r/IAmA • u/ChaSuiBao • Jan 12 '11
By Request: IAMA therapist who works with hoarders. AMA
I'm a social worker/therapist who works mainly with hoarders to reduce their hoarding behavior so that they can live in a safe environment. Of course I can't give any identifying information because of confidentiality reasons, but AMA.
Edit 1: Sorry it's taking me so long to reply to all the messages. I've received a few pm from people who want to share their story privately and I want to address those first. I'll try and answer as much as I can.
Edit 2: Woke up to a whole lot of messages! Thanks for the great questions and I'm going to try and answer them through out the day.
Edit 3: I never expected this kind of response and discussion about hoarding here! I'm still trying to answer all the questions and pm's sent to me so pls be patient. Many of you have questions about family members who are hoarders and how to help them. Children of Hoarders is a great site as a starting point to get resources and information on how to have that talk and get that support. Hope this helps.
http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php
Edit 4: This is why I love Reddit. New sub reddit for hoarding: http://www.reddit.com/r/hoarding/
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u/samsigns Jan 12 '11
What are some of the most appalling things you have encountered?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
1 - I found 10 decomposed dead cats huddle together in one corner of the room. The bodies were so decomposed that there was only skin and skeletons left. The cats were trapped in the house because the hoarder basically closed himself off in his room, so we suspect that the cats either were huddling together for comfort or eating each other.
2 - One hoarder had a fridge full of food that stopped working. Instead of throwing it out, he duck taped it shut and left it in his living room for over 3 years until we found it. When the cleaners moved it (we didn't even dare to open it), a brownish/grey liquid oozed out of it. I can't even begin to describe the smell to you.
3 - One hoarder was so devastated that his dog died that he kept the body so many weeks next to him in his bed. That dog was his only companion for many years. He did not want to let go of it and slept with it for a few weeks.
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u/BDaught Jan 12 '11
Not sure if you're still answering questions but when watching *Hoarders" I always wonder how they support themselves. It never has really said in the show as far as I know. It seems like the majority doesn't have jobs. Do they live off of government assistance or family? And if they are having family supporting them does that make them an enabler?
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u/GetLikeMe Jan 12 '11
D: Poor cats.
And that guy with his dog sounds like the short story, "A Rose for Emily" by Ernest Hemingway.
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u/squirrelpocher Jan 12 '11
I saw #2 on an episode of cowboy Bebop...you need to be careful with that shit lest it become sentient
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u/avoiding_fate Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
My mother is a hoarder, big time, her sister is as well. My grandparents would have been considered pack rats. There are so many things I'd like to ask about, but I think the thing that I really need to investigate is this: what is the best way to avoid becoming a hoarder when it's "in the family?"
I grew up living in her house that became worse through the years. Cleaning up after myself and doing simple housework has never been easy for me; a big part of the problem is I don't really see the mess around me, I can look right through it.
My husband is a saint for putting up with me, and the kids seem to be following in my footsteps. As I sit and observe my older sibling's basement filling with useless stuff, and I see that I have a craft "work room" that I cannot work in because there is too much stuff, etc. I realize I have to get control of things before it gets out of hand.
Any advice?
ETA: I'm going to go do the dishes now . . . baby steps, I guess.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Thank you for your reply. The fact that you have awareness of how this can be a potential problem for you and that you want to do something about it is already some really good signs. This is a very large issue and I'll try and answer as best as I can, but feel free to PM me if you have more questions.
There are many reasons for why people hoard, and the research right now does say that it tends to run in the family but they don't know why exactly. It could be genetics or a form of modeling from parents. But this doesn't mean that if your mom is a hoarder then you are automatically going to be one as well.
Hoarding is often a symptom to a larger issue. I don't know you so I'm not going to presume or assume anything. If you really do feel that you have hoarding issues and it's causing some type of dysfunction in your life then seeking therapy might not be a bad idea. There's also a fantastic site for family members of loved ones who hoard called Children of Compulsive Hoarders. You may be able to find more resources there as well.
http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php
As for some simple straight up advice to prevent things from getting out of hand, many hoarders have difficulties with sorting and decision making in regards to their items such as what to throw away or to keep. If this applies to you as well. then going through the sorting process with someone who you trust and is patient may help you to figure out what items you want to throw away, dispose of, donate, or keep.
Also start with small reasonable goals for yourself and try not to do every thing at once. For example, sorting and clearing out 10% of your craft room would be a good small reasonable goal to start with. the absolute worst thing to do to a hoarder would be to throw away all their things at once. This only freaks out the person and doesn't solve anything in the long run.
I hope this helps and pls pm me if you have more questions.
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u/avoiding_fate Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
many hoarders have difficulties with sorting and decision making in regards to their items such as what to throw away or to keep
Oh, this is definitely the case with me, something I have clearly picked up from my mother, I'm amazed how hard it can be even in the case of truly worthless stuff (like junk mail).
Thank you so much for the advice, I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions. I clicked the link on for COH, and was really caught off guard by the title of the book featured there. "Dirty Secret" is exactly what my childhood seemed to be about, keeping everyone out, unaware, and "fooled" into thinking we were normal (and occasionally dealing with the trauma of being "found out." This stuff is emotionally messy, too.)
Edit: punctuation
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u/TheFeshy Jan 12 '11
Where is the line between just being a pack rat, and being a hoarder?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
If the hoarding impacts some aspect of their functioning. Such as their ability to use their bathroom, sleep in their bed, or move freely from one room to the other.
Also if they have an emotional attachment to their items and experiences distress when they have to let go of something. Usually there are severe symptoms of depression and anxiety attached to hoarding as well.
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Jan 12 '11
Have you ever been to AA? Would you say hoarders are like alcoholics in that way? AA's definition of alcoholism is similar to yours of hoarders:
if the hoarding impacts some aspect of their functioning
replace hoarding with alcohol, obviously.
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Jan 12 '11
That's the definition of addiction period. If you compulsively do something despite the negative consequences on a continuous basis then you're an addict.
It doesn't matter if you're constantly up til three AM drinking, surfing reddit, or playing with legos. If it keeps making you late to work to the point that you're constantly on the verge of getting fired and have never gotten a positive review/associated raise because of it but still do it every single night anyway then you've got a problem.
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u/neurochic Jan 12 '11
Alcoholism falls under the umbrella term "substance use disorder" and is defined by tolerance, withdrawal and craving.
Hoarding is thought to be a manifestation or subtype of OCD, which is considered an "Anxiety Disorder". Other disorders like phobias, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder are also grouped in this category.
Substance use disorders and anxiety disorders are not very similar in terms of the brain structures that they affect. Addiction often involves the ventral tegmental area of the brain while anxiety is related to the amygdala and limbic system. Because the problematic behavior and causes of these two disorders are so different, their treatments are nothing alike.
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u/sydwastaken Jan 12 '11
"or move freely from one room to the other."
this is also similar to alcoholism, just with beer cans.
