Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1 - WHAT IS HOARDING?
Chapter 2 - WHY PEOPLE HOARD
Chapter 3 - WHERE TO BEGIN
Chapter 4 - THE PLAN: LAYING THE GROUND - WORK
Chapter 5 - THE PLAYERS: RECRUITING A TEAM
Chapter 6 - THE CLEANUP
Chapter 7 - STAYING CLEAN
EPILOGUE
RESOURCES
Acknowledgements
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A PERIGEE BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty websites or their content.
Copyright © 2011 by Matt Paxton
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. PERIGEE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “P” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paxton, Matt.
The secret lives of hoarders : true stories of tackling extreme clutter / Matt Paxton with Phaedra Hise.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-1-101-51488-7
1. Compulsive hoarding—United States—Case studies. 2. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. I. Hise, Phaedra. II. Title.
RC569.5.H63 .P398
616.85’227—dc22
2011002678
Most Perigee books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. Special books, or book excerpts, can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write: Special Markets, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
http://us.penguingroup.com
I dedicate this book to my wife, Sarah. Very simply, you are everything to me. Thank you for falling in love with a penniless trash man who said he was writing a book. You are an amazing mother and wife and you are gorgeous. I love you. Matt
For Lily, my junior hoarder.
Phaedra
FOREWORD
Compulsive hoarding is more than just a hot topic in the media today. It is a long-neglected disorder that plagues millions of people. It is manifested in multiple forms, from hoarding dolls to animals to food, and has multiple causes and outcomes. Hoarding is complex and frustrating for everyone it affects, and it takes away human potential for a safer and more rewarding life.
Hoarding is not a private concern. It affects husbands, wives, companions, parents, children, best friends, neighbors, and animals. It sometimes involves expensive public services, such as code enforcement, fire and emergency services, disability benefits, and legal resources: all supported directly or indirectly by public funds. We are all touched in some way by this growing problem.
Hoarding tendencies often get worse after a traumatic event, and without intercession mild hoarding becomes more severe; it is just a matter of time. Unless someone reaches out to the hoarder, the disorder continues to grow like bacteria in a weakened body. Treating compulsive hoarding is a unique challenge. Unlike other addictions such as using drugs or alcohol, acquiring and keeping objects are behaviors necessary to maintain daily life. It can be difficult to determine when that normal behavior crosses the line into hoarding.
Families of hoarders are often asked, “Why didn’t you do something to stop this?” or, “How could you allow your loved one to live this way?” Usually the truth is that they tried and were shut out, sometimes permanently exiled from the hoarder’s house. Hoarders often feel threatened, unloved, harassed, and misunderstood; family members feel rejected, ignored, or scolded; neighbors feel annoyed, unsafe, and alarmed. Nobody seems to know what to do.
The Secret Lives of Hoarders is a compelling and compassionate guide to this disorder. Matt Paxton brings understanding and empathy to hoarders and their families who are fighting the battle against clutter, and he knows what it takes to minimize its assault on human life. He is a person of heart and practicality who knows how to reach hoarders and their families. He has learned how to involve public, community, and professional services. He recognizes that hoarders are often victims of an internal process that leaves them helpless when they don’t have the benefit of involvement from professionals and a loving, supportive family. He understands the characteristics that hoarders have in common as well as the features that make each case unique. He also knows that, in rare cases, hoarders should be left to live out their lives without intervention—of course, only when health and safety are not an issue.
Matt goes where most people do not dare: inside hoarders’ homes. He doesn’t shy away from houses defined by squalor and dangerous conditions; rooms filled with rodentinfested debris and no escape from fire; health hazards and falling mounds of clutter; homes that speak volumes of human suffering. There is no direct and simple path to recovery, yet Matt is able to define a process based on his intimate and direct knowledge of a disorder that he has embraced professionally for many years.
In this book you will learn more about hoarding than you would from a professional journal article or scholarly thesis. You will see every aspect of this disorder and its remedies addressed not only from inside the hoarder’s world, but also from the point of view of those that hoarding affects.
Matt directly deals with issues about every aspect of hoarding, focusing on real stories that qualify the negative stereotypes and prejudices about people who hoard, and he helps us see that the tentacles of hoarding reach far beyond the person who hoards. It is a societal problem, more so than many other psychological conditions. He takes the sensationalism out of hoarding so that it can be discussed as meaningfully as depression or anxiety. The more we can talk about hoarding in an informed way, the more we can unite resources to remediate it.
