Animal Hoarding

Animal Hoarding
Photos are from a Google search on "animal hoarding"


From the American Veterinary Medical Association

Animal Hoarding - Accumulats a large number of animals, overwhelming the person's ability to provide even minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, and veterinary care. Fails to acknowledge the deteriorating condition of the animals (including disease, starvation, and even death) and household environment (severe overcrowding, very unsanitary conditions). Fails to recognize the negative effect of the collection on his or her own health and well-being, and on that of other household members.

Animal hoarding may be symptomatic of psychologic disorders such as dementia, addiction, attachment disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Additionally, animal hoarding can create severe hazards to the health of the hoarder, family members, and the animals involved.

Household conditions often deteriorate to the point where appliances and utilities are not functioning, and proper food preparation and basic sanitation measures become impossible, according to an article in Municipal Lawyer magazine by the consortium. There may also be rodent or insect infestations, fire hazards, or dangerously high concentrations of ammonia in the house.


http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/oct02/021015a.asp


Animal Hoarding is a mental illness recognized as a psychological condition; a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The distinguishing feature is that a hoarder "fails to provide the animals with adequate food, water, sanitation, and veterinary care, and … is in denial about this inability to provide adequate care." At the very least, because hoarders, by definition, fail to clean up after the animals. The sometimes hundreds of dogs or cats kept by a single hoarder generally show signs of neglect such as severe malnutrition, untreated medical conditions including open sores, cancers, and advanced dental and eye diseases, and severe psychological distress. In 80 percent of the cases studied, authorities found either dead or severely ill animals in hoarders' homes. -Wikipedia


"Hoarding is very often a symptom of a greater mental illness, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. For most hoarders, it is likely that their actions are the result of a true pathology, even though they are still usually able to function quite well in society," says Randall Lockwood, HSUS vice president for Research and Educational Outreach.

Because animal hoarders quite often appear to lead normal lives, it's important to recognize when a person's fixation with animals has gotten out of control. The HSUS defines an animal hoarder as a person who has more animals than he or she can properly care for. Another defining characteristic is the hoarder's denial of his inability to care for the animals and his failure to grasp the impact his neglect has on the animals, the household, and the human occupants of the dwelling.

What's more, hoarders are usually well-educated and possess excellent communication skills. Many hoarders have an uncanny ability to attract sympathy for themselves, no matter how abused their animals may be, which is often how hoarders manage to fool others into thinking the situation is under control.

Anyone who is considering relinquishing an animal to a private rescue group should first visit the premises and ask to see where the animals are kept. -The Humane Society of the United States






Every hoarder’s behavior translates into severe, even fatal, neglect for animals in their custody. Overcrowded and filthy conditions make for easy transmission of worms, fleas, mange, ear mites, upper respiratory infections, parvo, distemper, and other diseases and can lead to feces-matted coats and urine burns. Hoarded animals are commonly deprived of basic veterinary care, including spaying and neutering, which causes the numbers of animals to increase, and/or results in the separation of animals by sex and their confinement to small cages or bathrooms. Injuries—including broken limbs and wounds suffered in fights with other animals—go untreated and lead to infections. -PETA








What is the difference between an animal hoarder and a puppy mill? A puppy mill cranks out puppies for a profit. They keep their expenses low in order to increase the profit margin. Therefore low grade food, not vetting, overcrowding are all examples of puppy miller's attempts to keep their expenses down and increase their profits. It's all for money. It is a business to them. Animal hoarders often think they are saving the lives of the animals and have no intention of making a profit. They don't sell their animals. They just keep collecting them. Income vs. Expense is not a part of their dialogue.

Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

Homer & Langley by E. L. Doctorow

I read this book in 2 sittings. I'd been intrigued by this sad true story since I did some study on hoarding. Langley Collyer and his blind brother, Homer Lusk Collyer, were two recluses and, possibly, the most famous hoarders in America.

