Peter Walsh discusses the DVD 3 children of hoarders sent in to
Oprah that will be featured on the upcoming shows this Thurs./Fri.11/15 & 11/16/07

Talk about today's show!Clutter Genetics-Original Air Date: June 8, 2007

Did you inherit your messy, disorganized way of living from your parents or is it something you picked up on your own? To discuss the topic of "clutter genetics," Peter talks with Dr. Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and author of the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and Dr. David Tolin, an expert on compulsive hoarding and author of Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding....go to site...

Marie Claire Article

Daughters of Hoarders-August 2007 (pdf.)

Videos from a son of hoarders looking for suggestions for help. Watch videos.

Suffolk Officials Investigate Filthy Home With Three Young Girls

Watch Video of it

 

Elizabeth writes "

Thompson, 41, was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation for allowing her three children to live without running water in the squalid conditions of the Lower Saucon Township home.

"

Elizabeth writes "

Health Care Workers Say They Were Concerned about Girl's Welfare CYFD had received complaints, which they looked into... in one or more instances, CYFD investigators were turned away at the door by Nelda Piggott. Martinez said that in those instances, they did not pursue the matter further because the referrals were vague. "I told (them) to get her out," she said. "They told me Mom was a hoarder — it was her style — and they couldn't make a value judgment on that. I didn't know what else to do. It was devastating to me."...

"

But as someone else wrote on this website, she is not just a hoarder.
She is my mother.
I love her, and I grieve that she has
suffered with this condition for years.

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A daughter and only child of a hoarder.

Children of Alcoholics: Caged, Silenced Songbirds

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This is very much the experience of children of hoarders too. 

Hoarding, child neglect
Salt Lake City, UT (US)

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Date: Nov 22, 2006
Disposition: Alleged

Read the article here.

Woman Charged After Police Discover Filthy House

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POSTED: 10:32 am EDT July 1, 2005/UPDATED: 1:06 pm EDT July 1, 2005

Images: Filthy House (Warning: Some Images Disturbing)

OACHDALE, Ind. -- Officials are describing a Putnam County home, where four children have been living, as "unfit for human habitation."

Kristina Whitaker is charged with neglect. Investigators said that when they went into the house, cockroaches were everywhere and a rat was on the kitchen counter. ...

For Everyone touched by Hoarding. 
Have some fun. Get Inspired.

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Go here.

Clean the junk out of your house now, or realize others will be grumbling at you later

Fredricksburg.com/Free-Lance Star
Date published: 11/5/2006

FOR THOSE of you out there who are pack rats, and have your basements and attics bulging with every possession you've ever had, I have news. Get rid of the junk now or know that others will one day have to fight through it.

That's the truth I took away from a day helping relatives clean out the house of a family member who passed away awhile back.This is the second or third one of these house-cleanings I've done in recent years--all for houses of people who either grew up in the Depression or heard about it from those who did.

The result of living through or being constantly told about that period when abject poverty was felt by so many is, apparently, a concern that those days will come back. With that possibility in mind, many of those children of the Depression developed a preservation methodology known as hoarding...

A woman is charged for allegedly raising her
6-year-old in a feline-fouled apartment

Wednesday, September 06, 2006
HOLLY DANKS
HILLSBORO -- A 36-year-old Beaverton woman was charged Tuesday with a felony that accuses her of raising her 6-year-old son in an apartment so overrun with cats that it was a danger to the boy.

Jennifer Megan Gaines, who had 31 cats in her Sterling Pointe apartment, was arraigned on one count each of first-degree criminal mistreatment, and first- and second-degree animal neglect.

After a neighbor reported a suspicious odor June 9, police and a state welfare caseworker arranged for Gaines' 6-year-old son and 17- year-old daughter to stay with their godmother.

"It was determined that it was unsafe for the children to spend another minute inside of the residence," Officer Ryan Potter wrote
in his report. "As soon as I entered the residence the odor was so overwhelming that I almost vomited."

Cat and dog hoarding typically generates headlines, and the public responded in this case with donations for food and medical care. But animal abuse is a misdemeanor, while criminal mistreatment of a person is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $125,000...

Hoarder's conviction in aiding in son's suicide overturned
AP
HARTFORD, Conn. (Aug. 28) - The Connecticut Supreme Court on Monday overturned a mother's conviction on charges that she contributed to her 12-year-old son's suicide by creating an unsafe and unhealthy home.

Judith Scruggs of Meriden was convicted of risk of injury to a minor in 2003, a year and a half after her son, J. Daniel, hanged himself
with a necktie in his closet.

Legal experts said it was thought to be the first time a parent had been convicted over a child's suicide.

Scruggs said her son killed himself because he was bullied at school, and she filed a federal lawsuit against Meriden school officials
contending they should have stopped it. The case inspired a new state law requiring schools to report bullies to authorities, and many
school districts revamped bullying policies.

In court three years ago, authorities testified that the Scruggs home was so dirty that the medical examiner had to climb over heaps of
debris to get to the boy's body...(click "Read more" below)

To raise awareness about hoarding for sufferers and their families, why not:
Write the two reporters from the Washington Post who recently did stories on Hoarding and recommend they do a story about Children of Hoarders or the effect Hoarding has on families? The more COH and others they hear from the more apt they will be to do a story about it so sufferers will seek treatment!

These reporters are:
Brigid Schulte, Washington Post staff writer, schulteb@washpost.com, 703 518 3029. 

"Fighting to Remain Engulfed in Junk", As Task Forces Move In, Hoarders Strike Back in Court
Sunday, June 18, 2006.  http://tinyurl.com/ndkfq

Lynne Duke, Washington Post Staff Writer
Email form that goes to her: http://tinyurl.com/rcgqc
"Going Once, Going Twice, Going Right in the Closet At Weschler's Auctions, a Hoard Mentality"
Monday, July 31, 2006  http://tinyurl.com/g27nd

(The Concord Monitor online)

Officials worry the Ruffs are at it again *
By Margot Sanger-Katz, Monitor staff
July 30. 2006 10:00AM

Drive down West Joppa Roadin Warner, and the scene is similar to what you would have seen a year ago. The home of Wendy and Bryon Ruff is surrounded by parked cars, old bicycles and heaps of trash and metal. Animals roam the property. The only obvious change is the 6-foot-high fencing the Ruffs' neighbors have put up.

Last August, town and state officials judged the house unlivable and condemned it, they deemed the animals neglected and seized 57 pets, and they ordered the family to clean up the 5/8-acre yard. In response, the Ruffs fixed up their house, cleared their yard and removed structures that selectmen said spilled onto a neighbor's property....(click "read more" below to continue and take the poll related to this article and/or enter your comments about it)...