The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter (14 page)

T
he best-laid plans for a cleanup are only as good as what can be achieved by the people involved. In the previous chapter, we touched on the importance of having the hoarder as fully engaged as possible and the value of a strong support group of family and friends. But many of the aspects of a hoarder cleanup are beyond the capabilities of this core group, which means experts and professionals will need to be engaged in order to deal effectively with the emotional, psychological, legal, and physical issues.

Daisy was an eighty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher who had been living by herself on a fixed income for many years. As frugal as she was tiny, she had spent the last two decades hoarding everything and anything in her efforts to save money, and with the secret hope that some of what she saved might be valuable or useful someday. Someone once told her that she could turn her old newspapers in for cash, but the piles of paper had become unmanageable. She saved soda bottle tops to donate to fund-raisers. She “recycled” (reused) her adult diapers. Daisy was just trying to save every penny possible and, in the process, filled her town house to overflowing.

Piled almost to the ceiling, the cleanup crew was afraid of what they'd find under all of Daisy's clutter.

One morning Daisy's neighbor noticed the frail and elderly woman struggling with her front door, obviously trying to get back into her house. She asked if Daisy needed help, and kept asking what she could do even when Daisy insisted that nothing was wrong. Eventually Daisy admitted that she was blocked from reentering because something had fallen against the front door, and neither she nor her kindly neighbor was able to budge it.

When asked, Daisy told her neighbor that she had no family and really nobody else to call for help. But after a while, she said that perhaps her pastor would be the best person to contact. When her pastor arrived some time later, he could see, even through the front window, the terrible state of the house. He immediately made his first of many calls to Adult Protective Services to find out what help might be available. APS, in turn, got Daisy a social worker and put her up in a nearby hotel while they figured out what to do next.

The social worker became Daisy's main advocate. She put together Daisy's team, starting with county building inspectors. The inspection resulted in condemning the house, which, ironically, made Daisy eligible for county support services and triggered a local government process designed to fix up homes to allow residents to continue to live in them.

The social worker also connected Daisy with affordable medical care, so that she could get back on her medications and have regular checkups, both of which she had given up. Given her advanced years and late-stage hoarding, the social worker knew that Daisy wasn't likely to change her ways, so she didn't seek counseling help for her but rather focused on getting her a safe, clutter-free house, medical care, and a caretaker to help keep Daisy's life in order.

In addition, the social worker also engaged the services of a financial advisor whose job was to figure out Daisy's financial situation—how much money she had and what she owed—to see if she could continue to live on her own. And the social worker also called my company to clean out Daisy's house.

During the cleaning, the building inspectors checked in every other day to verify that the house was safe and to evaluate what repairs needed to be made. The financial planner came to collect important paperwork. The social worker stopped by each day to make sure Daisy was stable, emotionally and physically. She was also making sure that the cleanup crew was finding and passing along Daisy's family silver and lost checks. A rotating group of about thirty fellow church members came to work alongside my crew and help move boxes and haul trash. The pastor arranged for a volunteer construction team to repair damage from a twoyear-old water leak. And the friendly neighbor who first discovered Daisy's problem popped in now and again to see how she was doing.

Daisy was one of the fortunate ones. Even though her hoarding had gotten to such an extreme and she was having many other problems, she was lucky to have a watchful and helpful neighbor, a responsive pastor, and a superb social worker who were able to set the wheels in motion for a good outcome.

Every hoarding situation is unique. Who needs to be involved will depend on many factors. The most effective teams will include a range of participants, from family and friends, to social workers and community support services, to county officials and professional cleaning services. Depending on the circumstances, many of the services may be available at no charge or the cost will be underwritten by a government or social agency. Whatever the case, knowing who to call on and what you can expect from them can make all the difference in the success of any endeavor.

Li was a widowed grandmother who was living alone in a crammed-full three-story house in rural Connecticut. She had always been a passionate shopper, but her hoarding had escalated after her children moved away and her husband died. Her eldest daughter, Sunny, along with her five sisters and brothers had spent years trying to get their mother to clean up. Nothing worked until the children figured out how to persuade their mother to act by presenting her with what amounted to a business plan—a plan that appealed to Li's innate sense of order, which had gone terribly awry. The plan identified the items they wanted to locate in the house, like some investment papers, family jewelry, and photographs. It pointed out how much more valuable the house would be if it was cleaned and maintained. And, after consultation with their mother, the children called me in.