Homer Lusk Collyer (DOB 11/6/1881) and Langley Collyer (DOB 10/3/1885) were the sons of a successful gynecologist, Dr. Herman L. Collyer, and his wife. They were from a well known family that had been in America since the 1600's and were rich and well situated. Dr. Collyer moved his family to a fine upper-middle-class home in Harlem. It was a three-story brownstone located at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at 128th Street). Both sons attended Columbia University, where Homer earned a law degree, and his younger brother graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and chemistry. Homer went on to practice admiralty law, but Langley, so far as is known, never held employment, and spent his time playing the piano. For reasons unknown, Dr. Collyer had moved from his Fifth Avenue home to one at 153 West 77th Street several years prior to his death. His sons remained at the family home with their mother. It is possible that a family breakup may have occurred. In 1923, Dr. Collyer died. Their mother died in 1929.

Around 1928, Homer worked for an attorney, John R. McMullen, who later became the family legal advisor. Homer next worked for City Title Insurance doing research in the New York City Hall of Records. He was described, at the time, as being courtly, and dressing in 19th century attire, presenting a rather Victorian appearance. He was said to resemble a gentleman of the 1880's. In 1932, Homer purchased a building across the street at 2077 Fifth Avenue for $8,000. He planned to divide it into apartments and to rent them. This plan was never realized, as he suffered a stroke in 1933, becoming blind as the result of hemorrhages in both of his eyes. With one exception, he was reportedly never seen outside of his home again. Langley then gave up his music to take on the job of nursing his brother back to health. No physician was ever consulted.

Their gas was shut off in 1928, and they also seemed to have given up the convenience of running water and steam heat, and began using kerosene to light their home and to cook with. Water was obtained from a public fountain four blocks from their home.

They were mentioned in an article written by Helen Worden. Worden had kept a watch on the Collyer's home, and finally caught up with Langley one night, as he was leaving the house to go on what was one of his regular night time prowls. She questioned Langley about a boat (his father's) and a Model-T Ford said to be in their basement. Langley confirmed these stories. It seems that the fully assembled Model T had been in the basement of his father's house. When the house was sold Langley had taken it apart, piece by piece, and put it back together in the basement of the Fifth Avenue house. He intended to use it to run a generator for electricity but it didn't work so he just left it there. After the article, the notoriety caused them trouble. People thought the brothers had hidden money and valuables inside and they began pestering the men. Throwing rocks through windows, banging on the doors. Langley boarded up the windows and doors. He even began setting booby traps throughout the house in case someone got in.

Although the brothers were well off, Langley regularly rummaged through garbage cans seeking food. He went begging at butcher shops for scraps, and was known to walk some distance to purchase stale bread cheaply. It sounds like Langley became paranoid and miserly as well as suffering from hoarding.

The Collyers again appeared in the newspapers in April 1939, when a city marshal together with representatives of the gas company entered the brother's two Fifth Avenue buildings and removed the gas meters, which had been in a state of disuse since 1928. A crowd of a 1,000 people gathered outside their home to see what was happening.

In their desire to avoid the world, they hadn't paid their bills or taxes and it caused them no end of trouble. In August, 1942, the Bowery Savings Bank foreclosed on a mortgage that amounted to $6,700 plus interest (no interest had been paid since 1940). After going to state Supreme Court, the bank obtained permission to evict the brothers from their home. The very same day, the Collyer's attorney, John R. McMullen (the one Homer had worked with), met with bank officials with an offer to pay off the mortgage. The Bowery Savings Bank was not all that eager to repossess it since the house was in very poor condition. Mr. McMullen had never actually been allowed in the brothers' house, so instead, Langley, had walked all the way to his attorney's office on Park Row to settle the matter. But he still did not pay the mortgage and later that year, a physical attempt to evict the brothers was stymied by Langley's barricades and booby traps. After the repeated attempts, Langley finally signed a check paying the mortgage off.