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u/sharkopotamus Jan 12 '11
My grandmother, who passed away about 7 years ago, was a hoarder. Because she grew up poor during the Great Depression, deep in the mountains of SW VA, she had a really difficult time throwing anything away. In her mind, everything had some potential use. She even had a box of eggshells she'd saved for use in the garden or something. Anytime my mom wanted to throw something away at our house, she had to do it when she was sure my grandmother wouldn't be visiting, or she would start dragging stuff out of the garbage.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
I've had many clients who hoard because of experiencing traumatic events such as the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the Japanese internment camps specifically because of some of the reasons you stated. It's actually a very common occurrence for older adults who hoard.
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u/translatepure Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
This seems logical to me... Living through events like those you mentioned would teach a person to hang on to things for later use (even if they never end up using the item). This seems a little different and perhaps a bit more rational than a person who holds on to something simply for emotional attachment.
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u/CocoSavege Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
I've got a cool story bro...
Well, maybe it's just an anecdote. My grandmother was in London during WW2 so she developed (and maintained) the habit of taking any/all of those little butter packets from restaurants, even half used - and would keep them in her purse. Apparently she wouldn't always take them out on a timely basis. It was a reaction due to rationing.
Slightly icky I guess but mostly benign.
EDIT: Additional info. I did some poking around at Wiki and saw some of the rationing guidelines. Butter rations bottomed out at 2 oz per week (that's around 3 1/2 Tsps) which is a pretty slim ration considering back in those days people did a lot of their cooking/baking from scratch. An interesting twist is that restaurants were somewhat not counted towards the rations. A person could eat out and that wouldn't necessarily count against their ration allowance, when/if they could afford it. So it kinda makes sense - if you do happen to scrape enough together to have a nice dinner - steal all the damn butter you can. By eating out once a week - and stealing 1 and a half packets of butter - you could essentially double your weekly ration. Bitches like butter.
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u/impossibleagain Jan 12 '11
My grandmother lives in Cambridge, and she has the same habit. One year she came to visit my family in Texas, and we went to breakfast at McDonald's and she took the extra butter that came with the pancakes. Texas is not kind to purse butter
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Jan 12 '11
My mother picks up those little toothpicks wrapped in plastic from restaurants, and everywhere else they have them. It's kind of useful, I guess, because she's an infinite dispenser of toothpicks wherever she is.
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u/Dontalwaysderp Jan 12 '11
Have you ever seen something of high value found? I read stories all the time of paintings or photographs or things like that that are later on sold for a lot of dough.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Nope almost never.
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u/berserkur Jan 12 '11
A family friend was a hoarder for the last 20 years or so of is life. His big house was full of used milk cartons, newspapers and worthless junk but he was also a practicing lawyer for over 60 years and among the junk was hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of paintings, stacked up against the walls. It took his family weeks to go through the mountains of papers and envelopes in his home office but it was like a treasure hunt because there was cash, stocks, bonds, unclaimed debt everywhere. Best of all, in the basement they found four safes, about a cubic meter in size each but I never asked what was in them.
So hoarding is not limited to poor people, although in this case it did somewhat affect his life and limit the man's ability to earn income to his full potential, but again, they also don't see value the same way as other people.
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u/kirbyderwood Jan 13 '11
I once dated a woman who had hoarder for a father. When he died, the children cleaned out the house and found many many uncashed checks, some for 5 figures.
They actually managed to collect a lot of it, even though the checks were years old. Not sure how, but thankfully they did.
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u/zarquan Jan 12 '11
Are most people able to keep free of excess stuff once you and others have helped them? Or is it common to relapse into old habits.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Relapsing is very common. Think of hoarding as the symptom to a larger disease. We try to address the disease as well as the behaviors. Many use hoarding as a coping skill to deal with things like trauma, severe anxiety and depression, and loneliness.
I try to mitigate the effects of these things by replacing hoarding with more positive coping skills as well as assist the person rebuild their social support network.
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Jan 12 '11
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Introduce them to new socialization opportunities such as doing new activities and meeting new people. If possible reconnect them to family members or friends who left them because of their hoarding problems.
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u/chris-martin Jan 12 '11
The popular hoarding tv shows generally focus on someone facing an urgent need to clean up or face repercussions (eviction, spouse leaving, etc). Do you usually work with people who are forced into dealing with their problem, or people who seek help because they want to improve their lives?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
It's almost always people who are forced into dealing with their problems.
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u/BroccoliFarts Jan 12 '11
Does that make a difference in terms of relapsing? Are people forced to deal with the problem more likely to relapse?
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u/Defonos Jan 12 '11
What are the demographics of hoarders?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Hoarding affects about 1% of the population and it affects all classes and races. It slightly affects women more than men.
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u/robertodeltoro Jan 12 '11
Could you clarify that? As in, 1% of people are hoarders, or 1% of people are affected in some way? Where's the stat from? 1 in 100 people being hoarders seems outrageously high.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Actually check that. Estimates have it as 2-4% of the US population.
Source is a report called "Beyond Overwhelmed" that was done by the SF Task Force on Compulsive Hoarding.
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u/robertodeltoro Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
Ok, I dug a bit. The claim from that paper is based on a 2003 paper in Behavior Research and Thearpy by Meredith Coles et. al. which can be retrieved here (you'll need PubMed access to see it; I have institution access, but I can't find a version anywhere that isn't behind a paywall so everyone else may be out of luck).
After reading the methodology portion of the paper, I sort of have some reservations about how good that 2-4% number is, though I don't have enough of a background in this to say, really, and it would be a research project to read enough of the related literature to figure out what I think. Anyway, the bottom line is that the claim in the Coles paper is based on a sample of 563 college students' answers to a question battery called the SI-R ("Saving Inventory, Revised"). I can't assess the battery of questions, because it apparently only exists in a privately circulated unpublished manuscript ("Assessing the severity of compulsive hoarding: The Saving Inventory - Revised", Frost et. al., Unpublished MS) which, obviously, I don't have.
So it's tough to tell, but I'm skeptical. "4% of American adults are hoarders" is a very bold claim; that's 1 in 25.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
oh I agree with you about being skeptical about the estimates because mainly it's tough to do any studies on hoarding.
Many people who hoard isolate themselves in their homes and the last thing they would want to do is answer questions about their hoarding and how it affects them. Some key characteristics of hoarding is secrecy and shame.
So yeah bottom line is that more studies need to be done and take these early prevalence estimates with a grain of salt.
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u/libbykino Jan 12 '11
Have you ever dealt with animal hoarders ("crazy cat ladies")? Are they pretty much the same as other types of horders, just that they collect living things instead, or are there other fundamental differences between the two?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
No if we see that it's an animal hoarding case we contact animal control right away to help deal with because there are live beings involved.
And it's different in terms of potential consequences such as bio-hazards.
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u/sammaverick Jan 12 '11
What steps/techniques as a therapist are used help rehabilitate people? I guess the question I am asking is, how does it work?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
There is no one technique or treatment plan that works for every one. Hoarding is such a relatively new phenomenon, that people are currently researching effective interventions because hoarding is notoriously difficult to treat. Each treatment plan is individualized to the person. However, some of the techniques that I like to use are:
1 - Motivational Interviewing - Basically pointing out some of the consequences of their hoarding behaviors, and asking them what their goals are in regards to their house, and develop a plan to address the issue.
