1-800-Junk & NBC Today Show Seeking...

Message sent to our website:

1--800-GOT-JUNK? is producing an upcoming segment on Hoarding for the NBC Today Show and are looking for an ideal candidate to base their story on. This person would
likely be -a woman, between the ages of 30 and 60, who has come to the realization that her attachment to unneeded or unwanted items has  begun to
negatively impact her life and those around her. She must be willing to share her story on national television, as well as be ready to part with a portion of the clutter. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? would give this person a fresh start, and ensure that as much as possible the items would be recycled or donated to charity. The show is looking for candidates
in Chicago, Houston, or Dallas.

If interested, contact: Tania Hall, Senior PR Manager, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, 866.483.7042

BBC Current Affairs

Is in the process of making a documentary about Compulsive Hoarding and would like to interview family members (& Hoarders) in the United Kingdom. If interested, please contact:

Paul Dunt
Producer

 There are so many reports of Animal Hoarding in the news, we would like to now refer you to sites dedicated to listing only those reports.  We will continue to post Animal Hoarding news stories of particular interest in the community from time to time.

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Please also visit our Animal Hoarding section in the menu bar under "Understanding Hoarding" for valuable links to sites focusing on animal hoarding research and news.

Animal Hoarding News Stories (dedicated site for animal hoarding news)
Animal Hoarding News Stories (news page from the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium/Tufts)

National Study Group on Chronic Disorgaization
Stages of Chronic Disorganization
(pdf file, so you will need Adobe Acrobat to view it.

From Squalor Survivors
Stages of Squalor

Friends and Family of Hoarders Support

New Yahoo Support Group for all family and friends touched by Compulsive Hoarding.

Join the group here.

Dr. Phil/Are You or Someone You Know Obsessed With Hoarding?

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Are you such a packrat that your home, garage, basement, attic, and storage space are stuffed to the rafters with things that other people would just throw away?
Do you or someone you know have an extreme collection of one particular thing like magazines, books, newspapers or auto parts?
Does the idea of throwing your prized possessions away cause you to feel extreme anxiety or guilt? Do you hoard items because they have sentimental value or you wonder what if I'll need it someday?
Is your living space so cluttered by piles and piles of the times you're collecting, that you can't use the space for it's designed purpose? Is your spouse or family so fed up with living in your clutter that it's causing serious problems in your relationship?

If unnecessary hoarding is creating conflict for you or someone you know, Dr Phil can help. Please e-mail us your story. Only respond if you are willing to appear as a guest on our show.  Contact Dr. Phil.

Dr. Phil/Know Someone With an Extreme Amount of Pets?

Because you'll often hear the term "Collyer" associated with Hoarding, here is some background on where it comes from

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Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881–March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 3, 1885–March 1947) were two United States brothers who became famous because of their reclusiveness, filth and compulsive hoarding. The brothers are often cited as a paradigmatic example of compulsive hoarding associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, as well as disposophobia, or Collyer Brothers Syndrome, a fear of throwing anything away. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby-traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders. Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over one hundred tons of junk that they had amassed over several decades.  Source.

This article is from the WebMD
Feature Archive 5/27/2006

Is It OCD? Or ADD?

Many psychologists believe that hoarding is a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), while others argue that it may be a variant of attention deficit disorder (ADD), which leaves people having difficulty with decision making, procrastination, and staying on task long enough to organize their surroundings. "Try to give hoarders an assignment to throw something out, and they won't do it," says Stephen C. Josephson, PhD, clinical psychologist in New York City, and clinical associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at Cornell Medical School. "I see the clutter more often in people with ADD than OCD."  Read more here.

Hoarding and Clutter

Lew Mills, PhD, LMFT
Articles and Essays about Adult ADHD, written by Lew Mills, PhD. (Date unknown)

Recently, the Mental Health Association of San Francisco hosted a talk by Dr. Randy Frost on "Hoarding and Clutter." Though this is a common problem for adults with ADHD, it is generally associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). People can become quite compulsive about collecting and stashing ever greater hoards of possessions that have dubious value.

The dangers from this problem are real. In the more extreme cases it can lead to fire hazards and health issues. The more common problem is that it leads to isolation, when a person wouldn't dare let anyone else visit where they live. Of course it also makes it nearly impossible to organize or find anything that is important.

Part of Frost’s approach is to try to look at hoarding and clutter with fresh, unbiased eyes. When we do, we find a lot of issues with "executive functioning", a hallmark if not the definition of ADHD. Though I suspect that some hoarding and clutter is distinct from ADHD, there is a great deal of common ground for some of the core problems.

Thomas Brown now claims that ADHD and executive functioning should be considered to be synonymous. What are the "executive functions" which are impaired in ADHD? They are not related to IQ, and they are not like the "domain specific" functions like those involved in reading, processing language or motor coordination. As the name suggests, they are the higher-level functions that integrate, prioritize and coordinate other brain functions. To see what happens when some of those executive functions are failing, it is helpful to look more closely at hoarding and clutter.

Hoarding Behavior In Older Adults

By Michele Franks

The prevalence of older adults engaging in hoarding behaviors in their homes or places of residence appears to be increasing nationally. Hoarding appears to be more common than originally thought. In fact in Utah according to public agencies, reported hoarding cases are on the rise especially among the elderly. There are serious consequences of hoarding in terms of personal costs to the individual’s quality of life such as deterioration in physical health, safety, and psychological, emotional and social well-being. Also, there are significant community health risks and monetary costs if excessive hoarding is neglected or ignored.

One of the difficulties of studying compulsive hoarding behavior is that it is a complex problem and not currently well understood. Compulsive clinical hoarding must be distinguished from collecting or simply as a symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In attempting to define compulsive clinical hoarding Frost and Hartl, (1995) have developed perhaps the most complete definition of the problem. Compulsive Clinical Hoarding is defined by Frost and Hartl as “(1) the acquisition of and failure to discard a large number of possessions that appears to be useless or of limited value; (2) living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which these spaces were designed; and (3) significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding.” While this definition is now generally accepted, there is still dissension about how to medically categorize compulsive hoarding.

Why do older people hoard? Those reasons differ from case to case but among the most common reason given for hoarding are: irrational emotional attachment to hoarded items; the items are perceived as having value; the hoarder has an exaggerated fear that an item may be needed at some future date; hoarder’s inability to make decisions; his/her inability to organize or categorize things; self neglect and or mental illness. The time and age of onset are variable. Sometimes the behavior can be traced to childhood and appears to run in families...(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