What Is 'Hoarder's Disorder'?

It's probably best to begin by explaining what the disorder is NOT. There is a difference between collecting, sloppiness and hoarding.

Collecting is the process by which someone has a certain item, or items, that he/she collects as a hobby, simply because that person likes that item, or items, and wants to have a nice collection to display, or possibly hand down to their children. Collections can be large in the size of the item(s) collected, or the amount of items collects. For example, a collection of unique and/or antique cars would require a large garage of some sort to store them in, while a collection of say, 300 Beanie Babies would only require a large amount of shelf space. Both are collections.

Sloppiness is not hoarding simply because it is generally the result of someone either not wanting to, or not being capable of, keeping their homes the way they would 'ideally' have them. Say, a person that's single, who works long hours, and is exhausted when they get home from work, and just physically and mentally have absolutely no urge to even pick up a newspaper on the floor, much less stand at the sink for a half hour to do dishes. Or, someone who is disabled in some way, that is capable of living on their own, but not fully capable of handling an entire day of house cleaning. Both of these types are people who would love nothing more than to always have a clean, well organized home, but just simply cannot bring themselves to take care of that, and, with good reason.

Hoarder's Disorder, which is medically termed as either 'Compulsive Hoarding' or 'Pathological Hoarding', is the acquisition of, and failure to use or discard, such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping. The key word in the list just mentioned is 'mobility'. If a person is tired enough, they can sleep just about anywhere. Showering is something people do anyway, and generally, most hoarders do not clutter up their bathrooms. There is SOME clutter, but nothing that would render them incapable of using any portion of their bathrooms. Cooking is something that half of the people in the nation don't do anyway. They throw something in the microwave, run out for a quick burger, eat at their jobs, but rarely do most people actually stand over a hot stove and actually cook a 3 course meal. Cleaning is a completely irrelevant term in this list (at least in my opinion), simply because if the person was capable of cleaning, there wouldn't be clutter.

I know there are going to be some counter-points to my 'cleaning' statement, so I'll clarify this briefly. Most of the people who have a Hoarding Disorder, WANT to clean. The simple fact is, that they're afraid to clean. In fact, if you go into someone's home, and just clean it up for them, they will end up coming close to, if not having, a full blown breakdown on all levels. This is not a joke, it's serious. Hoarders often have other underlying problems and phobias. Most notably is OCD or ICD (OCD is Over Compulsive Disorder, and ICD is Impulsive Control Disorder). Almost 90% of the people who have s hoarding disorder, also have OCD. It is not common to find someone that has a hoarding disorder because of ICD. People do have this, it's simply more common to find that the person has OCD. Then, there are people, like my mother, that have both OCD and ICD in combination with each other, which, inevitably makes the hoarding twice as intense.

Hoarder's Disorder also has a set of very defined characteristics. Those characteristics are:

1. The acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value.

2. living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed

3. significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding

4. Reluctance or inability to return borrowed items.

Obviously the last one is not a problem for some hoarders (such as my mother), but it is a problem, and as the boundaries blue between what was allowed to be borrowed, and what was out right given, can lead to other mania type behavior, such as Kleptomania.

To someone who has a hoarding disorder, everything has value of some kind, and/or is kept for reasons that are based on fears. More often than not, that person has an underlying fear of poverty, or Peniaphobia. The fear of someday being in need of necessary materialistic items that would be required for them to sustain their own lives. This is also the basis for many hoarders using the line of 'This will be worth a lot of money someday!'.

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