2 - Harm Reduction - Completely clearing out the house and thinking that the person is going to completely stop hoarding is unrealistic. Target areas of the house that needs to be addressed immediately such as removing bio-hazards, fire hazards such as paint and newspapers, and then moving on to returning functionality to the house such as the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom so that the person can use them again.
3 - CBT - This technique has shown some promise in managing hoarding behaviors because it may help address some of the core issues that may have caused the hoarding. Too long to explain, but it also is very effective with depression and anxiety as well.
4 - Developing more effective sorting and decision making skills. Develop small, reasonable, and specific goals for the person to work on.
5 - Rebuilding social support and family network. Trauma such as the lost of a loved one and loneliness are common reasons for why people hoard.
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u/cmseagle Jan 12 '11
Hoarding is such a relatively new phenomenon
Could you expand on that? Is it just now being recognized as a disorder, or had it never emerged as a behavioral pattern until recently?
Whichever it is, do you have any explanation as to why?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
It's still a relatively new phenomenon because it has traditionally been something that has been kept secret. It's difficult to find out if someone is hoarding if you don't enter their house. In fact the first public case of hoarding was two twin brother who lived in a mansion in NYC in the 1940's. But shows like Hoarders has increased the public awareness of the issue.
Currently hoarding is listed under OCD in the DSM-IV. In the DSM-V, I think it will be it's own disorder.
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u/wafflerider Jan 12 '11
Usually the hoarders on the show are older -- How common is hoarding among teens and really young children, and are there any common causes for it?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Hoarding does tend to happen more to older adults for many reasons such as the loss of a spouse, loved ones, societal roles, financial resources, and the loss of physical mobility or the experience of a traumatic event.
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Jan 12 '11
Why do I hoard in video games but in real life I don't keep much of anything?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Because your current strength level only allows you to carry so much weight. If you see a Dr. Usanagi at the medical clinic, you can purchase an implant to enhance your strength so that you can carry more.
I hope this helps.
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u/pmiguel Jan 12 '11
Upvote for awesome, and is the tip real ? I'm currently playing NV... And yes, in the game I am a hoarder, actually my current problem in the game is that I still don't have a house to put all my hoarding.
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u/JabbrWockey Jan 12 '11
I also do this -
Oblivion, Fallout, Baldur's Gate II, etc. you name it, I'm always slinking around stealing as much as possible, even the worthless crap. I couldn't even finish Fallout 3 because I couldn't go anywhere without stealing or looting everything.
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u/v_krishna Jan 12 '11
does hoarding exist at all outside of the developed world? while one certainly doesn't need to be at all affluent to be a hoarder, it seems to me like there must be some kind of connection between hoarding behaviors and living in a society where one is constantly surrounded by consumables.
and on a similar note, has there been any studies done looking at the incidence rates of hoarding as a function of development? e.g., as china & india have developed by leaps in bounds over the past 20 years, has there been an increase in hoarding?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 13 '11
This is a great question and would make a great research paper lol. Hoarding does exist in other parts of the world, but I would imagine that it is more prevalent in wealthier countries because of the capacity to acquire more stuff.
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Jan 12 '11
Have you ever discovered your work interfering with your personal life when it comes to hoarding? I.e overly throwing stuff out, becoming some sort of a minimalist etc?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Yeah I tend not to keep things as much anymore. Like instead of grabbing like 5 folks when I pick up take out, I just grab 1 or 2 now.
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u/ScienceKiller Jan 12 '11
Now you're just hoarding the food by sharing with 2 folks instead of 5. You've relapsed.
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u/Lolzerus Jan 12 '11
What is the oddest thing that someone has not parted with or collected?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
A large concrete garden roller and a hospital table.
Someone also liked to collect desks.
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Jan 12 '11
Do you find the psychologists and "professionals" on the show Hoarders to be complete retards? Every time I watch that show, I basically see them resort to either belittling the hoarder or letting their family members yell at them.
How many hoarders are out there? It seems like it's a well-hidden problem, you'd never know until you went to their house, which they would probably try to avoid. What are the odds there is a hoarder living in my apartment building? Or in my city etc? Do you mostly work out of one city or do you have to travel around to get enough work?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
I actually can't watch the show because it stresses me out too much and it reminds me of work. Do cops watch COPS?
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Jan 12 '11
I thought it was mandatory.
How about the second question, is hoarding common? Like in a city of 100,000, how many hoarders would you estimate to find?
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u/greenconspiracy Jan 12 '11
Criminals do. So maybe.. hoarders like to watch Hoarders?
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Jan 12 '11
I don't know if they like to, but as someone who recognizes the hoarding tendencies in themselves, I watch it to motivate myself to get up and get my clutter picked up, sorted and dealt with. Watching it will send me into a dejunking frenzy and make me more likely to part with things I wouldn't have otherwise.
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u/BurritoFueled Jan 12 '11
My therapist is Dr. Robin Zasio (though not for hoarding) from the show. Just today I got to meet the two rats she adopted from the patient she treated on last night's episode (guy had over 3000 of the little buggers in his house). I can assure you she is not a retard, cares very deeply for her patients, and is very much a "professional."
Hoarders, and others with anxiety disorders, often require "tough love" to break out of some of the mental chains they've locked themselves up with. It's called Exposure Response Therapy--which forces the patients to directly confront their fears and hangups. It may look harsh, but it's very necessary and highly effective.
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u/shrine Jan 12 '11
mg7 sounds upset that Zasio acts a bit passive on camera. We're not used to seeing 'inaction' on television, a medium defined by action, be it misinformed and counterintuitive.
Zasio is passive in these cases because there is a radically strong family dynamic acting out, and it doesn't serve anyone any good for her to throw herself into the middle of it and start pushing around. She's a moderator for the treatment and for the family, not a referee.
This is the informed, educated therapist we've never seen on TV before.
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Jan 12 '11
Actually I find her to be the only reasonable one on the show. I was more referring to the dude who runs the cleanup crew, the guy with brown hair who always wears surfing sunglasses. It seems like every episode he starts yelling at the hoarder for not throwing everything out.
I understand that they need some tough love, but they just go about it completely the wrong way. They start yelling at about how much they're wasting everyone's time and how everyone is here to help them but they aren't doing anything. That's not what a hoarder needs to hear, they're just making the whole process more stressful. The hoarder is going to feel bullied into cleaning up, and resent the whole process, and then just buy more shit once everyone leaves.
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u/evenlesstolose Jan 12 '11
As someone who's always been a hoarder since childhood, I find the hoarding phenomenon fascinating. I've been able to keep things to a minimum because I share an apartment with my boyfriend and he knows to say no if I ask to bring home a free broken mirror I found in a dumpster. lol.
I guess I'd like to ask: what is your experience with dealing with the extreme attachment to objects thing? Causes, treatments, general tidbits?
I know that the reason I have this tendency is because I get emotionally attached to things the same way I do with people and animals. I didn't even know that wasn't how everybody else worked until I was 17 and my then-boyfriend came over to my house to clean my room for me and threw out everything I owned (ie: trash). I couldn't stop crying.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
There could be a lot of different reasons for why people are emotionally attached to items. For some hoarders, the objects may replace the absence of relationships as well as the emotions that comes with them. Objects can also provide reminders of cherished and positive memories of better times, and sometimes people erroneously believe that throwing away that object is like throwing away that memory. Plus objects are safe because they don't fight back or hurt you.