Sgt. Collins of the 123rd street station, decided he needed to check on Homer Collyer to make sure he was still alive and well. He encountered Langley, and somehow got his permission, to enter the house through the basement door. In a trek through a labyrinth of tunnels in the trash and homemade booby-traps that lasted a half hour, Langley led the officer to the bedroom where Homer was to be found. Sgt. Collins' own words were, "I switched on my flashlight, and there was Homer sitting up like a mummy. He was on a cot, a burlap bag beneath him and an old overcoat on the foot of the cot, and he spoke directly to the officer. 'I am Homer Collyer, a lawyer. I want your shield number. I am not dead. I am blind and paralyzed.'" Langley made a complaint to the police department about the incident, but no action was ever taken on the matter. The IRS also pursued them for back taxes and took ownership of the house but did not pursue the matter further. No one bid for the house in a tax auction and the house, being in such poor condition and the brothers being so hard to deal with, they just waited them out.

On July 27, 1946, Langley appeared in court against a man who was caught burglarizing the home. Dressed in turn-of-the-century garments, he appeared in the city's Felony Court.

The last time either of the Collyer's was seen alive, was the result of another tax problem. The brothers owned two land parcels in Queens County, inherited from their father. The city wanted the land for new streets and other purposes, and Langley, together with Mr. McMullen, had a meeting about this with the city's corporation counsel. After Langley refused two summonses to testify before Supreme Court Justice Charles C. Lockwood, the land was condemned by the city, and the brothers awarded $7500, which was substantially less than its appraised value.

On March 21, 1947 a mysterious phone call from a Mr. Charles Smith, was made to the New York City police department notifying them that he believed a man was dead inside a decaying building on Fifth Avenue in Harlem. It was the Collyer home. They had to respond but were unable to open the front door.

As crowds began to collect, the police requested an emergency team which tried axes and crowbars at the basement door which successfully got them past the door but left them confronted with the barricades of trash.

Next they used ladders to get to the roof and try the windows but couldn't get passed the shutters and boarding until lunchtime when finally one officer was able to make it in. Patrolman Barker disappeared for several minutes until, on his return to the window, he called to the others, "There's a DOA here." Detective John Loughery made his way up the ladder in order to view the body while other officers began to try to batter in the front doors with earnest. But once through the door, they were again faced with the massive obstruction of neatly tied bundles of newspaper, as well as cardboard boxes filled with assorted contents. Although they tried to tear down the wall of debris, they were forced to admit defeat. Meanwhile, Detective Loughery related what he had seen - the emaciated body of a white-haired man dressed in a tattered gray bathrobe, sitting upright, and tentatively identified as Homer Collyer.

The chair Homer was found sitting in.

The medical examiner, Arthur C. Allen, arrived at 3:45 p.m., and declared that the individual had been dead for approximately ten hours. The autopsy showed he had probably died from starvation and dehydration.

There were numerous rats darting through the piled trash. Looking through various windows and around the second floor where they had entered revealed that the entire house was packed with debris of various kinds. It appeared that the building was riddled with a maze of tunnels through which Langley had moved, pulling bales of newspaper in behind him, to prevent intruders from entering. The police also found tin cans and piles of heavy debris wired together to form booby traps, in which the cans would sound an alarm, and a mass of junk would fall on the unsuspecting invader. Langley was not found. So they held off ,hoping Langley would show up within 24 hours. But he didn't, so the police made the decision to start pulling the house apart. They figured it would take them 3 weeks. They started from the top down.

They brought in tall ladders and went on the roof and broke in some skylights and a roof trap door. Once inside they smashed out the windows for ventillation. Crowds kept growing and watched and cheered as large items were thrown down to the street below.















