The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter (21 page)

Unless the cleanup is an intervention, a hoarder's wish and intention are probably already in play, or else the hoarder wouldn't have agreed to go through the process. I knew that newlyweds Wendy and Sam, for example, were motivated to change, because when they talked about the hoarding they admitted it was a problem. Wendy said that she knew it was interfering with their relationship, and the relationship they had with their children.

By contrast, I could tell that Roxanne, the hoarder who had saved all of her adult child's baby and childhood stuff, had no desire to clean. Her intervention was instigated by a social worker, who was as concerned about Roxanne's declining health as she was about the hoarding. Besides, Roxanne was still in denial. She didn't believe that a cleanup would make her life better. For a hoarder who has no desire to change, the house may get clean through an intervention, but it won't stay that way.

Recovery is hard work. The thing that motivates a hoarder through each day is the desire to have a better life. Without that, it's just too easy to give up.

Although it sounds counterintuitive, hoarders care very much what others think. But if they cared so much, and wanted a relationship so badly, they'd clean up, right? Of course, but it's not that simple. In my experience, hoarding begins with the hoarder not feeling loved or appreciated. The hoarding starts as a childlike response, akin to running away and saying, “I don't really need you!” but then watching to see if anyone follows. I see hoarding as a cry for help.

That's why I tell hoarders that they need to want to de-clutter for
themselves
, not anyone else. Not for family members who promise they will be more loving. Not for their spouses or even, sadly, for their children. Those motivations won't hold up in the long run. Hoarders have to stop making choices based on how they want others to react and just make a choice for themselves.

When hoarders allow themselves to care what other people think, they put themselves in a state of inequality. By valuing other people's opinion more highly than their own, hoarders obviously rank themselves second. This selfimposed inequality is often a catalyst for long-term failure.

By putting such importance on someone else's opinion, the hoarder is also inviting judgment into his or her life. In my experience, judgment and a perceived lack of acceptance are at the root of most hoarding. When people make the choice to not let the opinion of others hurt or sway them, then they are taking control of their life and making themselves equal to the rest of the world. In my experience, the hoarder must love himself or herself fully before the hoarder can be of value to another person.

What we've seen in hoarding is that when people care about someone else's views more than their own, they start to look for physical possessions to show others their self-worth. But people who fully love and respect themselves won't need “stuff” to prove their worth.

I'm not saying the hoarder shouldn't care about family or friends. It's the reverse—I'm actually challenging hoarders to share real relationships, and show their personality and value through conversation and emotions instead of through physical objects. Short-term success can be achieved by being motivated by what others think, but long-term success is only reached when hoarders do it for themselves.

Janelle was someone who relished “fighting the system.” By hoarding food and keeping items far after their expiration date, she was refusing to let someone else tell her what she could or could not eat. She struggled with what she saw as arbitrarily imposed restrictions on her life.

Many hoarders simply stop trying and, whether actively (like Janelle) or passively, they ignore the basic rules that we've come to expect functioning members of society to follow. Hoarders who want to get their lives back have to recognize and accept these basics, whether they involve looking after personal hygiene, having a job, respecting their neighbors, or living within a budget. Those rules seem fundamental to most people, but they can feel restrictive to a hoarder who has lived for years without them.

Perhaps one of the most significant issues for many hoarders is the management of their finances. For most, the solution is ending the use of credit. As far as I am concerned, this should be a hard-and-fast rule, especially when people have put themselves into debt with their acquisitions or are simply living on credit because they have lost control of their finances.

After my gambling problem, I lost everything and was forced to use cash only. Although it was hard, not having credit cards was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I learned during those years to ask myself if I needed an item or just wanted it, and I also figured out how to make myself happy by
doing
something instead of
buying
something.

I encourage hoarders to ask themselves these questions whenever they are tempted to shop: Will this item make my life better? Does it help me keep my home in order? If this is a gift, does the person I am buying it for really want or need it? If I don't have enough cash for this, am I willing to wait until I do?

Living without a credit card forces people to get their financial house in order, just as they have to get their physical house in shape.

I've always believed that a hoarder house is a house full of quitting. To make a change, the hoarder has to stop quitting and start trying. The hoarder has to want to change. I have heard hundreds of hoarders' stories, and they all start with one or more tragic events. We are all challenged in life, and sometimes challenged to the point of failure. A hoarder is someone who has responded to those challenges by giving up in one or more places in life, including battling clutter.

The worst part about quitting is that every time someone makes that choice, it gets easier to do it again. Of course, there is a difference between quitting and making a strategic decision to stop. Stopping makes sense when someone has exhausted every ounce of effort and continuing to push forward would be emotionally or psychologically damaging. But stopping before giving 100 percent is quitting.

When hoarders quit, they are cheating their potential. Every time they quit, they are taking a shortcut and they know it. The guilt builds, which is why hoarders can't allow themselves to quit again, not even once. Quitting on small actions eventually leads to completely giving up. And completely giving up is what fills a house with junk and leaves a hoarder hopeless and feeling alone.

I am diligent and firm about the “no quitting” rule with hoarders. It's much bigger than just one quick decision not to wash the dishes one night because it's easier to sit on the couch in front of the TV. Hoarders need to learn how to make themselves do things that they don't want to do. Building that self-discipline is what will keep a hoarder clean for a lifetime.

