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Compulsive hoarding, also known as Hoarding Disorder, is a behavioral pattern charcterised by excessive acquisition of, and an inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant emotional distress or impairment. It has adverse effects on hoarders, their family members, friends or even neighbors. It can often lead to isolation, health risks - both physical and mental - and limits normal day to day activities such as cooking, cleaning, sleeping and maintaining of personal hygiene.  Many hoarders do not recognise they have a problem, so they may not ask, or even refuse help. 

Hoarding is associated with being disorganised and often overtakes a house or flat, so much so, that there is little room to move about (hence the term 'Goat Trails' ) or use rooms or facilities for their intended purpose.

Hoarders may lose sight, not know or even be unable to find what they have. Collectors will generally know and appreciate every piece of their collection. A ‘collection’ is also often more organised, it doesn’t overtake a person or their property, it creates pride, passion and enjoyment and is controlled sensibly. Hoarding is generally uncontrolled, takes up all the available free space and creates feelings of emotional anxiety, distress, embarassment and shame for the hoarder or their family members. 

Previously, it was also thought hoarding was a form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Whatever the classification or definitions, hoarders may have other long-term anxiety or physical health conditions, which are likely to be classed as a disability under the Equality Act 2010. Related conditions may include:

Physical illness – can lead to tiredness and disorganisation.

Dementia – memory problems can interfere with someone’s ability to organise themselves and their belongings.

Depression – can make you lose interest in your normal activities, make it hard to concentrate and make it hard to make decisions.

Alcohol and drug misuse – can affect your ability to look after yourself.

Schizophrenia – unusual beliefs and a lack of organisation can lead to hoarding.

Bipolar disorder – can make you shop too much, and will interfere with your organisation.

Learning disability – can lead to problems with thinking and memory.

Autism and related disorders – collecting things can be a source of comfort.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – you don't feel attached to your hoarded items, but you do fear what will happen if you throw them away. About 1 in 20 people with OCD have a problem with hoarding. 

The truth is that nobody really knows as hoarding is still a relatively unknown and untreated condition. Often hoarding by its very nature is secretive. Hoarders and their families may be embarrassed or afraid to seek help. It is estimated that hoarding may affect up to 3 million people in the UK.

Yes, there is! Hoarding comes in many different forms. Typical types of hoarding includes:

INFORMATION OR PAPER HOARDS:

These types of hoarders keep newspaper, books, encyclopedias, magazines and articles, often all piled on top of each other. It’s one thing having a home library but completely another when the person loses sight of what information or books they have. The hoard becomes so disorganised, that any material or articles once of value cannot be located, overriding the original purpose of keeping books, newspapers or articles to read and enjoy. The same hoarding principles apply to CDs/albums, manuals etc.

RECYCLING HOARDERS:

Some people claim or generally believe in recycling items, which is of course a laudable aim. However, this is can often be a distraction from sorting out the pressing issue of an ever-increasing hoard. They may plan to repair slightly damaged items or find them a new home. They rationalise with many good reasons why they are keeping hold of recyclable items, but often in reality, they never get round to truly and genuinely recycling their items. The best solution would be for recycling hoarders to take their accumulated items to a recycling centre, so that their accumulated items have not been kept in vain, or to agree to dispose of items to free up space. However, achieving either of these outcomes can be quite difficult.

There are also SENTIMENTAL hoarders who keep all manner of things (dolls is just one example) as it provides a sentimental memory from the past or provides feelings of reassurance. These types of hoarders may have suffered a loss or traumatic experience in their lives (a bereavement, a traumatic separation or los of a previous career or job), which may have triggered their hoarding. As a result precious memories or even past events become associated with items (whether they are worthless or not), and they no longer feel able to dispose of the items as it may feel as painful as forgetting or discarding precious memories. We all have precious items, family heirlooms or sentimental keep-sakes, but the trick is to keep items only of high sentimental value and dispose of all the other non functional items.

Other types of hoarding includes FOOD hoarding and ANIMAL hoarding. Both types of hoarding can quickly lead to unsanitary conditions and health risks if the hoard grows out of control. Whether it’s out of date food items that the person does not want to waste or excessive pets or lack of proper care for the animals (cats, dogs etc) or the environment in which they live, this type of hoarding can quickly grow out of control. Pets offer great companionship and often hoarders will be very reluctant to part with their furry friends, but when the living or environmental conditions deteriorate, not only is the hoarder putting themselves at risk through unhygienic conditions and disease, but also their little companions who’s care may severely deteriorate.