The day my cleaning crew arrived, one of the sons took Li to his house to minimize her stress. Meanwhile, his wife and a sister stayed at Li's house, working alongside the cleanup crew, putting in twelve-hour days of sorting and hauling.

Although this was one of the fullest houses I've ever done—and chasing out a family of possums that had moved in was a bit unnerving—it was also one of the easiest. There was just no drama and no negativity from this family, which I've seen so many times. Families dealing with hoarding can dissolve into finger-pointing and blame under much less stressful conditions. Instead, Li's children were focused on what their mom wanted and needed.

Supportive, helpful family members are invaluable, as helpers and as emotional support for the hoarder. Family members who nag or blame shouldn't be part of the team. Hoarders have already had plenty of negativity; the cleanup should be as positive an experience as possible.

In Roger's case, his sisters decided that they and their husbands would be the core of the team. They undertook the research to determine who else could help: professional cleaners, therapists or social workers, and officials. They decided to include a Realtor to come assess the house and tell them what needed to be done before it could be listed for sale. After that they brought in some workers to estimate the cost of repairs.

Roger's sisters knew that helping their brother meant more than just getting the house cleaned. Sure, extra hands are useful on cleaning day, which is why they wanted a cleaning crew or other volunteers. But more important is the emotional work that continues long after the cleanup has ended. They knew that spending time with Roger afterward would be critical to helping him learn how to socialize again and encouraging him to find a more positive activity to replace his hoarding behavior.

Roger's sisters understood instinctively that if they started with Roger and then quit, it would become yet another loss and failure for him. They all committed to stay the course because to start and then abandon their brother would have been worse for him than to not start at all.

During Daisy's cleaning, she was visited by the neighbor who had helped her when she got shut out of the house. The neighbor had never seen the inside of Daisy's house and was shocked at how bad the hoarding was. Although the neighbor asked how she could help, Daisy didn't want her involved in the cleaning itself.

A cleanup is deeply personal for the hoarder. The best team members are close family members, and after that the circle can widen to include specialists who can help with certain aspects of the job. Inviting acquaintances, coworkers, or extended family to help usually adds to a hoarder's anxiety level. The hoarder is already worried about being judged by family and doesn't usually respond well to opening up this secret life to the world at large.

The members of the team should be as discreet as possible about the cleanup. There are likely many acquaintances who don't know about the extent of the hoarding, and it would be inappropriate for anyone involved to betray the hoarder's confidence and risk changing the nature of the hoarder's relationship with coworkers, neighbors, or others for the worse. There are always jobs that extended family or friends can do that may not directly involve the cleanup per se, like bringing meals, making phone calls, or running errands.

Once the cleanup is done, a hoarder will need relationships that are based on something besides hoarding. Having “outside” friends that draw a hoarder in healthy new directions is an important element of long-term success.

For a family trying to save money on a cleaning, a team of trusted volunteers can work, but they should be chosen carefully and with the consent of the hoarder. It's important to remember that this is the
hoarder's
team, not the family's team. The hoarder will be spending long days with this crew, making tough decisions on very personal items. The hoarder needs to feel safe and comfortable. By the end of the cleanup, these team members will essentially be this person's closest friends, and it is important that they stay in touch with the hoarder post-cleanup.

In Daisy's case, that pastor at the church that she had attended for more than a decade acted as an informal social worker early on. He had her best interests in mind, and he took the time to find out what support was available to help her. He was also the only person who had her immediate trust, and he was able to pass that to the others he brought into the cleanup. It's important to take advantage of “trust swapping” if the hoarder is already connected to someone, because establishing trust takes a long time.

Members of the clergy and other spiritual advisors are often trained to help with both emotional and logistical support. And because they are already trusted by the hoarder, they become important in the short term to help get things moving—and as ongoing support for the hoarder. A priest or minister has access to lots of local resources, not just city programs but also private programs or even individuals who want to help in some way. Many churches and other religious institutions have special support for those in need, like temporary housing quarters, feeding programs, or volunteer construction crews like the one that repaired Daisy's house.