I hope this helps. I can't speak about your case because I don't know you but are you in therapy now?
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u/AMerrickanGirl Jan 12 '11
Have you considered getting some help with this? It's under control now, but if you have a traumatic event in your life it could get out of control. Best to deal with it now.
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u/oryano Jan 12 '11
I hate to admit it, but one of the most enjoyable parts of the show Hoarders on A&E for me is when hoarders get angry over trivial possessions (a woman flips out because someone threw away her Mr. Potato Head). I have the luxury of just sitting back and watching the drama unfold.
However, I imagine actually working with these people and trying to speak logically with them can be an INCREDIBLE strain on your patience. How do you stay patient with these people when they don't listen to logic at times?
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u/shrine Jan 12 '11
trivial possessions
By your definition of trivial. Many people have 'trivial' objects that they hold very dearly (like the plastic bride+groom from a wedding cake. Just 30-year-old plastic crap, right?). The hoarding disorder is that their sentimentality exceeds healthy levels - but the sentimentality itself is normal in our culture. Many of the people featured on the show lost someone close to them, and these objects are all they have left of them - the only physical memories they have to hold onto. If the Mr Potato Head had belonged to a dead child, we'd see it differently, no?
speak logically with them can be an INCREDIBLE strain on your patience
I'm not a hoarding therapist, but I think that the first fallacious belief that the OP had to overcome was the idea that logic is relevant, and then that one's patience can have a limit. The mistake you always see in these shows is that they never address the underlying trauma, so the people always relapse without further support, obviously. OCD therapy is among the most straight-forward and brief treatments, in itself.
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u/BlackLeatherRain Jan 12 '11
"they never address the underlying trauma..."
There was an episode a while back where a woman absolutely broke down in tears and tried to tell the "therapist" A&E had hired about her sexual abuse history, and how she felt it related to her hoarding. I was stunned by the therapist's response - I'm not here to talk about this with you. I'm here to make you get rid of all of your crap.
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u/GotsMahBox Jan 12 '11
On this note, how realistic is this A&E show, in regards to how a hoarding therapist works in real life?
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u/oryano Jan 12 '11
I fully realize the objects are not trivial to them. I mean trivial from an objective standpoint, in the context of a rapid clean up, where the people doing the clean up are trying to help them. Like paperclips. Or a dirty, disgusting toilet seat.
The Mr. Potato Head I was referring to was from an episode with a woman who gets particularly angry. Her anger stems from her feelings about 9/11 and losing certain people, but the object had no sentimentality, only that she "bought it recently". Her reaction was over the top considering the circumstances.
I agree with you that they don't address the underlying trauma in the show. They do make a point at the end of each episode to report whether the hoarder had accepted treatment following the cleanup. Maybe doing the cleanup and THEN addressing the trauma isn't the best way to go. But they're doing television. And that gets them the best television. If the hoarders end up getting better in the end then I think it's worth it.
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u/evenlesstolose Jan 12 '11
I am pretty prone to hoarding and that sort of makes me sad. The reason I hoard is because I get attached to physical things the same way I get attached to friends. If you want to throw out my old trinkets is like asking someone to throw out their dog :(
I can do it. But it's a really lonely feeling.
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u/AMerrickanGirl Jan 12 '11
But it gets lonelier when the "things" take over and no one ever wants to visit you.
Do you like things more than people? Because that's what's going to happen if you choose things over people.
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u/evenlesstolose Jan 12 '11
I'm far better now that I'm older because I live with someone. Much harder to hoard when the person you live with can say hell no when you want to bring home some rusty lunch box or build decorative pyramids out of your old soda cans.
I've been through the choice between people and things before in high school. Eventually everything was thrown out and I was able to start fresh. I still have the hoarding instinct, but I only do it with little tiny things, so it doesn't interfere with my life anymore.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
I'm glad things are working out for you now and thank you for sharing this. How do you feel about trying out new activities or meeting new people?
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u/ANewMachine615 Jan 12 '11
That part actually scares me to death. My mom is a hoarder, and I've had to deal with exactly that reaction. When I came home from freshman year of college, my entire room was taken over by things she'd hoarded. I went through it and tried to toss some of it - obvious trash, like Fraggle Rock books missing more than half the pages, or covered in mold spores from when they got wet when our water tank burst - and she flipped out. The stuff I had donated, she went down to Goodwill to buy back. Then she dug through trash cans outside and pulled things out, washed off the rotting food that was also in the trash bag, and put it back in my room. It's kinda terrifying to see someone you love with that little control or attachment to reality.
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u/bingwah Jan 12 '11
My father in law is the same way. When my wife was still living in his house he would go through her garbage on garbage day to remove things that she had thrown out that he thought were still valuable (like a disgusting old pair of sneakers with holes in them). If he sees something he can get for free he'll take as many as humanly possible. He once came home with 20 shoe horns.
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u/Cpart Jan 12 '11
Does your name refer to a Chinese food? One of my favorites I believe. CBS in Chinatown LA is delicious.
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u/drhaynes Jan 12 '11
Thanks for doing this. Most of the questions seem to be focus on the causes and the problem, rather than solutions. Can you recommend any books or resources for someone looking to deal with this issue in their life?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 13 '11
Yes! For family members of hoarding they can go to Children of Hoarding web site to get more information about how to begin that talk about helping the person.
There is also a support group for hoarders called Clutter's Anonymous and they even do support groups over the phone if the person doesn't feel comfortable leaving their house.
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u/sethra007 Jan 13 '11
I'm not the OP, but as the former friend of hoarders I can make some recommendations:
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O Frost and Gail Skeketee. Frost and Steketee were the first researchers to study hoarding, and they continue to lead the field. Stuff takes you inside the minds of various types of hoarders (animal hoarders, children hoarders, wealthy hoarders, etc.) and helps you understand their twisted logic. It's really a pop science book meant for lay persons, but it clarified a lot of basic stuff for me, particularly the chapter "A Tree With Too Many Branches: Genetics and the Brain." Frost and Steketee work with hoarders and research why the phenomenon occurs. That chapter focuses on the often hereditary nature of hoarding, and what that means for hoarders and their families (although it's important to note that there isn't one definitive behavior called "Hoarding" and it has a lot of causes and triggers).
I think Stuff can be really helpful specifically to children of hoarders because it contains several stories of child hoarders who grow out of their behaviors, and children who grow up with a parent or sibling who hoards.
Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring by Michael A. Tompkins. This is an excellent book, and it is written specifically for the spouse, family, and/or loved ones of hoarders, on how to deal with the hoarder in your life who does not and will not accept that he's a hoarder. It's not a book on "organizing tips" or anything for people who are merely disorganized. This book actually gives you a plan for communicating with your hoarder, identifying issues, working on your relationship with your hoarder, and in general coaxing your hoarder to a healthier way of doing things.
