When the co-authors wrote this book just over a decade ago, compulsive hoarding was little known and even less studied. They set out to learn more about why people become hoarders, what their feelings and thoughts about their belongings are, maybe how they got that way (many already had symptoms in childhood), how it affects family members, and finally what might assist them to clear out their clutter and overcome their compulsions. Much easier said than done. The authors were surprised at the overwhelming response when they sought subjects for their study- turns out hoarding isn’t as rare as they’d thought. Lots of people have difficulty letting go of cherished items, controlling desires to buy items they don’t really need, or saving junk that just might come be useful someday. The book delves into the nuances and reasons behind these problems and more. Problem being when the items collected or saved literally fill the living space- multiple cases they discuss had hoarders who simply moved into a new residence when their current one became unlivable! Others lost family members who became frustrated with the situation and left, or actually had their piles of stuff threaten their healthy and safety. Many times city officials had to get involved because of the physical safety hazard, but as the authors point out more than once, forced cleanouts do little to actually solve the problem, as hoarders will quickly fill their home again.
It was sometimes distressing and unsettling to read the description of some homes they visited, and I honestly felt bad for the people struggling with hoarding to such a degree. Some of them desperately wanted help for what they couldn’t seem to control, others denied that anything was a problem! Their reasons for hanging onto or collecting stuff were so varied and different than what I had assumed might be. Much of it appears to be pathological in nature- so I’d hope that now, so many years later, progress has been made in treatment using medications as well as the therapy, assisted organization and cleanout, and so on. I keep turning my mind back to the reasons that people became hoarders: because they felt guilty wasting anything (so couldn’t throw anything away), because they felt an intimate connection to each object, because they felt the object held their memories- literally were afraid of forgetting things the items represented if they were discarded, because they felt important or loved when taking in animals (the animal hoarding chapter was hard to read, but brief), because they saw endless opportunities or knowledge that things held (think stashes of years and years’ worth of newspapers, magazines, etc). It’s kind of scary to read all this and recognize little bits of yourself or your family members in the behavior and rationale of hoarders. At what point does my personal library (currently 1,873 books) or puzzle collection (157) become too much? I chuckled when the authors mentioned that one hoarder had hundreds of books in his house – well, I actually have a few thousand! I start to feel it’s getting overwhelming when they stack up on the floor because I’m out of shelf space . . . and then I just want to build more shelves. But really I need to whittle down the TBR pile- and this book really gives me the impulse to do so, and to seriously clean my house, and to clear out stuff the kids don’t use anymore, and just keep going . . .
Borrowed from the public library.
One Response
I didn’t mention in my review, but kept remembering, how I appreciated that the authors didn’t demean the people they wrote about. They might have expressed disgust a few times at the state of a house (odors, insects, mold), but never at the people. In fact, several times they mentioned admiring or feeling envious (? I can’t remember quite the word used) of how many people who hoard seem to do so because they see infinite beauty in everyday objects, or recall painstaking details about every little thing, or feel that their memories are tied into them all. It was a depth of feeling for thing most people would ignore or discard, that led to them wanting to hold onto everything. Not something to disparage, but alarming in how it eventually hindered their lives.