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The senior living in this one-bedroom apartment wrote KEEP on several of the items that she hoarded. Many hoarders seek help only when a crisis, such as a fall or a rodent or bedbug infestation, forces them into it.
Stacks of old newspapers and clothing piled to the ceiling in every room; chaotic mounds of valuables, junk, rotten food, and even human waste all mixed together; so much stuff packed into the kitchen and bathroom that they can’t be used.
This is how life can become for compulsive hoarders—those who obsessively amass a large amount of items of no apparent worth and are unable to discard any of them, even when everyday living is compromised.
For some hoarders, many of whom are elderly, shame over the state of their home or fear that they’ll be put in a long-term care facility if their living conditions are discovered prevents them from seeking help.
“I’ve found some pretty deplorable conditions that people are living in as the cost of sort of maintaining their independence, because they’re afraid that one thing will lead to another,” says Elaine Birchell, an Ottawa-based hoarding intervention specialist.
Some chronic hoarders simply can’t bear to part with a lifetime of often useless accumulated possessions—things they just might need one day—even if it causes distress and puts their health at risk.
“They feel that their safety, their security, their happiness, their meaning in life, their worth is defined and in direct proportion to the number of things they have, and perhaps the types of things,” Birchell says.
There are several forms of the condition, which range from clutter to full-blown hoarding. Either scenario can be dangerous for seniors, particularly those with health and mobility issues. Some people hoard dozens of animals or birds, which also becomes a health hazard.
Hoarders learn to be very adept at hiding their situation from family and neighbours, and it often takes a crisis, such as a fall or a bedbug or rodent infestation, to bring attention to their squalid living conditions.
Global Phenomenon
Birchell cites the numbers of hoarding cases in some of Canada’s major cities: Close to 27,000 in Toronto, 24,600 in Ottawa, 13,000 in Vancouver, 22,800 in Calgary. Worldwide, an estimated 1 to 2.5 percent of the population are hoarders.
“What we find is no matter where you go, the prevalence rate seems to remain the same,” she says. “What might change are the things that are hoarded, because quite often those are culturally relevant. If you’re in one place in the world you might be hoarding a different type of thing, because that’s what’s in your environment.”
In the United States, compulsive hoarding affects between two and eight million people. One U.S. study found that 70 percent of elderly hoarders could not use their furniture or beds, 45 percent could not use their refrigerators, 42 percent could not use their kitchen sink or bathtub, and 10 percent could not use their toilet.
“Given enough time, most hording situations can and will deteriorate to that point,” says Birchell, adding that for the last three months she’s been working with an 82-year-old client who has had 11 tons of hoarded material hauled away from his basement and back yard alone.
She discovered he had been eating canned foods that were so old he was constantly getting food poisoning, which was misdiagnosed as gastroenteritis.
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