Overcoming Compulsive Hoarding: Why You Save & How You Can Stop by Fugen Nezirog, Jerome, Ph.D. Bubrick, and Jose A. Yaryura-Tobias. The is more like a workbook than something you sit down and read, and can help you form a plan to deal with your hoarder. The book offers case histories showing how damaging hoarding can be to quality of life, self-assessment exercises, and a discussion of treatment options.
Hoarders on A&E gets a lot of publicity, but I recommend that if you get the channel TLC, watch Hoarding: Buried Alive. Unlike A&E's Hoarders, which finds hoarders who are about to lose their homes or kids and thus have a very short deadline to work with, Buried Alive focuses on the therapy used to help extreme hoarders. You'll learn a lot about cognitive behavior therapy, understand the severe anxiety that hoarders experience when stuff is taken from them, and see techniques that therapists use to try to help them.
You can use this Clutter Image Rating Scale to get a sense of how bad the problem really is. Other excellent web sites include Squalor Survivors, Children of Hoarders, and Reddit's own stuffproject at The Stuff Project.
Finally, more and more therapists are starting to treat hoarders and their families. The International OCD Foundation maintains a list of therapists that can provide help. (FWIW, you can find a decent profile of hoarders here)
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Jan 12 '11
Does hoarding tend to be a life-long issue or tend to onset with age?
One of the more interesting explanations I encountered of compulsive gathering of material objects was an attempt to cling to the material world (ie fear of death and the unknown).
Though the behavior wouldn't fall under hoarding per se, there seems to be a desire, as a person ages, to cling to life and it manifests by collecting of unneeded material possessions.
My father is an example, in his 70's, he spends a lot of time collecting old tools to hang up in his shop. He doesn't use them, though he is a capable wood worker. He spends little time creating and more time compulsively purchasing and storing.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Hoarding does tend to be more prevalent among older adults, and the onset of it could be triggered by something such as a lost of a loved one or a traumatic event. Did your dad used to be a wood worker as a profession?
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u/hungryroy Jan 12 '11
In the last episode of the previous season (s5) of Bones, the murder victim was a hoarder and they had their resident team psychiatrist profile his behavior. If you happen to have seen the episode, how accurate do you think the profiling is?
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Jan 12 '11
This is actually an issue with my uncle. He lives with my grand mother, and has a history of problems. He will hoard things like Chinese takeaway containers, takeaway coffee cups or sliced cheese (there is something like 500+ slices total in the fridge at present). Strange things, for the most part - of almost zero value - and most of them reprehensible garbage. Newspapers is another. He also rarely throws anything away even if it is completely ragged. Most of his shoes are in tatters and the less said about the dozen or so pillows the better.
My Granny used to try and control it by sneaking it out into the garbage while he is out of the house. Though recently he has discovered this, and has started checking the garbage and silently taking the items back in. Thus we have reached the ridiculous situation where she now hides small amounts of his hoarded items in her bedroom until my mother comes to visit each week, so she can sneak the items in her car and dispose of them in a garbage can many miles away.
It's an almost laughable situation - but do you have any tips which could help? I've often suggested getting him away for a day under a false pretense and then removing the whole mess real phantom-like. Would this be wise, though?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 13 '11
In my experience, family members who secretly clean out their hoarding family member's homes without their permission tend to freak out and be traumatized by the experience. One daughter actually did a documentary about her mom's hoarding and did this secret clean up. The mom totally freaked out. But again I don't know your granny so I don't know how she would react.
The documentary is called My Mother's Garden.
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Jan 12 '11
I'm assuming you treat this similarly to how an addiction would be treated, so my question is: At what point do they seek help? What sets them over the edge and makes them decide that this isn't right and they need to fix it? For addicts I've heard it's a) life threatening danger, or b) a feeling of disgust at oneself. Is this true of hoarders as well?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Sometimes it takes a very long time for this realization to happen even when the obvious consequences are in their faces. Sometimes it's losing family members and close friends because of their hoarding that causes them to want to do something about their hoarding. A very common long term goal is for them to be able to clean out their homes so that they can invite family and friends over again.
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u/max420 Jan 12 '11
Funny to see this here, I just finished watching a season of the show "hoarders" on netflix.
Some of this stuff is messed up, and the stuff the hoarders themselves were complaining about seemed borderline insane.
This one guy flipped his wig when they threw out all these old wine bottles. They werent fancy bottles or anything either, just regular cheap empty wine bottles.
Or the woman who was hoarding cats, that was pretty messed up. Once they cleaned up the house, they found 50+ cat skeletons of all ages.
Questions: How many people do you work with are beyond hope?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
I like to believe that no one is beyond hope. But this requires a lot of patience, sometimes which I don't have. But I need to believe this otherwise I wouldn't be able to do my job.
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Jan 12 '11
My wife and I have been watching the A&E show Hoarders since the first episode.
After seeing every single episode, my biggest question is "How the hell can you stand working with those people???"
Don't misunderstand. I realize they have a mental disorder, and I'm not judging them. But nonetheless, they seem to be extremely difficult people to work with, and it must try your patience to no end.
Episode after episode, I see the show's psychologists trying to explain to a hoarder that he/she doesn't need to keep trash, or a box of TV Guide magazines from 1978 that's covered in animal feces, or a filthy, broken child's toy, or some such thing. The hoarders then have an extreme negative emotional response and insist that such items are useful and/or valuable, and that they just cannot bear to part with them. And when the psychologists try to politely nudge the hoarders to realize that such items aren't valuable, they are often met with explosive anger and foul language.
So, how do you handle that? How do you keep coming back for more? Is it just a strong altruistic tendency that you have? Or is it something else that keeps you going?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
I really try not to take things too personal. I understand that they are going through a difficult time and that hoarding has been their primary coping skill for years, and that it's unrealistic to expect them to change over night. I realize that it's going to be a long process.
The reason why they are attaching is because of other symptoms such as anxiety and depression. When I understand that, working with hoarders becomes easier.
I also understand how upset I would be if someone came into my house and ordered me to clean up everything when I don't think there's a problem.
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Jan 13 '11
You are a remarkable person, then. I understand the idea of not taking things personally, but it still seems to me like dealing with such stubborn, irrational people would take its toll. I know I couldn't do what you do, which is why I'm thankful that there are people like you who can.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 13 '11
lol I don't know about remarkable I get really pissed off at my clients sometimes, but I never let it show in front of them. I also don't take any harsh verbal abuse. If a client is yelling straight at me and calling me names and such, I tell them thats not what I'm there for and I leave.
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u/littlemonster010 Jan 12 '11
Why are people hoarders? Is it some form of OCD? Or, something else?
Are your therapuetic interventions similiar to those you would use with someone who is OCD?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 13 '11
Hoarding is one of the 4 different symptom subcategories of OCD. Many interventions that are effective with OCD are not as effective with hoarding. So some modifications to OCd interventions are needed.
