Hoarding and housing: Part 1, more prevalent than you think
In the course of writing there must be a moral in here somewhere, about an Englishman who died of suffocation inside his home filled with clutter he had hoarded for years, I found myself reflecting, a tad depressed, about variations of hoarding I’ve seen over my years in affordable housing.
To some degree or other, we all hoard – in the sense that we keep things longer than we rationally need them. This becomes really evident when, as we did recently, one moves one’s office to a new location. You have to take everything down from the shelves, out of the file drawers, from the office cul-de-sacs. Old briefcases. Leather carrying cases for laptops no longer made. Previously used notebooks. We all have such things in our offices, to say nothing of paper, paper, more paper. Things forgotten and then, when discovered in packing, revitalized. Each represents a tiny talisman of our selves, our past, our memories. Yet, if we are rational, into the gray plastic trash trundle buckets it all goes.
Yet hoarding is a psychological disease, as I discovered when stumbling over an article in the MBHP Newsletter:
Bedroom in a hoarder’s apartment
“Jim” was in jeopardy of losing his apartment. It had failed inspection due to bins full of childhood items, cinderblock and wood shelves laden with thousands of books, and shelves and containers bursting with computer components—all stacked floor to ceiling.
De-cluttering his apartment did not appeal to Jim at first. “I am a man of knowledge,” he said. “What would I be if I got rid of my library and other things?”
Hoarding seems to strike the solitary more, and the elderly solitary most. In place of people, they surround themselves with possessions, always accumulating more.
I surround myself with possessions
Possessions become the nest for ego.
Jim’s hoarding was compounded by his struggles with depression and other psychological issues.
But through interagency cooperation and with the help of MBHP hoarding specialist Jesse Edsell-Vetter, Jim was able to understand his situation and focus on de-cluttering his apartment. MBHP’s privately funded Emergency Fund provided money for removal of discarded items, which can cost anywhere between $500 and $3,000 and is not eligible for other funding.
Hoarding is rampant in affordable housing, as I found out from Jesse Edsell-Vetter, hoarding specialist at the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership:
[Green Times New Roman is email correspondence from Edsell-Vetter.]
According to MassHousing’s research, hoarding is the third leading cause of eviction.
Non-payment is first.
Eviction related to substance abuse is second.
In the general population the prevalence rate is 5-7%. There is a great deal of research about the psychological aspects of hoarding and hoarding is being considered for separate classification in the next DSM but no official decision has been made. There are strong links to trauma and loss. Hoarders also frequently have other co-morbid conditions including depression, OCD and sometimes more severe mental health conditions.
Hoarder’s house in
Hoarding can be palliated (by removing clutter) and treated (by social-service counseling of the hoarder).
Hoarder’s kitchen, before
Hoarder’s kitchen, after two dumpsters’
worth of clutter was removed from her home
This takes work and more patience and empathy than I could ever possibly muster:
Jim recently passed the one-year mark for successful inspections.
It’s a trend MBHP property inspectors are seeing more and more of: compulsive hoarding so severe that a home becomes unsafe and tenancy is jeopardized.
Hoarders accumulate and keep accumulating without purpose or end
Dealing with hoarders is not the landlord’s job; indeed, the landlord will generally have a duty to evict if the home becomes unsanitary. Here’s the
[Blue Times New Roman is taken from MBHP’s hoarding guide documents.]
State Sanitary Code 410.740 –
CONDITIONS DEEMED TO ENDANGER OR IMPAIR HEALTH OR SAFETY
“(g) Failure to provide adequate exits or the obstruction of any exit, passageway or common area caused by any object, including garbage or trash, which prevents egress in case of an emergency.”
In there must be a moral in here somewhere, we discovered an elderly homeowner suffocated in his own clutter.
Compulsive hoarding is defined as the acquisition of and failure to discard a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value. Homes become so cluttered that tenants cannot live in them appropriately. Exits become blocked, kitchens and bathrooms become hard to move around in, and clutter becomes a fire hazard.
While that’s the extreme, hoarding creates fertile territory for insects and vermin:
“(i) Failure to comply with any provision of 105 CMR 410.600, 410.601, or 410.602 that results in any accumulation of garbage, rubbish, filth or other causes of sickness, which may provide a food source or harborage for rodents, insects or other pests or otherwise contributes to accidents or the creation or spread of disease.”
Only the pests like this envrionment
At the same time, hoarding is increasingly being recognized as an authentic mental disease.
What is hoarding?
Compulsive hoarding is (Frost & Hartl, 1996):
· the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value
· living spaces are sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed
· significant distress (to any concerned party) or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding
The photographs don’t lie. They bespeak a compulsive inability to control something that we all do a little.
Hoarding doesn’t just afflict the poor
Like most such psychological conditions, hoarding has both clinical and legal definitions, which are important in that they both create legal obligations in the owner/ landlord and activate the resident’s access to assistance.
How can a person who is hoarding prove that they have a disability?
Documentation is not necessary if a person’s disability is known or apparent. If the housing provider is aware that the person meets the definition of hoarding as stated in Question 5, then the disability is apparent. If the disability is not apparent or unknown to the housing provider, documentation can be requested from a healthcare provider. The healthcare provider can be a primary physician, nurse, nurse practitioner, licensed social worker, counselor, psychologist, etc. The documentation does not need to disclose the nature or severity of the disability. It need only say that their patient is a person with a disability and due to that disability, a reasonable accommodation is needed.
When people are sick and cannot cure themselves, they deserve help.
In May 2006, MBHP began its Hoarding and Sanitation Initiative in response to both the need to keep hoarders from being evicted and the need for interagency cooperation to achieve long-term tenancy. Edsell-Vetter, a former MBHP Inspections Department staffer with first-hand experience with hoarders, led the initiative’s development.
Dr. Gail Steketee, expert in hoarding
“MBHP has been visionary in addressing hoarding with well-trained staff and clearly articulated protocols for handling serious hoarding problems,” said Dr. Gail Steketee, professor and dean of
Well, then, how does one address hoarding? And what are the landlord’s rights and responsibilities?
Who’s responsible for cleaning this up?
[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]
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