A team of sixteen men inspected each object as it was thrown out, looking for valuables and important papers to be saved. On the first day, they found enough ledgers, correspondence, and legal documents to fill eight crates which were taken to the West 123rd Street Station to be looked over by someone from the public administrator's office. Important documents and papers continued to turn up, and these were removed to the 123rd Street Station. Any useless material that was combustible was carted away in two truckloads by the Department of Sanitation, to be burned in it's incinerators. The first load weighed 6,424 pounds, and the second a bit less. Near where Homer's body had been found, they found an old cigar box containing thirty-four bank books from various savings banks. Eleven of them had been canceled, and they showed savings totaling $3,007 dollars. Family members began complaining that the police could be ruining valuables so it was finally decided to ship the debris to an old school building to be sorted. Items of obvious trash would be removed by the Sanitation Dept. Nineteen tons of trash and objects were removed in one day, the bulk of which came from the first floor hallway. By the 7th of April, workers had removed approximately 103 tons of rubbish. On April the 8th, Langley's body was finally discovered, pinned by one of his own booby-traps in that same room on the second floor where Homer's body was previously found. Langley's body lay on its right side, inside one of the two-foot-wide tunnels that was part of the maze he had created, his head turned toward the area where his brother's cot had been, only eight feet away. The room, itself was filled with piles of newspapers, books, old furniture and tin cans. The materials that had apparently trapped Langley were a suitcase, three metal bread boxes, and bundles of newspapers. One particularly unpleasant detail was that the numerous rats that infested the house had gnawed at his partially decomposed body. The next day, on April 10th, the medical examiner concluded that Langley Collyer had been smothered by the debris, which had collapsed upon him, and had been dead for at least a month before his brother, Homer.

Source: http://www.ocfoundation.org/1005/m140a_001.htm

E. L. Doctorow plays loose with the facts of this true story. In his book Homer slowly goes blind at a young age and he is the musician of the two who never works. In real life, Homer is a practising lawyer but has a stroke and goes blind due to hemorrhages in both eyes, and Langley is the musician who didn't work. Doctorow has both parents die in the 1919 Spanish Flu Epidemic when we know that they died in 1923 and 1929 respectively and were estranged. (I have to wonder if Langley's hoarding, or insanity, was the contention in the home? The police found newspapers and other things dating back as far as 1915!) In Doctorow's book, Langley suffered gassing in WWI but I didn't find any reference to military service. Doctorow also has the brothers living into the modern age but they died in 1946.

There are graphic sexual stories scattered in the book that were unnecessary. For this reason, I wouldn't recommend it to someone younger than 17 (I know they read and see worse, but that would be my recommendation.)

"They had opted out--that was the primary fact. Coming from a well-to-do family, with every advantage, they had locked the door and closed the shutters and absented themselves from the life around them. A major move, as life-transforming as emigration. In fact it was a form of emigration, of leave-taking. But where to? What country was within that house? What would have caused them to become the notorious recluses of Fifth Avenue?" -E. L. Doctorow

The story is about the relationship between the two brothers and the various characters they come into contact with throughout their lives. It is told through Homer's voice. Doctorow says, above, that they wanted to lock the door, close the shutters and absent themselves from life. The real Collyer brothers did that. But in his book, the Collyer brothers meet new people, invite them in and live with them for a time such as the flower children, Gangster Vincent, Harold Robileaux, Mary Elizabeth Riordan, Siobhan, etc. It was a very compelling story of their slow descent into madness. Someone described them as co-dependent and I agree. But Doctorow gives them an unconditional love for each other that was probably there in the real brothers.
He portrays them as eccentrics but sympathetically. What was their life like behind all those shutters and doors and barricades?
I found some book club discussion questions that I liked and some I came up with. These would make for interesting thoughts or topics to discuss.
* Evidently Langley Collyer had single-handedly searched for these items and brought them back home and stored them over the years. Like an ant building an ant hill. Tons and tons of items and debris that he had walked all over and collected and then transported back home and up and down steps until he left it in it's final resting place. So much energy, time, thought had gone into this horrible collection that was literally thrown out and burned. Such a waste! Discuss how you feel about that.
* In real life, Langley's body was found very close to where Homer was found. You know Homer knew what happened and knew, from that moment on, he was doomed to a slow death. He had only been dead 10 hours when his body was found but Langley had been dead for weeks. Homer sat there, unable to see or move in that house of horrors. What horror was going through his mind?
* Both Langley and Homer had been so intent on being independent, reclusive, and wanted only to be left alone. Langley had made their home a fortress to protect them from the rest of the world and yet, they died horrible deaths BECAUSE of Langley's "protection" and they were all alone.
* In the book, do you feel that Homer collected people the way that Langley collected objects?
* Langley is obsessive in his quest to create one universal newspaper of "seminal events". Several times they discuss the topics in which he files his stories. What categories would you use? In real life it was said that Langley collected these newspapers so that Homer could catch up with the world when his eyesight returned. Compare this with the Doctorow's idea of a generic newspaper.
* Discuss the importance of Jacqueline in the story. Do you think she really existed? Was she really his muse? Do you think she really returned?
* In what ways is the house a character as well as the setting? How does the house's condition reflect the brothers' physical and mental conditions?
* Think about the difference between collecting and obsession (hoarding); loneliness & depression; paranoia and self preservation; and the entrapment of age and disability.
* Homer becomes increasingly isolated by blindness and deafness, Langley by depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and paranoia. How do these conditions affect their relationship with each other?
* How does Doctorow's writing style seek to reflect the brothers descent into emotional and physical decay and madness?
* What part did the park play in the brother’s lives? Compare it to the house.
* Homer had several occasions to develop a relationship with a woman. Langley even commented about his brother’s affinity for the ladies. Why did Homer choose to remain single and live with his brother?