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u/hummingbirdpie Jan 12 '11
As a recovering hoarder I'd like to offer up one small tip that helped me immensely. Once I had finally managed to get rid of all the really obvious rubbish, I still had a lot of supposedly useful items in my possession. I found it very hard to throw anything away that could still be used for a purpose, even though I myself had no actual, immediate need for it. I now ask myself if maybe someone else would make better use of that item and then donate it to charity; somehow it seems far less anxiety-provoking than sending it to landfill. This way, not only will that item actually get used, but the charity store will make money from selling it. I now frequently go through my belongings with great zeal and love to send perfectly nice, useable items that I no longer use because I see it as donating to charity. I can't tell you how good it feels to take really decent, quality stuff to the old dears at the charity store. The local Cat Protection Society store has sold hundreds/thousands of dollars of my belongings over the last few years.
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Jan 12 '11
I'm not a recovering hoarder, but I understand your sentiment. I had a 50" Panasonic rear projection standard definition TV that worked perfectly (I had fixed it). I have moved it with me three times, and never really used it because I had an HDTV. I just couldn't bring myself to throw it away, or give it to GoodWill because I knew it would be destroyed (you have to be careful moving those things. If you tip them on their side, they get all out of alignment and that's expensive and difficult to fix.)
Finally a friend of mine who was playing his PS3 on his 19" shitty CRT expressed admiration at my two large TV's. I gave him my big-ass TV for free, and it felt awesome to know that someone was enjoying it. He used it every day all the time, and that made me very happy. The thought of just getting rid of it or it going to waste did bother me enough to not want to toss it.
I feel the same about a lot of things that once had value: Old laptops that I've managed to fix and get XP to run on, old videogame consoles, old cell phones, even an original gameboy that I was able to fix and get working, even though I never ever play it, and only have one game for.
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u/wolever Jan 12 '11
That's an interesting idea. It reminds me of a post I read recently, Against coveting: One way to keep from wanting stuff you don’t have.
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u/fritopie Jan 12 '11 edited Jan 12 '11
I don't consider myself a hoarder, but have considered the possibility that I easily could be come one. I do tend to collect a lot of random junk over time. I do find it much easier to get rid of things that I am somewhat attached to if I can donate them, sell them in a garage sale, or give them away rather or at the very least recycle them rather than just filling up a landfill. My boyfriend helped me go through everything in my room over the summer and reorganize and get rid of a lot of stuff. We started by just throwing away everything I didn't like. Then I realized that there were a lot of things I was keeping that I didn't even want. I realized that I was keeping it just because I didn't want to see it thrown away. So we took everything that wasn't just crap and threw it into a donate pile. Then there were still other things that I felt attached to and wasn't quite ready to get rid of but wasn't sure why. So we made another pile for that and after a few hours or another day or two of staring at it and seeing now great my drawers and closet looked, I was able to part with the majority of that stuff too.
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u/IknowthisIknowthis Jan 18 '11
My mum has this hilarious charity complex, where if it's going to goodwill, "I want it to go to someone who actually needs it," Ie, we can't just donate this ice-cream mixer-machine (damn thing doesn't even make ice cream, just mixes it) to the store, we have to make sure there's a family in crisis who would love to get this.
I'm going to show her your post as a rebuttal. Glad to know recovery is possible through attitude change.
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u/moxiepuff Jan 13 '11
Yup, me too.
When I was a little girl I had a terrible time giving up my outgrown clothes - but it was much easier when I was sending them to my little cousin, Marsha.
Now, when I simply can't bear to get rid of something my own daughter has worn, it goes to Marsha's daughter (or my brother's girls, or the little girl down the street). It lessens the "loss" if it goes to someone I know, for some reason.
Going through my mother's things (we recently sold her house - she is in care with dementia) was excruciating, but giving to charities made it a lot easier.
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Jan 12 '11
I have the best hoarder story ever. My grandfather died last year and my family went to clean out his house. We found a fucking airplane in his house. A FUCKING AIRPLANE. The best part is, it took us 3 days to find it...
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u/APett Jan 12 '11
That is awesome. I thought I had a good story, but yours tops mine.
Several years ago, my husband and I were cleaning my in-law's backyard, and after a lot of weed-chopping, we found the sleeper section of a semi cab and an Oldsmobile.
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Jan 12 '11
the fuselage of the plane was buried in the garage and the wings were leaning against the wall in the study. We also found an HF radio rack from a US Navy destroyer circa 1960. That was cool except it was the size of a closet and no one had any idea how to power it or even turn it on.
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u/datri Jan 12 '11
pics?
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Jan 12 '11
I'll try. My dad might have some pictures but I didn't have my camera there as it was a bit of a hectic weekend. The whole death in the family thing. We tore through the stuff as fast as possible because we were all a bit disgusted by it. I'm sure we threw out some really amazing stuff. The background is that my family had pretty much disowned them ten years before and we got a phone call saying that he was dead and that his wife was unable to take care of herself so we had to deal with a hyperventilating 70 year/old women as well as a 3 bedroom house filled to the rafters with 40 years of shit. Anyway, pictures were not high on the priority list.
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u/dirtydirtnap Jan 12 '11
My mother is a hoarder, and it is getting progressively worse. It is bad enough now that I don't like going into her house at all, and I would never let my children go into their own grandmother's house.
Unfortunately, I am going to be moving away from the town she lives in very soon, and I am afraid it is going to get much worse, because my sister will be moving out of my mother's house permanently soon.
I have tried approaching the topic before, but it inevitably only leads to conflict, because she is in denial. I know that she knows she is somewhat depressed, and I know that she knows she is hoarding, but she refuses to admit it or address it.
Basically, I am lost with how to ever solve problem, and I am trying to come to grips with the fact that it is just a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up in my family's face. What in the world do I do?
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u/asterism87 Jan 13 '11
I would pm the OP, or go to some of the helpful links others have left here before continuing the struggle with mom. Places like Children of Compulsive Hoarders.
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u/CapnYousef Jan 12 '11
What excuses do people give for holding onto such stuff?
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u/ba113r1na Jan 12 '11
You should read Stuff. It explains the reasoning and thought-process of hoarders. It's actually quite surprising.
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u/ohnoexmo Jan 12 '11
I really want this question answered.... I mean some of these people keep rotting food! What excuse is there for that???
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u/Lady_in_Reddit Jan 12 '11
Is there, for lack of a better word, an opposite of hoarding? I throw everything away, even things most people would consider sentimental. Is that "normal?"
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u/wetwater Jan 12 '11
My mother is like that. Nothing like coming home from school and finding she cleaned your room and threw away most of your toys and having to go through the trash after she went to bed to reclaim your things.
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u/pibot Jan 13 '11
My mother is like this too. She could be described as a neat freak but it goes beyond that. The appearance of any sort of dirt or mess in her home--no matter how temporary--makes her anxious. If I'm cooking something for myself and assure her I'll do the dishes afterward, she hovers around and starts cleaning and putting away things as I finish using them (and sometimes I'm really not). When cleaning tables and surfaces, it goes beyond making sure the surface is shiny and clean, but absolutely everything except minimal decorations (picture frames, etc) must be put away, even if it's constantly used and small (like a salt shaker).
Physical clutter and dirt aren't also the only things she stresses over; she's similarly put off by any smells suggestive of dirtiness such as cooking smells (we cook with a a fan on high and windows open).
