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HDI In The News

USA TODAY highlights The Hoarding Disorder Institute

April 8, 2013

Lorraine Ash, USA TODAY

When Hurricane Sandy dumped its fury on New Jersey last October, it also exposed a problem many say has been growing here for years: hoarding.

"Usually hoarders won't allow people in their houses," said David Haggerty, director of senior services for Family Service of Morris County, a Morristown-based human services non-profit.

"But after the storm hit, many had no choice but to allow professionals like fire and emergency workers access," he added. "So a lot of cases of hoarding came out of the woodwork."

Storm remediation is at a standstill in homes of hoarders, experts say, because, hurricane or no hurricane, hoarders still don't want to clean up their hoards.

Two Family Service intensive senior support care managers, Susan Donald and Laura Wrublevski, explained the stalemate: the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is asking hoarders to clean out their stuff so it can bring in people to remediate mold and other flood-related conditions.

"At the same time," Wrublevski said, "there isn't support to help hoarders sit, sort and pare down their hoards."

"That's the problem right now," Donald explained. "FEMA, or other groups willing to help people affected by Sandy, have a role to play. Their role is not to clean up a home that has been collecting for 30 or 40 years. Their role is to take care of the damage as a result of Sandy."

In Morris County, Family Service has taken the lead on identifying hoarding because it has extensive case management programs that connect with people in the community, Haggerty said. It also offers trainings in how to handle hoarding for community professionals.

"Hoarding is a trend of epidemic proportions, and everyone wants information on how to make it better," Donald said.

But not every region in the state can say the same.

Enter The Hoarding Disorder Institute, a private company serving all of New Jersey that opens this week. Its founder is Marcie Cooper of Fair Lawn, a social worker, educator, and geriatric care manager already known for leading training sessions on hoarding to those who encounter it in a professional capacity.

Her institute also will offer myriad services, including public education forums, resource directories of trained professionals, workshops for the loved ones of hoarders, and relocation and respite placement for hoarders.

The services could fill in the needed gaps, according to Steven Horvath, assistant administrator of the Monmouth County Mental Health Board.

"The idea of a hoarding disorder institute is exciting to me because we really don't have resources for hoarding," Horvath said. "It's very difficult to match an individual with resources they can afford and that will meet their needs."

In the meantime, Dave Adams, owner of At Your Disposal, a Shrewsbury, N.J.-based hauling company, is quietly working with a few shore families of hoarders to help clean them out. Adams has helped with cleanouts on TLC's "Hoarding: Buried Alive," one of three popular cable shows on the topic.

"Still, most hoarders aren't calling for Dumpsters, even after the storm," Adams said. "They're still holding on to their stuff. If some of the stuff we see -- the feces and the garbage -- doesn't bother them, saltwater wouldn't, either."

Elizabeth Nelson, spokeswoman for ChildrenofHoarders.com, a 2,800-member online support group, said the disorder doesn't slow down or stop due to a disaster.

"Sometimes we imagine it all going up in smoke, metaphorically, because of a flood or fire," she said, "but a hoarder keeps water- or smoke-damaged belongings."

Sometimes the hoarding is even more deeply hidden. Haggerty recalls arriving at a four-acre estate to help a homeowner after Sandy. The opulence of the home did not surprise him, he said, because hoarding crosses all economic, educational, cultural, and age demographics.

When no one answered the doorbell at the estate, Haggerty's co-worker looked in the windows. All the rooms were empty.

Later the two discovered the woman only hoarded in interior rooms.

"She knew that people could look in her windows so she only hoarded where it couldn't be seen," Haggerty said. "That speaks to the complete secretive nature of the problem. This is a hidden epidemic."

According to the International OCD Foundation, recent studies indicate as many as one in 20 people have significant hoarding problems.

In addition to hoarding being more prevalent in densely populated areas where people live in smaller dwellings such as townhouses and apartment buildings, there are other reasons hoarding has become such a hot topic.

First, hoarding will become its own psychiatric diagnosis in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as DSM-5, to be released in May. The American Psychiatric Association, which produces the DSM, hopes the unique diagnosis will help more cases come to light and stimulate research into specific treatments.

Second, hoarding is mostly encountered by social service agencies among seniors, Cooper said, because it takes decades for the psychiatric condition to become so severe that it comes to the attention of the community.

Indeed the famous Collyer Brothers, whose dead bodies in 1947 were extracted from tons of debris in their three-story Harlem brownstone, had been developing their hoard for 30 years before they died in it.

Today there are 79 million baby boomers in the nation. The more they age, Cooper said, the more time they have to accumulate items and potentially become hoarders. Sometimes the death of a non-hoarding spouse can activate hoarding tendencies in the surviving spouse, either as a psychological response to the loss or simply because there is nothing to stop a hoard from being created and grown.