Hoarding

Hoarding



















Hoarding means to accumulate; to store; to gather and keep for future use. Everyone does this to some degree. For instance I buy toilet tissue so that I can always have at least a week's worth of rolls on hand. As they decrease, I buy more so that my supply stays fairly static. We acquire, accumulate, inventory and store things all the time. But hoarders are people who become obsessive about keeping things. They keep things until they no longer have space to live, cook a meal, or pay their bills. They live in squalor, and they risk falling or causing a fire. A common feature of hoarders are vast piles of paper - newspapers, magazines, books, mail, notes, bags, boxes, and lists. Some hoarders accumulate old clothes, rotting food, and stray animals. They are afraid to discard anything that might be useful some day. Simply cleaning out the clutter does not solve the problem. The hoarder will only become intensely anxious and start to accumulate junk again. This obsessive compulsive disorder can make them reclusive, suspicious, socially isolated. They don't want others to see their homes either out of embarrassment or being afraid that others will steal their things. Any effort to help them by shoveling it out and cleaning it up is seen by them as a loss of control and makes them afraid and/or angry. Trying to motivate them to declutter, discard and throw away is met with resistance. They simply are not capable of making the decisions of what to keep and what to discard.

This problem is a growing problem because the population is growing and disposable income is higher.

Some people may not hoard trash and newspapers but they "collect" things until it becomes a problem. Such as collecting dolls, movie memorabilia, etc. It becomes a hoarding problem when they are spending money on their collections to the detriment of themselves or their family and they fall deeply in debt. It becomes hoarding when their collection is taking up all the living space. It becomes hoarding when their collection becomes too much to keep clean and take care of. It becomes hoarding when they can't clean their house because their collection.

I remember when we were looking at houses we went to see a house that was full of dolls. Every tabletop, countertop, couch, chair, the floor, down the hall, etc. It was eery seeing all those doll eyes. The poor lady had one easy chair and a little pathway from the door to the chair and down the hall to the bathroom and bedroom. Otherwise it was dolls. You could see that she had sat in that chair watching TV with a TV tray beside the chair and slept in the bed. That was all she could use of her home because the rest was full of dolls. Now she is dead and noone wants those dolls and her family was going to have a terrible time cleaning it out and getting rid of them, plus the amount of money she had wasted on those silly dolls. It was impossible for her to clean around all those dolls so the house was nasty.

