The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter

by Matt Paxton;Phaedra Hise

  The Emotional Roller Coaster of Hoarding

  ▶ Old Habits Die Hard

  Even hoarders who really want to stay clean, like Nika, sometimes have trouble breaking old habits. Once her house was clean and her closets reorganized, Nika was thrilled to have so much space. But she wasn’t used to it. To Nika, the de-cluttered rooms looked pretty empty compared to what she was used to. Within a few weeks, she found herself ordering some clothes from a home shopping network. She figured that a few new boxes of clothes coming in wouldn’t matter because now she had room for them. She told herself it didn’t mean she was starting to hoard again.

  But she was hoarding again. Hoarding isn’t about how much stuff someone has, it’s about how they process those things. Nika’s hoarding was caused by her not putting limits on herself about clothes shopping, and even though she was now only ordering a few things, her behavior could quickly escalate and clutter her house up again.

  It’s like a former two-pack-a-day smoker saying that he or she will only have a few cigarettes on the weekend. That looks harmless compared to the huge amounts the smoker was smoking before, but of course those few cigarettes quickly escalate until the smoker is right back to the old levels. Hoarders, like addicts, need to shut down that behavior immediately if it resurfaces. A little indulgence feels so good, and so familiar, that it will quickly grow to hoarder proportions.

  For Nika, this meant following the rules, without exception. Her professional organizer had a copy of Nika’s rules and was checking in with her once a week. When the organizer asked about the delivery boxes in a corner, Nika said she felt that it wasn’t a big deal. The organizer reminded Nika of the “in = out” rule, and that Nika had accepted that rule during the cleanup because she wanted to reach her goal of having a better relationship with her husband. Even though a couple of boxes seemed minor, they were pointing Nika toward a path that she herself admitted she didn’t want to be on again.

  ▶ Triggers

  Whatever pushed a person to start hoarding has the potential to do it again, especially if the hoarder isn’t in therapy. Aimee’s divorce from an abusive man had been one of her triggers, and she did seek therapy to explore that. After a year of counseling, and carefully following the rules, Aimee was a hoarder success story. She was still clean, she had a good network of girlfriends, and she had internalized a lot of new, better habits. She was happy and involved in the outside world.

  Then Aimee reconnected with an old boyfriend. At first seeing this man seemed like a positive thing for her, because it meant that she was open to relationships again. Unfortunately, this boyfriend had also been abusive, and he hadn’t stopped. For Aimee, this trigger prompted her to go back into her comfort behavior.

  A hoarder’s family and close friends are the best ones to spot a trigger. Sometimes the event itself isn’t obvious, but the sudden onset of hoarding behavior is. It’s pretty likely that family members got an idea during the cleaning about what the hoarder’s triggers are, and they can ask a few tactful questions to see if those are flaring up again. Ask the hoarder what he or she has been up to lately, if the hoarder has any new friends, a job change, or if the hoarder has stopped volunteering at the animal shelter.

  If a trigger is the culprit, then it’s time for more positive reinforcement. To a hoarder like Candace, whose OCD often held her back from completing a task, I would say something such as “I’m noticing these trash bags starting to pile up again by the back door. The last time that happened you told me it was because you weren’t taking your meds. Is everything okay? Let’s take these bags out while we talk about it.” Hoarders are used to justifying everything, so they may assume they are being judged and get defensive. Letting hoarders know that someone cares about them, and offering to help them with the immediate task, helps them get past the defensiveness. And when hoarding behavior is triggered, even to a modest degree, it is always wise to remind hoarders of their overall goals, and how badly they want to achieve those.

  Hope is a huge part of hoarding recovery. Everyone involved must believe that a hoarder can eventually be helped, or both hoarders and helpers will not have the energy to keep going when it gets tough. Most of the time it’s so much easier to quit than to keep fighting. Remember that there are happy endings, and that a loving family will do anything to help. Always remember that quitting on the hoarder is yet another tragic event in the hoarder’s life. Someone who wants to help a hoarder must stay focused, positive, and full of hope, because honestly, who else will?

  EPILOGUE

  How many of your hoarders keep their houses clean?”

  Every day, people ask me about my success rate, but the real question should be about the hoarder success rate. I can help, and so can organizers, therapists, friends, and family members, but we can only bring so much to the table. Ultimately, whether or not a hoarder recovers is really up to the hoarder.

  Therapists I know report that 60 to 85 percent of hoarders backslide. But there have been no reliable studies to support those estimates, which don’t even take into consideration the fact that hoarders often make a journey through recovery—falling off the wagon and then trying again, but getting closer each time.

  Personally, I think it’s too early in the understanding of hoarding to give a firm number, because so much depends on the style of cleaning and the quality of follow-up counseling and guidance received. I think we will begin to develop a deeper sense of what’s possible as hoarding becomes better understood. Right now, the best answer to this question is that hoarders who don’t follow through with therapy and organizational support are 100 percent guaranteed to fail.