"It moves from normal collecting to clutter to pathological acquiring, which is the psychiatric disorder," Cooper said.

According to Randy Frost, a research pioneer in hoarding and co-author of "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things" (Mariner Books, $14.95), hoarding dates to at least the fourteenth century but has never been so visible as it is today in westernized societies.

Frost noted that there are now 2 billion square feet of space in storage facilities, which were almost nonexistent 40 years ago, and that the average house size has increased by 60 percent since 1970.

"Perhaps the abundance of inexpensive and easily accessible objects makes it the disorder of the decade," he writes.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/08/superstorm-sandy-exposed-hoarding/2063679/

Hoarding Makes Home Sales Tougher - The Record, New Jersey - September 28.2014

November 23, 2014


By KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER | 
The Record

Charlie Castronovo cleaning out a three-bedroom colonial in Clifton that he and fellow investor Louis DePalo purchased. Hoarding, a psychiatric disorder, poses special problems for everyone involved in a transaction.

The 1949 colonial overflowed with stuff — piles on the beds, stacks along the walls, mounds in the basement. Clothes, junk mail, yellowing newspapers, a Family Circle magazine from 1999.

Peeking through were hints that someone once took pride in this three-bedroom home in a middle-class Clifton neighborhood: Ornate, gold-upholstered furniture was covered in plastic, to keep it clean; elegant figurines were lined up in a built-in bookshelf.

But on a recent day, only a narrow path led through the mess.

"It just seems like they didn't throw anything away," said the home's new owner, Louis DePalo, as he and two workers hauled junk into a giant trash container in the driveway. DePalo recently bought the house along with a fellow investor, Charlie Castronovo; the two plan to clean, renovate and resell it.

The Clifton house offers a window into the world of hoarding — which was recently classified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association and was spotlighted on the A&E reality series "Hoarders."

It's estimated that 2 to 5 percent of the population suffers from the disorder, which is believed to have a genetic component.

Hoarding is often brought to a crisis point when a homeowner has to move, and it is a major obstacle in a real estate market where "Get rid of clutter" is usually the first advice real estate agents offer sellers.

"Getting a hoarder to actually clean up and prepare a house for a sale is almost impossible, to tell you the truth. If someone is a true hoarder, there is an illness attached to that, not just someone being lazy," says Ron Aiosa, a Coldwell Banker agent in Butler.

While family members might be tempted to just sweep the mess out of the house, that kind of radical cleanup can be deeply traumatizing, and the hoarding behavior will be repeated, and may even intensify, experts say.

Linda Stamker, a real estate agent with Prominent Properties Sotheby's International Realty in Fort Lee, recalls working with a buyer who purchased a home in Tenafly that was crammed with old newspapers, broken lamps and broken furniture.

On the day of the closing, Stamker and her buyer arrived for a walk-through.

"The woman was in the house, still emptying it, but you could see she just couldn't part with her things," Stamker says. "The buyer was flabbergasted, and we realized there was no way we could close." They postponed the closing for a few weeks; but even then, when they returned for the closing, there was a full trash container in the driveway, two men emptying the house and the owner still clinging to her stuff. Stamker demanded that the owner leave the house so the workers could finish the cleanup.

"In the end, we did close that day, but we had to keep money in escrow to be sure she would remove the trash bin from the property," Stamker recalls.

Some professional organizers and geriatric social workers have become experts in dealing with hoarding behavior, and some real estate agencies, including Abbott & Caserta Realtors in Ho-Ho-Kus, have teamed up with such experts to work with sellers overwhelmed by their stuff — whether they're hoarders or just seniors who have collected too many belongings over decades living in a home.

Pamela MacLeod of Organized from A to Z in Englewood has worked with a number of clients who suffer from a hoarding disorder. Many, she says, feel deep shame and embarrassment.

"Moving is very stressful for almost anyone, and when you add hoarding challenges, the client is usually over-the-top overwhelmed and downright paralyzed," MacLeod says.

The stuff "keeps the world at bay, it keeps loved ones and friends away — but paradoxically, it also makes many people feel comforted, safe and protected," she says.

To break through these defenses, MacLeod tries to connect the work of clearing out the house to the client's ultimate goal, such as the desire to sell the home.

"I'll say, 'I get that you feel more comfortable holding on to 10 of these items. Help me understand how that's going to get you closer to the goal of moving closer to your daughter in Massachusetts,' " she says. "These are the kinds of questions that make the light bulbs go on. It's not my job to tell the client what to do."

Even if the homeowner agrees to clean out and is facing a deadline, such as a closing date, it can easily take a week or two to get the job done, MacLeod says. The stuff generally can't just be dumped; it has to be sorted through.