My sister tried to help a little old lady who had become a collector of anything of value. She had paid for storing antique furniture, old clothes, collectibles, her house was full, she owned property all over town and investments in banks all over town. Unfortunately the stuff in paid storage was about ruined due to being stored in places that didn't have central heat and air and mildew and the extreme temperatures destroyed the stuff and, yet, she still wouldn't get rid of it. She'd rather pay the storage. Although her properties were in condemned condition and couldn't be rented out, she would not sell them or at least get anything done to bring the buildings up to a condition where she could rent them. She had a vacation cabin in the mountains that stayed empty and she could no longer go up there but she didn't want to sell it. She was in her 80's and had fallen in her shack of a house and broken her hip but she wouldn't consolidate and either buy a newer place or move to assisted living apartment. So in the end, she was left in her mess. She had plenty of money and assets that could have been sold but she'd rather live in substandard housing and not divest her "stuff" because she was simply another kind of hoarder. She was so suspicious and paranoid that she would be taken advantage of, or stolen from, and would lose control over her stuff. As far as I know she still lives in her awful, tiny house and her stuff is still rotting around her and she still doesn't even know where all her liquid assets are because she resisted getting help. Totally isolated, old, disabled, alone and yet happy in her mouldering ruins. So sad.

Going to yard sales, I've come across some terrible homes. Nice houses but terrible homes!  No matter  how big or nice of a house, a hoarder can ruin it.  Poor housekeeping and laziness can ruin it.  I've seen some nice mansions in great neighborhoods but it's really a waste of the owner's money. One house I saw looked like the photos above where there is only a tiny pathway through the trash and junk. I went to an estate sale one weekend where a woman once had fabulous and expensive things and yet she lived in a house that was built in the 1700's. Some time in the early part of the century they had turned a closet into a bathroom and the back porch into a tiny kitchen. Nothing had been done to that house since then. It was filthy. Like something out of a movie! This poor woman had lived in squalor despite having all those really nice things...crystal, real silk embroidered kimonos (now in shreds), silver, china, furniture (the upholstered pieces were in tatters), etc. It had not been painted, cleaned, updated in at least 50 years. The walls were grimy, the windows opaque with grime, grease all over the kitchen walls, the custom made drapes were filthy, etc. It looked like it had been done as nice as they could do it in, maybe the 1930's and never touched again. So sad.

I'm a big reader and I never got enough books as a child. We went to the library to get books but we couldn't afford to buy books. When I got older and had some discretionary income I began buying books. Very few do I pay full price for. Most of the time I get them on sale or at yard sales, thrift stores, book sales. I don't know why I collected books. Once they are read, you aren't going to read them again. Not when there are thousands of new books coming out every year. I could get anything I want at the library for free and yet I bought and stored books. This photo is NOT my book collection. But I did have books throughout the house and had book cases in my attic stuffed full of books. I've always wanted a big library with floor to ceiling book shelves. When we moved I had boxes and boxes of heavy books to move and store. My Mom and Dad hoard books and magazines too.

These are NOT my books but this picture makes me salivate! But I decided since I didn't have a room for a "library" then I needed to do something. I made up my mind that I would collect ebooks on my website and get rid of the real books in my attic. I picked a time when it wasn't too hot or too cold in the attic. I assembled my boxes. Then I began going through the book cases and tossing. I only kept the books that would be hard to replace because they probably aren't in ebook format. Everything else, I tossed. It took me a few days to fill the boxes and take them down to the porch. Then my husband would load them into the back of the truck. I had the back of my truck slam full of books and donated them to the library for their book sales. Now I collect ebooks (so far I haven't paid for a single book, they were all free) and use the library instead of buying books, even when they are bargains at yard sales and thrift stores. I carefully thought about it, made my plans and worked the plan until it was done.