Matt writes with concern about the life inside a hoarder’s home. He describes the entire spectrum of issues, from what happens in a hoarder’s mind to what society can do to help. Inside every hoarder is a person wait
ing to be released, and this book can be the first step in handling a potentially dangerous disorder from which people lose their lives and society loses valuable human resources. After reading this book, people can look directly at the sad reality of a hoarder who previously mystified, angered, and frightened them. In The Secret Lives of Hoarders, Matt is inviting us to embrace hope, join hands, and get the work done.
Suzanne Chabaud, PhD
Clinical Psychologist
Founder of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Institute of Greater New Orleans
INTRODUCTION
It was the summer of 2006 and I was desperate for work. I was living in Richmond, Virginia, and sleeping on a buddy’s couch after a few adventures with jobs that went bad and an attempt to start my own business that failed. I consider myself to be a hard worker and usually have great ideas, but this time I just didn’t know what to do.
I decided to try to pick up a few cleaning jobs to earn enough money to help my buddy pay rent. I printed up some flyers and stuck them in mailboxes in an upscale neighborhood, and the next day I got a phone call. An older couple wanted me to empty out their son’s house and organize an estate sale. The son, Timothy, had died recently, and they said there was just too much stuff for them to handle.
I agreed to a price of a few hundred dollars. If I had had any inkling what I was heading into, I would have charged thousands. I had cleaned houses before, mostly helping my grandmother and aunts, and I wasn’t afraid of mess. But this guy had been collecting things for decades. When his parents showed me into the house, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of clutter. Every room had stacks of dustcovered boxes, bags, and cartons piled up to six feet high. Narrow, dark corridors snaked between the walls of stuff—I had to turn sideways to get through some of the tight spots.
On my second day of trying to pull items out of the house to sort and price for the sale, I realized I was in over my head. I called my buddy’s brother, Colin, and asked him to help. We needed a truck, so he grabbed another friend who had one. Both of them were still in high school so we were only working late afternoons and weekends. It took us three weeks to finally empty out that house.
Although Timothy had the most cluttered house I had ever seen, the stuff that he’d collected showed that he had a lot of interests, ranging from music to German toy trains to antique furniture. Evidently he went through periods of collecting each one of those, which we could tell by the layers of stuff and the dates on the letters and magazines in the layers. It was like being on an archaeological dig. We could tell that from 1975 to 1980 he was into high-end stereo equipment and vinyl recordings. Then, from 1980 to 1984, he slowed down and was mainly hanging on to mail and magazines. He started saving musical instruments around 1985, and then a few years later added the trains. He collected board games too.
Timothy wasn’t there to tell us anything about himself, but we were able to learn a little bit of his story. His parents shared with us that Timothy had killed himself, which made me wonder whether he was one unhappy guy who’d collected all this stuff in an attempt to find some joy in life, or whether his collection had finally overwhelmed him and driven him to despair. Timothy was a mystery that I wanted to unravel.
On the day of the estate sale, I noticed an attractive woman and a companion walking through the house. She kept pointing things out to her friend and explaining what they were. I realized that she knew her way around the rooms, and she recognized everything there. I pulled her aside and asked if she was familiar with the house. She said that she was, and in fact had lived there off and on with Timothy.
It turned out that she and Timothy had been in love for years, but Timothy had never introduced her to his parents because he feared their judgment about being in an interracial relationship. Instead, he guarded a secret life that hid not only his relationship but his ever-expanding collection of stuff. While I didn’t press Timothy’s friends or parents for much information, the story I pieced together was moving. I saw a grown man, desperately unhappy because he was keeping his life a secret, who had turned to collecting to comfort himself. Then things got out of hand.
That struck a chord with me because I knew a little bit about unhappiness, tragedy, and addiction. I had spent a few months working for a large casino in Lake Tahoe in 1999, and while I was there I fell in love with gambling. It became a full-blown addiction, so bad that at one point I found myself $40,000 in debt. When I couldn’t pay my bookie, he broke my nose and I had to leave town.
I eventually paid back my debt and I haven’t gambled since, but I know what it feels like to be lonely and miserable, and to turn to something that feels good at the moment but is ultimately destructive. Timothy’s situation felt more than a little familiar to me and I found myself wishing I could have met the guy and talked with him about it.