"Most of the time, it's not just trash; it's collectibles, books, memorabilia, clothing, children's toys from kids who are now grown," MacLeod says. "People have attachments to all kinds of things."

MacLeod and other experts say it's important to treat people in this situation with respect and patience, and without judgment.

"You have to value how important their stuff is to them," says Marcie Cooper, a social worker who is founder of the Hoarding Disorder Institute in Fair Lawn, a private company that trains professionals on how to deal with hoarding. "They have a very unique way of looking at their possessions." For example, she had a client who had saved 1,000 ATM receipts. When Cooper asked if they could at least recycle the receipts that were older than three years, the client refused, saying, "I will have lost that day."

Others will keep items of little value — old newspapers, rubber bands, twist ties — because they might need them in the future. "They have a lot of 'just-in-case' items," Cooper says.

'They feel responsible'

Both MacLeod and Cooper say many people feel more comfortable donating or recycling things, rather than just dumping them, because they take comfort in the idea that the items won't just end up in a landfill.

"They feel responsible for their things," Cooper says.

"Many clients like to think that someone else will use the item," says MacLeod. For example, one client agreed to let go of 24 plastic bins of baby clothes when MacLeod pointed out that the clothing could be useful to young families.

But sometimes it's impossible to get the owner to clean out a home that has to be sold. When that happens, the homes go on the market "as is" — though that restricts the pool of potential buyers, since many house hunters will be completely turned off and unwilling to look beyond the trash.

"Quite often, [the buyer] will be an investor who understands what needs to be done and is capable of getting that house cleaned out and then making the necessary renovation for a flip," says Aiosa, the Coldwell Banker agent. "Of course, that always comes with a discounted price, and it should. This buyer is taking on the workload, and the truth is, many deficiencies show up after all the garbage is removed."

Castronovo and DePalo, the investors who purchased the Clifton house, have bought, cleaned out and renovated three houses that were crammed full of stuff. In the case of the Clifton home, they saw "a solid house" with three good-size bedrooms.

A middle-aged woman had lived there with her aged mother; after the mother died, the stuff began piling up, Castronovo says. There was so much stuff that the front door was almost blocked closed; the basement was stacked floor to ceiling.

A recent walk-through during the cleanup showed half-empty bottles of Gatorade and water on tables, makeup and toiletries piled on dressers and piles of junk mail and newspapers everywhere.

In the end, it took Castronovo and DePalo, plus two helpers, four days and four trash bins to clean out the house.

Email: lynn@northjersey.com Twitter: @KathleenLynn3


© 2014 North Jersey Media Group
Tags:
  Real Estate  |    Residential Real Estate  | 

 

Hoarding Makes Homes Sales Tougher - The Record, New Jersey Spetember 28, 2014

November 23, 2014


By KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER | 
The Record
Print
[Charlie Castronovo cleaning out a three-bedroom colonial in Clifton that he and fellow investor Louis DePalo purchased. Hoarding, a psychiatric disorder, poses special problems for everyone involved in a transaction.]
Buy this photo
MITSU YASUKAWA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Charlie Castronovo cleaning out a three-bedroom colonial in Clifton that he and fellow investor Louis DePalo purchased. Hoarding, a psychiatric disorder, poses special problems for everyone involved in a transaction.

The 1949 colonial overflowed with stuff — piles on the beds, stacks along the walls, mounds in the basement. Clothes, junk mail, yellowing newspapers, a Family Circle magazine from 1999.

Peeking through were hints that someone once took pride in this three-bedroom home in a middle-class Clifton neighborhood: Ornate, gold-upholstered furniture was covered in plastic, to keep it clean; elegant figurines were lined up in a built-in bookshelf.

But on a recent day, only a narrow path led through the mess.

"It just seems like they didn't throw anything away," said the home's new owner, Louis DePalo, as he and two workers hauled junk into a giant trash container in the driveway. DePalo recently bought the house along with a fellow investor, Charlie Castronovo; the two plan to clean, renovate and resell it.

The Clifton house offers a window into the world of hoarding — which was recently classified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association and was spotlighted on the A&E reality series "Hoarders."

It's estimated that 2 to 5 percent of the population suffers from the disorder, which is believed to have a genetic component.

Hoarding is often brought to a crisis point when a homeowner has to move, and it is a major obstacle in a real estate market where "Get rid of clutter" is usually the first advice real estate agents offer sellers.

"Getting a hoarder to actually clean up and prepare a house for a sale is almost impossible, to tell you the truth. If someone is a true hoarder, there is an illness attached to that, not just someone being lazy," says Ron Aiosa, a Coldwell Banker agent in Butler.

While family members might be tempted to just sweep the mess out of the house, that kind of radical cleanup can be deeply traumatizing, and the hoarding behavior will be repeated, and may even intensify, experts say.