A typical medium sized Social landlord with 5000 -15,000 properties is likely to have at least 10 – 40 hoarded properties within their stock. Even much smaller landlords, with less than 1500 properties, are likely to have several cases of hoarding in their stock. As a rule of thumb, each Housing or Neighbourhood Officer is likely to have 2- 4 cases of hoarded properties within their patch.

Some of the biggest mega Social Landlords in the UK have more than 100,000 properties and there are many with property portfolios reaching 50,000 properties – that means there are an awful lot of hoarded properties amongst Social Landlords - each one representing a multitude of fire, property or safeguarding risks.

Ask for help as soon as you can. Your first point of call is your Doctor. If you have a support worker or key worker ask them for help too. If you are still not getting the help you need, get in touch with us. It’s vital that you get the help you need as soon as possible. If you are admitted to hospital, your recuperation may be affected if you don’t get the assistance to improve your property or living conditions.

You can but it is fraught with risks, difficulties and absurd costs. There is a lot of work to do/consider under the Equality Act 2010 before you resort to Court action.  That said, if there are serious fire, property or safeguarding risks affecting the occupier or any neighbouring properties, then going to Court to mitigate the risk will be vital and any decisions need to be taken quickly. We can help with undertaking risk assessments, property inspections or making the appropriate referrals. See details of our Professional Witness Service.

If the property is in a poor state of repair (often we find bathrooms, toilets, kitchens etc are totally unusable), you may also be subject to a disrepair counter claim if you take Court action in haste. Before any Court action, check that all other options have been explored fully and obtain specialist support and advice from us, your legal team or external housing Solicitors.

The short answer is provide your residents/hoarders with as much in-house or independent support as possible. You will need the patience of a Saint! It’s perfectly normal to make progress and then unfortunately for it to slip back.

As a social landlord you have a tricky relationship to balance – you’re the enforcer and the supporter. On the one hand you want your property to be treated in a ‘tenant like manner’ and on the other hand you want your residents to be happy and safe in their homes – hoarding free!

There are also strict fire safety obligations to adhere to as the building owner or controller (as set out in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005).

The problem is, the main tool you have is a blunt one – your Tenancy Agreement. From our experience Housing Officers are brilliant at identifying cases, but often they are very busy and stretched thinly across 500-800 properties and cannot dedicate the amount of support time that a hoarder needs.

Enforcement action should only be a last resort, not the first. Any claims for Access orders, Suspended or Outright possession orders, may fail at Court, not only incurring your organisation thousands of pounds in legal costs but also making it harder to engage your resident.

There are lots of things to take into account to get it right, contact us for FREE advice or specialist support for your residents. We’d be happy to help and advise you.

Talk to us and we’ll try our best to get you the help you need. Sometimes having an agency or organisation acting on your behalf, a bit like an advocate, makes all the difference. Don’t ignore the problem, as it won’t go away and may only get worse, especially if there is poor health, disability, fire or property risks involved.

This is unfortunately a very typical scenario for hoarders who have disability or health issues. After going into hospital, there discharge is often delayed by many weeks, costing the hospital/NHS many thousands of pounds a week in unnecessary accommodation costs.

The landlord may be responsible in this scenario; after all, their tenant is still likely to be paying rent/housing benefit for the property. Social landlords are normally willing to find alternative decant accommodation under their decant and tenancy support/sustainment policies. Contact us for specialist advice; we have considerable experience in this area, and good links with social landlords - who in our experience - will want to do all they can to help in these cases.

There is a good deal of useful information on the NHS website. Check it out here https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/hoarding-disorder/

If you have a burning question that isn’t answered in our FAQS or on our website, please submit it (along with your suggested answer of course), max 250 words; and if we use it on our site, we’ll pay you £10 (either as a bank credit or a voucher) as a small token of our appreciation.

Whether you are a frontline worker, academic, practitioner, student, from a charity, the NHS, a hoarder or a family member of a hoarder – all entries and perspectives welcomed!

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