With the estate sale completed and after a final cleanup of what was left behind, I started looking for another messy house to clean.
The second job was referred to me by a social worker in a nearby county. She had a case in which a woman in her mid-forties, Aimee, was living in a terrible state of squalor. She was all but confined to her bed, where she slept, ate, and went to the bathroom by leaning off the side of the mattress. The place had been officially condemned by the county, and since there was some funding to clean it up, the social worker, who had seen a copy of my flyer that said no case was too extreme, called us in. She did give us fair warning that it would really test the limits of our claim. And she was right: The whole place stank from rotting food, urine, and feces. During our first visit to Aimee’s house, the social worker gave us the background on this case—and it was the first time I heard the word “hoarder.”
I went home and started researching hoarding. The disorder was fascinating because I could relate to a lot of the feelings and experiences that a hoarder goes through. I knew I could really help these people in need.
As my two buddies and I cleaned her house, we talked with Aimee, asking about her life. She admitted that she had rejected everyone because of her hoarding. Although she didn’t want us in her home, she was happy to know that someone was interested in her story, and I wanted to find out more about her—and about the phenomenon of hoarding.
Since Aimee, I’ve had hundreds of hoarding clients, ranging from people who just have a cluttered garage that they want to get under control, to those with entire houses overflowing with trash, feces, animals (alive and dead), and vermin.
I didn’t set out to be an extreme cleaning specialist. What hooked me was learning that hoarders are people with serious issues, and that only a few of their life decisions or events separate me from them. What if I hadn’t been able to pay back my bookie? What if he had broken more than my nose? What if my friend hadn’t loaned me his couch for a few months when I was down on my luck? I could have ended up like any of the clients I work with, or worse.
I have learned that hoarders don’t love the way they live. I see them struggling to clean up but just not having the means or the willpower to get it done. Maybe their families don’t understand them, or perhaps they have an untreated mental illness that blocks the path to staying clean.
After years of working with hoarders, I’ve figured out how to make sense of their world because I understand the hard times they’ve experienced. I can get them talking about their issues and help them straighten out their houses—and their lives. I’m not a therapist, but I work closely with experienced psychologists like Dr. Suzanne Chabaud, who specializes in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and hoarding at her clinic in New Orleans; Dr. Robin Zasio, who runs the Compulsive Hoarding Center in Sacramento, California; Dr. Lisa Hale, who heads the Kansas City Center for Anxiety Treatment; Dr. Renae Reinardy, head of the Lakeside Center for Behavioral Change in Fargo, North Dakota; and Dr. Elizabeth Moore and other specialists at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut.
The bottom line is that hoarders are good people who are struggling with difficult
issues. To move toward recovery they need love and help, not ridicule. That doesn’t mean we don’t talk about their issues. Hoarders aren’t stupid, and they know that what they are doing is a problem. But threatening, bullying, and issuing ultimatums aren’t going to prod them to clean up. They want to de-clutter, but they can’t unless they have encouragement and support.
I’ve worked with hoarders living in houses filled with rotting food and dog feces, and hoarders living with dozens of animals running all over the house. I’ve helped hoarders let go of their beloved collections of handbags, handguns, and dead rats. The truth is that some recover, and some don’t. Hoarding is a serious mental illness, and sometimes “recovery” is a relative term. But I have learned what the challenges are and how to address them. I have seen what the critical elements of success are for any hoarder, and how those elements can combine to give a hoarder the best chance at de-cluttering.
I can help families and others working with hoarders maximize the hoarder’s chances for getting and staying clean. It’s a long and arduous process, and I will explain how to stay patient and positive for the months, and sometimes years, that it takes.
The key is hope. As long as everyone involved believes that the hoarder’s life can get better, it truly can.
Because some of the stories I tell in this book are deeply personal, I have changed the names and identifying details. Some are composites, but all of the stories are true.
1
WHAT IS HOARDING?
Margaret is a classic, stereotypical hoarder who had clearly given up years ago. Living in a threebedroom, double-wide trailer home in rural Idaho with too many dogs to count, she had been without electricity or running water for years. The floors were damp with brown muck. Decomposing trash was piled up to five feet high, through which narrow walkways gave limited access to each room.
The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter Page 1