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u/throwmeaway69 Jan 12 '11
What training did you receive as part of the social work degree that led you to take on this specialty interest?
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u/BlackLeatherRain Jan 12 '11
My mother is also a mild hoarder, and we live states away from each other. Both of us are isolated (last living members of her side of the family), so we are very close. Her hoarding went from "can't stay away from Goodwill" to "can't walk through the bedroom" when her mother (last member of her family aside from me) died a few years back.
Every time I go home to spend the weekend, I do my best to help her work through a new pile, but I'm gone so long (up to 12 months at a time) that these piles just get replaced by the time I get back. She's getting older, and we're not moving any time soon, so I'm trying to convince her to move closer so (1) she can have family nearby and (2) my husband and I can be close in case of a medical scare.
She's gotten to the point where she knows she has an issue, and knows she needs help dealing with it. Last time I visited, she was even willing to consider just trashing all of the old clothing that the cats have probably messed anyhow. My issue is time - I can help her clean out the entire freakin' house, garage and the basement, but I know she can't/won't do it alone, and I can't spend months up there.
What, if anything, can or should be done to improve on this situation? I want my mother to be happy again, and to be able to do things like have friends (or romantic interests!) over. The worse this gets, the worse she looks and likely feels about herself, and I know she deserves better.
Thank you for this very interesting IAMA!
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u/libbykino Jan 12 '11
I'm positive that my attitude is related to my ignorance of the subject, but when I see these shows on A&E, Discovery, sometimes I can't help but think "just throw everything away! Get the family, go in there and just gut the place! No matter what the guy says or thinks, none of it is valuable and all of it is trash!"
And I understand that something like that would probably be pretty traumatic for a hoarder and would probably mess them up psychologically, but then I think "well they're already messed up psychologically."
So I guess my question is: if you're already going to be helping the person deal with their mental issues anyway, why not just do the deed and work on any damage that causes along with the original problem? I would think that the pain suffered from that trauma would be pretty minor compared to what caused the hording in the first place. It'd be equivalent to ripping a bandaid off of a deep cut so that you can stitch it up instead.
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u/Aleriya Jan 12 '11
If you clean the house for them, it makes it harder for them to learn how to do it themselves. The idea is to treat the underlying condition so that you don't have to repeat the gutting every year. The hoarder needs to learn how to deal with the mess, and how to convince themselves to trash/donate items that they don't need.
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u/sheet_pans Jan 12 '11
repeat the gutting every year
Or every four to six months, depending on the person and the place... and it would seem almost impossible to get away with doing something that traumatic to someone more than once, anyway. :(
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u/shrine Jan 12 '11
well they're already messed up psychologically
And your plan would expose them to further stress and trauma.. Further deteriorating their mental health and potentially isolating them from treatment.
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u/haneliz Jan 13 '11
I would guess that there may be a legal issue with just going in and throwing everything out without the owner's full (or even just hesitant) consent.
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u/GetLikeMe Jan 12 '11
My dad has a large storage unit, full of crap that he inherited from his parents and has gathered over time from curbsides and garage sales. He often claims that he wants to sell the stuff over the Internet (eBay, Craigslist, etc.), but whenever my brother and I offer to help (he's old enough that he doesn't know the ins and outs of computers), he changes the subject.
ONLY IF YOU'RE COMFORTABLE INTERNET DIAGNOSING, does this sound like hoarder behavior (pretending like he gathers things to sell, but never selling them)?
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u/BreweryBaron Jan 12 '11
Its a mild form of hoarding, BUT it could get much worse, if its not cared for, especially the older he gets. Its also a source of shame and shame is the worse kind of multiplikator of issues.
He want's to get rid of it, but his emotions are preventing him from doing so. He is not recognizing these emotions and needs help adressing them. These things connect him to his parents and maybe there is also guilt (>responsability) or regret related to it. You need to help him find/show him a way to honor/remember/forgive his parents, so he can have closure and move on.
His connection to/rememberance of his parents is immensly important, but it has been trapped in a collection of what appears to be crap/junk.
The most important aspect in solving this, is him not loosing face over it. He might have very noble "reasons" for keeping all this stuff.
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u/dhamilt9 Jan 12 '11
Hoarding is a hobby I think I'd like to get into. Where is a good place to start?
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u/ssshield Jan 12 '11
My mom is a hoarder. She simply can't tell the difference between a flashlight with a broken switch and a Ferrari. They both simply have different functions.
A big part of her problem is that she's been a life long drug addict. This means she's never had any stability in her life, and anything she did have could be taken/lost at any moment. The only successful strategy she has for not having something taken is to make it of no value to anyone ever.
An example is to take a tv and mark it all up with felt magic markers so that it has graffiti hearts and symbols with her name all over it.
Even empty plastic Coke bottles and random chunks of wood get the marker treatment.
This extends to other people's possessions as well. If she borrows a DVD, I'll get it back. It now has my name written in one inch tall letters across the front in marker.
In her mind, she's done me a favor because no one can ever take it from me.
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u/Shikra Jan 20 '11
This extends to other people's possessions as well. If she borrows a DVD, I'll get it back. It now has my name written in one inch tall letters across the front in marker.
In her mind, she's done me a favor because no one can ever take it from me.
I think I would find that simultaneously sweet and infuriating.
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u/meshosh Jan 12 '11
Just curious... Is there some kind of reverse hoarder? I mean, I constantly throw away things I shouldn't. Whenever I buy new clothes I throw some old ones away. There was this one time where I was cleaning a room and I disposed a lot of important documents that I missed afterwards...
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u/ineedmoresleep Jan 12 '11
do disordanized people (for example, I just dump junk (old mail, photographs, toys, etc.) that I am too lazy to sort out into crates and put them in the basement - so my basement looks horrible) turn into hoarders eventually?
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u/RebeccaSays Jan 12 '11
Do some hoarders also have some form of objectophilia, not in a sexual way though? It seems like some times the attachment to an object is strongly emotional.
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
It's more of an emotional attachment to items because the items replaces the absence of relationships and the emotions that come with them.
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Jan 12 '11
What was your career path, specifically? As in, how'd you get from a 17 year old kid going "hmm I don't want to be an astronaut" to being a hoarding therapist?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
I've always wanted to be in the helping profession. As a social worker, I got my first hoarding client and had no clue what to do. I was just really patient with him and asked him what he wanted to do with his stuff instead of ordering him. We talked a lot about his stuff and he was able to clean out his place without too much distress. We classified it as a "successful" case. Ever since then I've been getting all the hoarding clients and it grew from there.
My interest in it is because it's like a physical manifestation of their mental illness and I tend to be a more practical and physical person.
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u/ohnoexmo Jan 12 '11
I LOVE throwing things away and organizing things so let me know if you ever need a crazed woman to take out a hoarder stash, lol.
Seriously though, how DO you actually go about getting all that junk out of your clients' houses? Do you hire crews like on Hoarders or are the clients and their families encouraged to do it themselves?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
We can't afford to hire professional cleaners and most of our clients are low income. We have to either start going through the client's list of friends and families to see who would come out, or start going to local churches and schools to ask for volunteers in order to come up with a team.
It's tough finding people who are willing to come out.
