People with hoarding disorder experience extreme distress when forced to get rid of items that most of us consider worthless. It’s a lifestyle that is hard to understand if you don’t experience it, and even harder to accept if you live with someone who hoards. It’s a condition that actually presents very real dangers that can threaten the life of anyone who lives in the hoarded home.
Narrow, cluttered passageways create tripping hazards and hoarded items can fall on top of someone very easily. In the case of an emergency, EMTs and fire fighters cannot get through the home with their equipment. But beyond even those daily risks is the reality that the home has become a biohazard zone due to hoarding. In this article, we will look at the hoarding compulsion and the ways it can lead to a biohazard situation.
The Psychology of Hoarding
Compulsive hoarding is considered a form of OCD affecting somewhere between 2-6% of the population. There does seem to be a genetic component to it, but in many cases, the condition is sparked by a significant loss. That could be why it seems to affect older people more often than younger, who may not have experienced life-altering loss yet. Holding on to all possessions and building a horde becomes a way to avoid further pain related to losing someone or something.
Unfortunately, loss is part and parcel of hoarding as the behavior causes the sufferer’s mental, emotional, physical, and financial health to deteriorate. Personal relationships are damaged because no one else feels safe or comfortable in a hoarded space. And much the same as loving an addict, hoarding leaves loved ones feeling abandoned and wondering why their mother, father, or friend continually chooses worthless stuff over them.
For the hoarder, anxiety and depression is always occurring. Interestingly, while hoarding behavior relieves anxiety in the sufferer, it also causes anxiety. The more stuff the hoarder accumulates, the more insulated he or she feels from the dangers of the world. This feels safe.
But at the same time, that isolation causes constant conflict in personal relationships, resulting in anxiety, depression, and the urge to hoard even more. The mere thought of discarding any of their horded belongings brings on extreme panic.
When Hording Becomes Dangerous
There is a fine line between being a pack rat or a collector and being a full-fledged hoarder. Usually the line is drawn when the collecting behavior results in a dangerous home and impacts personal relationships. By this point, the horde has likely grown to a point that limits movement throughout the house, blocks furniture, and makes it impossible to properly clean. This is where harmless collecting becomes dangerous. A hoarded home is a dangerous biohazard situation.
The longer a hoard piles up and spreads, the more likely that it contains hazardous materials. As rooms become blocked with stuff, access to trash cans is impossible and trash begins to make its way into the hoarded piles. Access to the bathroom toilet, shower, and sink is often limited as well. That can lead the hoarder to avoid hygiene and even store their own waste!
Even if the hoarder is not necessarily attached to garbage, hoards often contain rotting food, cans and wrappers, and human waste. Rodents and insects are attracted to the mess, and they add their own waste and sometimes die underneath the pile. If the hoard is ever exposed to moisture, a given when old food is present, mold grows and spreads.
The combined effect of these factors is a significant decrease in indoor air quality. Simply breathing in a hoarded space can make people and animals sick. Hordes also damage the floors and walls that they touch, causing structural instability. And when anything goes wrong in the house, a hoarder is unlikely to invite anyone in to fix it – even if the problem is somehow accessible.
Hoarded Homes Require Professional Cleaners
Given all the toxic and dangerous stuff that lives in a horde, it’s just not safe for a regular person to manage. A biohazard cleanup crew will have the knowledge and equipment to do it safely. Hoarders tend to do better with cleanup when a psychologist or therapist is present, but professional biohazard teams who specialize in hoarding are also trained to be sensitive to the distress experienced by a person when their horde is disturbed.
Dealing with a loved one who is a hoarder is extremely challenging and emotional. You can be under pressure from city officials who have put a deadline on cleanup, yet even facing homelessness, your loved one refuses to discard any of the hoard. It is difficult to reason with a hoarder because the behavior comes from a place of deep fear, not reason.
The best thing to do when you need to help a hoarder is to approach them with sensitivity yet remain firm in the necessity of engaging professionals to make the home safe and healthy again. Without ongoing care from a mental health professional, the hoarder will most likely continue to hoard. But it is still critical to engage a team for biohazard cleanup before the property damage becomes irreparable and the home is condemned.