable or sentimental for her. It was my obligation to make my place a clean, safe place for my mother to live, and now my aunt is all but demanding that my mother needs to live in the middle of a junk pile.

Any advice would be appreciated right now. How do I deal with a ninety year old hoarder, 'cause right now I feel like a jerk from having to ask my brother for the clock back. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.