  Early- to mid-stage hoarders, Stages 1 through 3, aren’t as likely to admit they have a problem and seek help in the first place, but once they are on board, theirs are the most promising cases for success stories. These hoarders have fewer bad habits to break and haven’t spent as much time buried in mess and becoming comfortable with it.

  To stay clean, hoarders must have several of the elements of success in their favor, and early-stage hoarders are much more likely to have several of these in place. Maybe they have a terrific friend network or supportive family. Or perhaps they get heavily involved in volunteer work. Or they have a dedicated and experienced therapist. Each hoarder has different strengths and opportunities, and needs to use as many of these supports as possible. Without them, the challenge to stay clean can be overwhelming.

  Stage 4 and 5 hoarders are far less likely to have classic happy endings. They may not end up the way their families hope, but if a cleanup gives them cleaner and safer lives, it’s a success. Advanced hoarders have a lot more challenges on the way to what the rest of the world defines as “clean.” Because of this, they need more elements of success if they are going to make it. Many of them get stuck, but even falling short of the goal is better than the life they had before.

  “Success” for a hoarder is not really a goal; it’s more of a journey toward a better life, even if that’s not necessarily a completely clutter-free life. Some families have no hope for the hoarders in their lives. Some hoarders themselves have no hope that they can change. But everyone has the potential. Hope is what propels hoarders—and their families, friends, and helpers—through the tough process of cleaning up, and the even tougher and longer recovery period.

  The stories that follow check in with several of the hoarders that we met earlier in this book. A number are out-and-out success stories by anyone’s standards, and many were backsliders, but all are still on a lifetime journey of recovery.

  AIMEE

  Aimee, the former model and Stage 4 hoarder, could be proud of her success. After her fun lunch date with my crew to celebrate her clean house, and the lively party with her girlfriends, Aimee realized that she loved being back out in the world. She opened up like a gorgeous flower, once again sharing her sense of humor and friendly smile with everyone she met. Aimee reached out to friends and family, drawing energy and comfort from being with people
instead of from hoarding.

  A couple of years after her cleanup, Aimee reconnected with an old boyfriend. That Aimee was attractive and confident enough to welcome love back into her life seemed like a good sign. But then I learned that he had started to abuse her—repeating the situation with her ex-husband from which I’d thought she’d escaped. Aimee stopped returning my calls and her friends hinted that she was hoarding again.

  Aimee’s self-confidence was obviously still so fragile that she wasn’t able to break off the damaging relationship. Instead, it triggered the familiar behavior that had helped her cope before. Aimee is a strong person, and I know she wants to have a clean house and an active, happy social life. She knows that she can stay clean if she really wants it, and I’m hopeful that she will reach the point again where she has the strength to choose that life over an abusive relationship.

  MARGARET

  After her cleanup, Margaret’s house passed provisional inspections, but a little work still had to be done for her dogs to be returned. The inspector wanted the doors and some ceiling tiles replaced. Her plumbing and electricity were working, and the structure was sound overall. For a Stage 5 hoarder like Margaret, this was a huge success and it was probably the cleanest she would ever be.

  The best part of Margaret’s cleanup was when we started pulling apart the giant rat’s nest we found in her mudroom, which was made up of a lot of plastic shopping bags. We opened each one, probably hundreds, and started finding cash. Apparently Margaret had a habit of shopping and tossing her change into the plastic bag. When she got home, she would pull out the microwave dinner or paper towels she had purchased, and toss the bag into the mudroom or on the kitchen floor. Who knew that rats don’t eat cash? The rest of the room looked like confetti, with chewed-up paper and cardboard, but the shredded bags were guarding a small fortune: We recovered $13,000 in coins, singles, fives, and tens.

  Unfortunately, the cash had to go toward the cleaning bill and paying back taxes on Margaret’s property, so she didn’t have much of a windfall. Her depression remained untreated because she didn’t like to take her medication and she didn’t cooperate with her social worker. She also didn’t have much of a life outside the house. Margaret’s daughter visited and their relationship improved, but Margaret still didn’t have meaningful work or other connections with society. Her days looked pretty much like they had before the cleanup, except with fewer animals in the house.

  Margaret still struggled to accomplish daily household tasks like washing dishes and sweeping floors. Pretty soon, trash bags were again collecting by the back door and cobwebs were taking over the corners. Margaret’s daughter said that whenever she criticized Margaret for not staying on top of housework, Margaret would lose her temper and argue that it wasn’t that bad. Margaret was comparing her newly clean house to how it had looked before, fully hoarded. In her mind, anything less than that was still “clean.”

  Unfortunately, Margaret is letting herself head right down the same path. Her house is filling up again. The good news is that it won’t get as bad as it did before, because county inspectors visit about every six months, which is standard follow-up for condemned properties. If the house starts to be unsafe again, or if Margaret collects too many stray dogs, the county will serve her with another warning, and her cleanup process will begin all over again.

  Margaret has family support, but not much else going for her. Most important, however, she doesn’t have the true desire to change. She will probably continue to swing back and forth between hoarding and cleaning up for inspections, possibly for the rest of her life. It will definitely continue until Margaret decides that she wants something better.

