Hoarding Experts

1/31/2022 (Permalink)

Years ago you didn’t hear much about hoarding.  But with cable television shows like Hoarding: Buried Alive, many of us have now been exposed to hoarding.  Simply stated hoarding is “a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them.”  “Hoarding disorder is a mental health disorder in which people save a large number of items whether they have worth or not.”  Hoarding and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) are closely related.  They both fall under the obsessive compulsive and related disorders category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5^th edition.  Hoarded items can vary but generally they are common possessions.  Hoarded items can be anything from books, clothing, magazines, and containers, to garbage, rotten food and even feces and all of the above.  

It’s important to note that hoarding is different than collecting.  Collecting involves targeting very specific items, removing the items from ordinary use, organizing them, and often displaying them for the collector and others to admire. Hoarding is more impulsive and is usually very chaotic and disorganized. The resulting clutter takes over the home and disrupts the ability to use living spaces, while creating unsanitary and unhealthy conditions. 

The overall prevalence of hoarding disorder is approximately 2.6%, with higher rates for people over 60 years old and people with other psychiatric diagnoses, especially anxiety and depression. The bulk of evidence suggests that hoarding occurs with equal frequency in men and women. Hoarding behavior begins relatively early in life and increases in severity with each decade, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

While we here at SERVPRO have extensive experience cleaning hoarding situations, it is essential that our services be combined with mental health therapy to treat the underlying cause.  If the proper treatment is not done, the home will quickly return to its original state.