It's one thing to have professionals on call, and pay them for their services, but perhaps the most critical engagement that a hoarder can have to ensure ongoing success is a strong network of family and friends involved in his or her welfare.

When it was time on the last day of cleaning for us to leave Katrina, the divorcée who had studied to become a lawyer, we left her with two rooms to finish on her own, full of her skin care supplies and legal paperwork. As we packed up, she kept finding extra little jobs for us to do. The crew had cleaned alongside her for several days, helping sort through her extensive legal files and divorce records. We didn't judge her, we just joked and had fun, and we all enjoyed the time in her house. By the end of the cleanup, we had become Katrina's best friends—and she didn't want us to leave.

A cleaning team may be the only people a hoarder has let into the house in years. The fact that the hoarder even lets someone inside is a huge deal. The hoarder shares personal stories and is at a vulnerable time in his or her life. By the time the cleaning is done, the team members are usually the closest, most trusted contacts the hoarder has in the outside world.

Not wanting us to leave is a positive thing! It means the hoarder is enjoying relationships and rediscovering the ability to connect with other people. A hoarder's social skills are often rusty. It can be awkward at first because sometimes a hoarder has forgotten how to have relationships. Family and friends need to be very tolerant and forgiving as they help direct this positive impulse back out into the world.

I always suggest planning something social for when the cleaning is done. For example, one of Aimee's goals was to invite friends into her home. We set a date about six months from the cleaning start date for her to have a party, which gave her a realistic deadline for getting the house cleaned up and keeping it clean after we left. The party date was at the same time as the season finale of the television show
Sex and the City
, so Aimee decided to invite four girlfriends from her past to watch the show.

It went really well. It was the first time Aimee had had people in the house in eight years, and she was thrilled that the visit wasn't about hoarding, or shame, or explaining and defending her mess. Instead, it was about friends enjoying one another's company and about her being able to offer hospitality to her guests. Her friends were also glad just to see her again. They kept commenting on how great it was to have her back in their lives. This experience started Aimee on a positive path toward a social future. Aimee had really bonded with the cleaning crew, and in fact, she is still one of my favorite people in the world. She is one of the first people I call on Christmas morning.

Family members are usually the natural first connection for a hoarder to make. They can point a hoarder toward a wider social circle that can include friends, support groups, classes, work, volunteering, or hobbies and pastimes. Aimee's friends from a decade earlier returned to her life and rallied to support her after the cleanup, proving that true friendship will still be there for a hoarder when he or she decides to reconnect.

No matter how intent a person may be, or how willing to take responsibility for his or her actions, sometimes it is simply impossible to do it alone. Without professional follow-up therapy, up to 85 percent of serious hoarders will go right back into the behavior. Even with therapy, I see up to half of late-stage hoarders slip back into it.

Li talked about her shopping compulsion with a therapist who specialized in obsessive-compulsive behavior and hoarding. What she really worked on were the issues that were driving her shopping. Her therapist helped her see why she felt the need to have designer clothes, a Mercedes, and expensive jewelry. Li realized that she had issues from being an immigrant with minimal education who initially had to raise her children in a tiny house in a run-down neighborhood. Every time Li bought herself a designer purse or a pair of earrings, or an expensive gift for a friend, she felt validated that America had indeed given her a better life.

Li's hoarding had interfered with her marriage, and after her husband died, it threatened to ruin her relationship with her children. She finally realized that she had chosen stuff over her children because it was easier than working on real, honest relationships. She saw that keeping her hoarding under control was the path to a better connection with her children.

A therapist can help a hoarder explore a painful past and put that to rest. Many of the hoarders I have worked with tell me they were abused, either as children or by spouses. In therapy, Aimee was able to talk about the trauma of her abusive marriage. She started to understand that she was comforting herself by surrounding herself with things. She also realized that she was protecting herself. As a hoarder living in such extreme conditions, Aimee was subconsciously putting up a barrier that prevented anyone else from getting close to her. The hoard had become her safe haven, and living there in complete solitude felt better than risking entering another relationship, where again someone might abuse her. Aimee's therapist worked with her on trust issues, so that Aimee felt safe reaching out to people again instead of hoarding.

Hoarders with mental issues, including anxiety, depression, or OCD, need therapy as part of their treatment. Margaret refused to see a therapist to talk about what caused her anger management issues. Without treatment, I knew she was likely to slip right back into her old habits. Those deep-seated impulses don't disappear just because a house is clean. A good therapist can help hoarders understand why they do what they do, and learn to deal with their compulsions. That's when the true healing begins.

Aside from the ongoing psychological counseling, a hoarder with severe anxiety or depression may benefit from medications. Many of the hoarders I've worked with were already taking prescription drugs, and I've witnessed many cleanups go off track when a hoarder stops medication. After cleanup, I have seen hoarders feel so euphoric and confident that they quit taking their medications, thinking they don't need them. Every one of them has gone back into hoarding. When medications are involved, the addition of a therapist or medical doctor to the team is essential.

People need to feel they have a purpose in life. For a hoarder that purpose has gotten lost in the mess. When given the choice between a physical item and something as nebulous as “finding purpose,” the hoarder will almost always choose the easier of the two. The goal is to help the hoarder find a suitable replacement behavior, which might be a job, volunteer work, a pastime, or a hobby—preferably one that doesn't encourage further collecting.