The Most Famous Hoarders

The Collyer brothers were sons of Herman Livingston Collyer (1857–1923), a Manhattan gynecologist, and Susie Gage Frost (1856–1929); the Collyer family traced its roots to the time of the Mayflower in the 17th century. Homer and Langly Collyer were their sons. They had a sister, Susan, who died as an infant in 1880. The family lived in a three-story townhouse at 2078 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 128th Street in Harlem, NY. Both men were well educated and graduated from Columbia University. Homer's degree was in engineering and he was an adept pianist. Langly's degree was in law and he was an admiralty lawyer. He also tinkered with inventions. Dr. Herman Collyer abandoned his family in 1909 and they divorced. The two brothers, still in their twenties, continued living in the house with their mother. When Herman died in 1923, his wife inherited all of his furniture, medical equipment and books and moved them to the Harlem house. Their mother died in 1929 and the brothers inherited everything. But over the previous fifteen years or so, Harlem had changed drastically. Harlem virtually all black by the 1920s. It was a crime infested neighborhood. By this time the Collyer brothers, though only in their forties, had long since ensconced themselves in their townhouse and would not move. They became known in their neighborhood as two eccentric old men. They were burgled and boys would throw rocks through their windows.

As the brothers' fears increased, so did their eccentricity. They boarded up the windows, and Langley set about using his engineering skills to set up booby traps. Their gas, telephone, electricity and water having been turned off because of their failure to pay the bills, the brothers took to warming the large house using only a small kerosene heater. For a while, Langley attempted to generate his own energy by means of a car engine. Langley began to wander outside at night; he fetched their water from a post in a park four blocks to the south. By 1933, Homer, who was already completely crippled by arthritis, went blind. Langly took care of him.

In 1942 the bank tried to foreclose on their $6,700 mortgage on their home for non-payment. Langly had a tirade and the police were called in and Langly had to write a check for the money to pay off their mortgage. He withdrew again and only went out at night.


On March 21, 1947 the police got a call with the tip that there was a dead man in the Collyer house. The police went to the house but could not get inside because of all the trash stacked up over the doors and windows and the booby traps. Finally a policeman was able to use a ladder and go through an upper story window. Once inside, he crawled through the trash for 2 hours before he found the body of Homer Collyer. He had only been dead about 10 hours and had died of malnutrition, dehydration and cardiac arrest. But where was Langly Collyer? After removing 84 tons of rubbish and 18 days later, they finally found Langly Collyer's body just 10 feet from Homer's body. He had been crawling through his makeshift tunnel in the collected debris with food and drink for Homer, when his tunnel collapsed on top of him crushing him. His body was eaten by rats. Homer, who was paralyzed and couldn't get out, had slowly starved to death. Workers removed a total of 103 tons of trash from the house. What was salvageable was sold for a value of $2,000. Other valuable personal items were valued at $20,000. They found 34 savings account passbooks with a total of $3,007.18. In total, their estate was valued at $90,000. The house had to be torn down as a fire hazard.



Photos from a Google search on "hoarding"

Hoarding

Some time ago, I did a post on hoarding and another one on animal hoarding.
http://sharonscrapbook.blogspot.com/search/label/hoarding

It will soon be the time of year to do your Spring Cleaning and I wanted to remind you of how out-of-control we can get if we don't take the time to de-clutter and clean up. You may need to do a Clean Sweep of your own! Clean Sweep is just one of the TV shows that motivates you to really let go and get rid of it! Other TV shows about hoarding are popular right now. These kind of shows can be good kick-in-the-butt motivators.

If you are disabled in some way, it is understandable that things can get out of control. Maybe you can't take out your own garbage or use the vacuum cleaner or bend over a bathtub to clean it. It's getting harder for me to do it too. But, I hope you can afford to pay someone to come in once a week to take your trash out, clean your bathrooms, change your sheets, do some laundry, do a dusting and run the vacuum cleaner for you. There are many people out there who can afford it but are too tight with their money to spend on paying a housecleaner. And, yet, they are incapacitated enough to be unable to do for themselves. If this is you, I encourage you to re-think your priorities. A clean environment is necessary for your health, wellbeing and peace of mind. For those of you who can't afford to pay for a weekly cleaning service, consider paying for help during your Spring Cleaning. Sometimes there are teenagers who want to make some cash and are willing to help you. It's a good way to train them how to clean at the same time. Check with your teenager's friends or a church youth group. I have used kids that I taught in Sunday School and have known their families for years so I felt comfortable with having them in my home. I worked right along with them and I made sure to pay them a fair price. I would make lunch, provide drinks and make sure that I paid them an extra hour for their gas.