  BRAD AND ELLEN

  After Brad and Ellen cleaned their house and put a few rules into practice, they eliminated almost all of their hoarding behavior. I’m not saying the urge isn’t still there—they both realize that they have a tendency to hang on to things and to put off cleaning and de-cluttering. But they are dedicated to their rules and follow their nightly ten-minute sweep and personal space guidelines. Now the whole family is pitching in to keep the house tidy, and the kids are learning how to clean up and how to make decisions about their possessions. If a family can learn to clean together, they stay clean. If only one person does the cleaning, eventually the house gets dirty again.

  Obviously what Brad and Ellen had in their favor was that they were really early-stage hoarders, so early that an outsider wouldn’t even have called them hoarders. They didn’t have a lot of clutter in the house, but they were developing hoarder mind-sets. Either one of them could easily slip more deeply into hoarding, but because they were able to change their thinking early on, it’s probably not going to be an issue for them moving forward.

  LI

  Li’s cleanup of her large house and barn went really smoothly because her children had laid the groundwork in advance. The family had already agreed on the few items they wanted to uncover and keep, and Li said that the rest could go, which meant Li wasn’t agonizing over every little thing. With her daughter, Sunny, overseeing the work and calling Li whenever we found something on her “fire list,” the crew whisked through the house and barn in a few days.

  At first, Li was delighted with her newly empty house. But after making a few minor repairs during the following months, she started feeling a little lost and alone in her big house, even though her children and grandchildren were visiting. Eventually, she decided to put the place on the market and move into an assisted living facility nearby.

  Li moved into her new apartment and jumped right into activities and making friends. I’ve seen many hoarders go to assisted living and hide in their rooms and continue to hoard, but Li busied herself playing bridge, mah-jongg, and going to lunch with friends. Once Li filled her life with people and events, she found that she didn’t have time or a need for hoarding anymore. Li is exceptional, if not unique, for a late-stage hoarder. Today, Li is living happily in her apartment, clutter-free. And she still looks fabulous.

  RICK

  Even with his advancing dementia, Rick had a successful cleanup aided by his sister. An early-stage hoarder, Rick was willing to let his house go, which motivated him to clean it up for the sale. Although he was sometimes confused during the cleanup, by the end he had only about a dozen boxes to go into storage in his sister’s basement.

  Rick didn’t have many outside interests. As a retired professor, he occasionally attended university events, but his sister realized that even these outings would start to taper off as his dementia worsened. Given his mental status, it would have been highly likely that Rick would revert to his hoarding habits except that he was able to live with his sister. She not only kept a clean house but also encouraged him to maintain a social life of sorts by staying in touch with other retired professors and friends from his university community.

  JACKSON

  I wish I could say that every hoarder turns out like Jackson. Jackson definitely had a few struggles after we cleaned his house, and he will probably have a few more in his future, but he ultimately had a happy ending. After working with Jackson for most of a week, we left him to de-clutter the rest of his house on his own. His partner, Mike, reported that Jackson made progress for the first few months. But six months after the cleaning, we got a call from Mike saying that Jackson had stalled. He wasn’t bringing new items into the house, which was terrific news. But he’d had a setback when someone broke into the house. While nothing valuable was taken, it took Jackson a few weeks to process the event.

  Much to everyone’s relief, Jackson took the violation as a challenge. He decided to use it to push through, finish the job, and redefine himself as someone who was no longer a hoarder. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t tempted to withdraw into his comfort behavior. But Jackson had Mike to talk through that with him and offer support and understanding. It was hard and emotionally risky for Jackson, but he chose the right path instead.

  Mike called me later to report that Jackson ha
d finally finished cleaning out the house on his own and put it on the market. He kept some of his most important Blondie collectibles to display, including signed record album covers. As an early-stage hoarder with lots of support, he was able to weather many of the challenges that he faced. Today, the two of them are living happily together in Mike’s house, complete with Cher’s doorknobs, and Jackson is learning to control his hoarding tendencies.

  KATRINA

  Katrina got most of her Stage 3 house clean in four days working alongside us and was seeing her therapist for depression. The house looked a little like what it must have when she first moved in, a decade earlier, with its streamlined white kitchen, pale carpets, and modern living room.

  Katrina hoped that her daughter and son-in-law would bring their two girls for a weekend visit soon, but they wanted her to finish the two remaining bedrooms that were still cluttered with all of her legal documents, relating to her law school education and her divorce, and the boxes of her skin care products and catalogs.

  Katrina wanted to get those rooms done, but she struggled. For a month after the cleaning, one of our crew went to help Katrina for a few hours one day a week. When they worked together, she was able to get through a few boxes, but that didn’t make much headway into the two full rooms. After our visits stopped, Katrina slipped more deeply into her depression. She stopped seeing her therapist, and she gave up on finishing the de-cluttering.

  Without therapy, Katrina lost a critical pillar of support. And although her daughter was loving and offered encouragement to finish the cleanup, she lived too far away to give her mother the kind of regular support she needed. Katrina didn’t have much involvement in outside activities, and most of her friends had drifted away when her hoarding increased.