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u/w455up Jan 12 '11
Did you know your username is misspelled? Is that on purpose or a typo?
On the real hoarding question, I feel like I have some hoarding traits in me, but I simply don't have enough stuff yet. Are there any sorts of early identifiers?
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u/ChaSuiBao Jan 12 '11
Yes. Mostly if you feel that your hoarding is interfering with your life and causing dysfunctions. Such as spending most of your day and time on hoarding items and if you feel distress at the thought of letting go of your items.
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Jan 14 '11
Is there any recognized disorder where people compulsively throw things away - the opposite of hoarding?
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u/Vernalcombustion Jan 12 '11
Is hoarding a habit that is present from birth, or do you think it is triggered by an emotional or physical trauma later in life?
It's such a strange disease -the way people seem to delude themselves to the point of total self destruction.
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u/TroyPDX Jan 12 '11
I'm just glad they never invented smellavision, cause then Hoarders would be unwatchable.
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Jan 12 '11
My mother is a hoarder. It drives me up the wall. But I've pinpointed when she really started with it, when her dad died, and when it gets worse, like when I move away.
I just wish she'd fucking wake up and start throwing everything out.
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u/ShabbyDoo Jan 13 '11
People featured on the "Hoarders" show seem to often live in homes previously owned by family members. While I know that the show certainly doesn't feature an unbiased selection of hoarders, I do wonder if there is some connection between the psychological, social, and perhaps economic conditions which caused these people to live in the homes where they grew up (or perhaps moved into later in life). On the show, it seems rare that the relative who previously owned the home was a hoarder. Any thoughts on this? Have you seen this play out in your practice? If so, what factors do you think lead to this correlation?
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u/girrrrrrr2 Jan 12 '11
Yes you are hurting sheep by hoarding them...
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u/snorch Jan 12 '11
No, you're thinking of herding. Hoarding is a move used by the pokemon Metapod.
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u/TheBoyDetective Jan 12 '11
Char siu bao is literally my favourite food.
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u/XoYo Jan 12 '11
Throw in some siu mai, har gau and fried Peking dumplings, and I'm in heaven.
I think I may just have worked out why I'm so fat.
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Jan 12 '11
Of the people that you see, how many of them had rough childhoods, or childhoods where they moved arouna a lot? Is the collecting like a seciruty blanket?
Also, do you have any tips for breaking free of the hoarding trap? (other than eviction - that really worked for me!)
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u/DigDugDude Jan 12 '11
Lets say someone has 50 pizza boxes sitting on the floor. He doesn't want to keep them, would prefer them to be gone, but has trouble getting motivated enough to bag them up and bring them outside.
Is that hoarding or something else?
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u/jthompson68 Jan 12 '11
If I have a family member who is a pretty bad pack-rat, do I ever need to worry about them becoming a hoarder? Is hoarding behavior something that develops over time, or is it something a person is born with?
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Jan 12 '11
How do you define problems in functioning? If hoarding behaviour was affecting children or other adults in the same house, would that be classed as a problem for you or be referred onto a family therapist?
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u/skankingmike Jan 12 '11
My family is filled with Hoarders. Right before my Cousin was born my aunts house was a disaster. Not only did she have items all over her house on the floor in closets. But she had started collecting cats too! She had close to 8 cats, thank god, and they all started deficating where ever.
My other Aunt who was helping clean is also a hoarder. she has a whole 2 rooms upstairs in her house filled to the brim with shit. They have litterly 20 dressers 5 of them unopened. They have rugs never used. They have clothes never worn. They have 4 swing sets in the back yard.
I occasional come over and convince them to throw shit away or my Mom, but if it wasn't for us they wouldn't get rid of shit.
How do I help them better? It's fucking depressing every time I go to their houses. The weird thing is they don't keep their hoarded shit down stairs (my Aunt/Grandma's house) It's fairly clear ( say fairly because there is a ton of shit everywhere just organized). My aunt who had the cat issue, has picked up the hoarding shit again. She's seeing a Psychiatrist for her other issues, but not a therapist. Any suggestions?
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u/cdrankin101 Jan 12 '11
My brother is a terrible hoarder- he can't even get to his bed without climbing over a bunch of junk. I can't even see the floor in his room. He has severe OCD, but isn't going to a therapist or anything. I have tried everything I know to get him to clean it, or at least go see somebody, but he refuses. He's 23 years old and I thought it would get better as he gets older but it's just gotten worse and I can't talk sense into him. Suggestions?
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u/clegg Jan 12 '11
Is there a distinction between someone who hoards and someone who's just a disgusting lazy pig who lets housework/taking out the trash/cleaning up after himself completely overtake trying to live like a human being?
I woudl imagine there is a difference.
If so, do you try to "help" those people as well?
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u/LuciferH Jan 12 '11
What kind of education/qualifications do you have?
Do you work independently, or with a company or group that sends you out?
How did you get this job?
What makes you want to help hoarders specifically?
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Jan 12 '11
As of late, I've been giving away a lot of my possessions to reduce clutter, reduce attachment to material goods, and focus on what's more important in life. While I don't think there's anything unhealthy about this (on the contrary, I think this is a very healthy thing to do, and it's not like I'm giving everything away), have you seen individuals on the other end of the hoarding spectrum to the point of it being a problem?
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u/bhknight1987 Jan 12 '11
My moms house is clean except for her room and the room with the washer and dryer. I don't even think she knows most of the stuff in those two rooms. Is there some reason for this because the other parts of the house are very clean?
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u/datri Jan 12 '11
Thank you so much for doing this AMA. Even if you can't get to all the questions, I think it is great for people to know they aren't alone.
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u/Thinks_Like_A_Man Jan 12 '11
No real question, just a big "thank you" for being willing to take on this task. I have friends who are therapists who refuse these patients because of the work that is involved and how few of them have money.
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u/ohnoexmo Jan 12 '11
Why do hoarders think that hoarding will help them? Or rather, how does trauma etc, lead to hoarding? I would think living in a sty would cause depression and anxiety, not alleviate it.
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u/crawwll Jan 13 '11
What is the oldest object that you have seen anyone hoard? There is a house 2 blocks down from mine that has no curtains, just piles of junk blocking all the windows. In one of the front windows is a Gerald Ford for President sign like you would put in your yard at election time. This has to be 35 or 36 years old, and judging by the age of the house and the age of the lady that lives there, it probably stood in the yard of that house in 75-76.
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u/mmofan Jan 12 '11
I've worked for one helluva hoarder. It was insane. Her problem was collectibles, and it didn't help that she was rich, on pain meds, and literally insane.
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u/Defonos Jan 12 '11
Is hoarding just a condition of a more serious psychological condition? It seems like a lot of hoarders have some traumatic incident(s) in their past to where they feel vulnerable.
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u/SanchoMandoval Jan 12 '11
My parents are very mild hoarders. But they're the types who like, have a garage and basement stacked to the rafters with stuff from the last 30 years that they really have zero demonstrable use for. And they also have a storage space too... which they always put stuff in but damned if I've ever heard of them getting anything out of.
Is there any simple stuff I can do to encourage them not to hang on to everything?