There are people who just aren't interested in cleaning and organizing. Sometimes it's laziness, sometimes it's busy-ness, sometimes it's a mind block that results in constant procrastination, and, sometimes, it's because you grew up in a mess and don't know of any other way to live. I'm not trying to judge anyone... but I would suggest that you hire a housecleaner to come in once a week. This dreaded job can be placed on a professional and you can stop worrying about it. If you can't afford it, then there's no way around it, you are going to have to do it. There are many websites that can give you tips on how to organize, clean, make routines that help you do it in little bits each day, suggestions, etc. Check them out by doing a Google search on "organizing your home", "clean your home", "cleaning tips", "household tips", etc.


There are very logical reasons why this kind of clutter is bad for you and your family!

1) In case of emergency like a fire, tornado warning, etc you have too many obstacles for you and your family to make it out of the house quickly. Doors and windows may be totally blocked by junk and it could cost you your life! Such tiny walkways through stacks of junk could result in someone getting hurt or dying! Do a Google search on "Hoarding" and you will find stories of hoarders who literally died by being crushed, suffocated by falling detritus; or, dying from some other cause but couldn't get out of the house or find the phone to call for help; or, caregivers/neighbors/paramedics couldn't get in the house and find them fast enough before they died.


2) You can imagine how rodents and bugs could live freely in messes like this. I certainly wouldn't want to eat/sleep/live in a place infested with rodents, bugs, spiders and their waste. You could catch diseases. I've read of bugs crawling in children's ears and becoming cemented in their with ear wax. Thinking the children were deaf, doctors were able to open their ears by removing the bug and ear wax and the child could hear.


3) Mold and mildew. It's very easy for mold and mildew to grow in conditions like this. People are very concerned with the mold/mildew issues in their homes and what it does to their health and allergies. Having a mess like this is asking for mold/mildew and then you breath in those spores. The dust would play havoc on allergies.


4) A waste of your money. If you are so concerned with money that you won't hire help to clean your house, why would you waste money by acquiring stuff you can't use. Some people buy just to be buying and have clothes stuffed in closets that still have price tags on them because they haven't had time to wear them. I saw a TV documentary on hoarding and the woman hoarded food. She had refrigerators and freezers full of rotted food she had bought and they hadn't eaten. She resorted to putting food in plastic bags on the porch to keep it in winter months. A waste of money! She purchased extra refrigerators and freezers, the electricity to run all that besides all the food, and it was such a waste of money. And, even though, she recognized that the food was inedible, she wouldn't throw it away!


6) In a mess like this you lose important things like birth certificates, wedding rings and certificates, vaccination records, warranty manuals, receipts, income tax stuff, the gift you bought for your husband's birthday, gift cards, etc.


7) You are passing on your bad example to your children. They won't learn essential life skills such as how to clean, how to organize, how to live your life without living in a rat's nest. You may very well pass your bad habits or idiosyncracies or OCD behavior to them. You are the parent and it's up to you to teach them how to clean a bathroom, how to properly wash the laundry, how to pick up after themselves, etc. If you don't teach them, no one will and they will live the life thereof.











There is no excuse for ignorance any more. With public libraries (free books), book stores, Internet, magazines, TV shows, you have all kinds of ways to learn how to do things properly and we have no end of cleaning supplies and tools available to us in America. Even if all you can afford is a shop vac and some vinegar...you can clean almost anything.

I realize that there are people who seemingly have no control over OCD behaviors that result in the messes that you see in the photographs. But those people are probably fewer and far between than you might think. Most of us have more control over ourselves and can do something about the mess we (and our untrained family) leave behind. This could be the year of change for you. Your family may not like it, they may grumble, complain, pitch a hissy fit, cry...but you can, and should, stick to your guns and get everyone involved. It really teaches them a lot!!! It's worth the headache they give you.