Silver Linings: Dwellings strewn with garbage and waste overshadow the mental health crisis
Part 1 of a 2-part series
By
New Hampshire Union Leader
Clutter, such as what ServPro found in this
Silver Linings
Silver Linings is a continuing
* Help for hoarders: Where Granite Staters can get assistance
As operations manager at ServPro of
Corridors winding through garbage bags stacked to the ceiling. Human waste, dead animals and food scraps rotting beneath piles of laundry and pizza boxes.
People living inside basement tunnels surrounded by tightly packed trash, seldom emerging to eat or bathe, unable to access the kitchen or bathroom behind towers of plastic bags, old newspapers, empty milk cartons and items saved for years or decades.
"To them, everything is good and shouldn't be tossed," says Dow, whose crews don full-body protective suits and respirators when called to a suspected hoarding situation because "as soon as you start digging, everything becomes airborne."
Once, when hired by an insurance company to clean up a water-damaged basement in
"She made us bring everything back down to the basement," Dow recalls. "She almost threw us off the property when we tried to remove a bag of used baby diapers." People grieve when their possessions, however useless or unhealthy, are removed, he says.
Hoarding -- the out-of-control accumulation of objects and an inability to discard them, including things others deem worthless -- is a mental illness affecting at least 2 to 6 percent of the world's population, roughly 15 million people in the
"It's really paralyzing. They just can't get rid of things," says
At the other end of the spectrum are seniors who amass possessions over a lifetime and don't discard much, whether from sentimental attachment or a lack of strength, energy and organizational skills needed to divest and keep house. Whatever the cause, crisis levels of clutter produce unhealthy environments that are difficult to navigate, and downright dangerous for seniors with medical and mobility issues, as well as for emergency responders trying to rescue them from overstuffed homes.
The clutter encountered by ServPro, a company whose services include cleaning up hoarding situations, made this kitchen dangerous to navigate. (Courtesy)
Dangerous piles
As
Hoarding complaints "are becoming more common. And it's not just seniors," says
Last July, a 60-year-old man died because firefighters were unable to reach him through burning clutter and trash and no clear pathway in or out of his Hazelton Court home in
"There's usually only one way in and out," Lennon says, "and it's a very narrow pathway."
Hoarding disorder is linked to anxiety and trauma, including conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and is slightly more common among women, research states. Dementia can bring on the illness in someone who never experienced it at a younger age, and can turn cluttering into hoarding, mental health experts say.
"Some people have collections, and that's perfectly normal behavior. Or if you have clutter that's not affecting you or anyone around you, it's no big deal," Gerard says. "But when it starts to interfere with life in a significant way, and you can't use rooms as intended, there's only one seating area in your whole home, and you can't sleep in your bed or you've become socially isolated because you're afraid to have people over," hoarding has become a serious problem.
Hoarding increases the risk of falling, strains relationships with family and friends, and leads to isolation -- resulting in more anxiety and depression, she adds.
A ServPro crew member dressed in full hazmat gear rips up parts of a subfloor damaged by urination from the 20-plus cats that lived in the home. (Courtesy)
Beyond shame
Getting rid of the clutter solves only part of the problem, says
"This isn't something that's fixed with an order to clean," Alexakos said. "It's a mental health condition, and we need to treat it as such."
One of the barriers to diagnosis and treatment is the cultural stigma around hoarding, and the embarrassment that keeps it out of sight. Media reports have boosted public awareness, but television reality shows, which feature aggressive interventions and trash and belongings hauled out by the leaf-bag and truckload, give misleading impressions, and advertise a SEAL Team Six approach that doesn't solve the problem. Hoarding is best approached in baby steps, and by helping hoarders to take control of their belongings, experts say.
"What you're up against is a lot of shame," says
A hoarder's "relationship to possessions is very different. It's almost like an attachment to child or pet," says Gerard, who leads a workshop for hoarders and clutterers through the
Health officials say public education about the illness, training of workshop leaders, and a coordinated community approach are needed to reach at-risk seniors who suffer privately and silently because they are ashamed, and afraid of losing their possessions, independence or homes through eviction or condemnation.
Responding to complaints
Anti-hoarding task forces in
Every one of the state's 234 municipalities has a health officer who can respond to hoarding complaints, but only 25 percent have written nuisance codes that can be enforced to mitigate a problem, according to estimates. It can take months or years to clean up a property if the owner resists and ignores written warnings leading up to a court order, public health officials say.
"Sometimes they can't afford to move the material or they just don't want to," says
Coordinated efforts between town officials and social service providers need to determine what's going on and find ways to resolve it economically, he says. "Do we need a hoarding task force, or something else that might get to the root of the problem?"
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