Linda Stamker, a real estate agent with Prominent Properties Sotheby's International Realty in Fort Lee, recalls working with a buyer who purchased a home in Tenafly that was crammed with old newspapers, broken lamps and broken furniture.

On the day of the closing, Stamker and her buyer arrived for a walk-through.

"The woman was in the house, still emptying it, but you could see she just couldn't part with her things," Stamker says. "The buyer was flabbergasted, and we realized there was no way we could close." They postponed the closing for a few weeks; but even then, when they returned for the closing, there was a full trash container in the driveway, two men emptying the house and the owner still clinging to her stuff. Stamker demanded that the owner leave the house so the workers could finish the cleanup.

"In the end, we did close that day, but we had to keep money in escrow to be sure she would remove the trash bin from the property," Stamker recalls.

Some professional organizers and geriatric social workers have become experts in dealing with hoarding behavior, and some real estate agencies, including Abbott & Caserta Realtors in Ho-Ho-Kus, have teamed up with such experts to work with sellers overwhelmed by their stuff — whether they're hoarders or just seniors who have collected too many belongings over decades living in a home.

Pamela MacLeod of Organized from A to Z in Englewood has worked with a number of clients who suffer from a hoarding disorder. Many, she says, feel deep shame and embarrassment.

"Moving is very stressful for almost anyone, and when you add hoarding challenges, the client is usually over-the-top overwhelmed and downright paralyzed," MacLeod says.

The stuff "keeps the world at bay, it keeps loved ones and friends away — but paradoxically, it also makes many people feel comforted, safe and protected," she says.

To break through these defenses, MacLeod tries to connect the work of clearing out the house to the client's ultimate goal, such as the desire to sell the home.

"I'll say, 'I get that you feel more comfortable holding on to 10 of these items. Help me understand how that's going to get you closer to the goal of moving closer to your daughter in Massachusetts,' " she says. "These are the kinds of questions that make the light bulbs go on. It's not my job to tell the client what to do."

Even if the homeowner agrees to clean out and is facing a deadline, such as a closing date, it can easily take a week or two to get the job done, MacLeod says. The stuff generally can't just be dumped; it has to be sorted through.

"Most of the time, it's not just trash; it's collectibles, books, memorabilia, clothing, children's toys from kids who are now grown," MacLeod says. "People have attachments to all kinds of things."

MacLeod and other experts say it's important to treat people in this situation with respect and patience, and without judgment.

"You have to value how important their stuff is to them," says Marcie Cooper, a social worker who is founder of the Hoarding Disorder Institute in Fair Lawn, a private company that trains professionals on how to deal with hoarding. "They have a very unique way of looking at their possessions." For example, she had a client who had saved 1,000 ATM receipts. When Cooper asked if they could at least recycle the receipts that were older than three years, the client refused, saying, "I will have lost that day."

Others will keep items of little value — old newspapers, rubber bands, twist ties — because they might need them in the future. "They have a lot of 'just-in-case' items," Cooper says.

'They feel responsible'

Both MacLeod and Cooper say many people feel more comfortable donating or recycling things, rather than just dumping them, because they take comfort in the idea that the items won't just end up in a landfill.

"They feel responsible for their things," Cooper says.

"Many clients like to think that someone else will use the item," says MacLeod. For example, one client agreed to let go of 24 plastic bins of baby clothes when MacLeod pointed out that the clothing could be useful to young families.

But sometimes it's impossible to get the owner to clean out a home that has to be sold. When that happens, the homes go on the market "as is" — though that restricts the pool of potential buyers, since many house hunters will be completely turned off and unwilling to look beyond the trash.

"Quite often, [the buyer] will be an investor who understands what needs to be done and is capable of getting that house cleaned out and then making the necessary renovation for a flip," says Aiosa, the Coldwell Banker agent. "Of course, that always comes with a discounted price, and it should. This buyer is taking on the workload, and the truth is, many deficiencies show up after all the garbage is removed."

Castronovo and DePalo, the investors who purchased the Clifton house, have bought, cleaned out and renovated three houses that were crammed full of stuff. In the case of the Clifton home, they saw "a solid house" with three good-size bedrooms.

A middle-aged woman had lived there with her aged mother; after the mother died, the stuff began piling up, Castronovo says. There was so much stuff that the front door was almost blocked closed; the basement was stacked floor to ceiling.

A recent walk-through during the cleanup showed half-empty bottles of Gatorade and water on tables, makeup and toiletries piled on dressers and piles of junk mail and newspapers everywhere.

In the end, it took Castronovo and DePalo, plus two helpers, four days and four trash bins to clean out the house.

Email: lynn@northjersey.com Twitter: @KathleenLynn3


© 2014 North Jersey Media Group
Tags:
  Real Estate  |    Residential Real Estate  | 

 

Hoarding- A Hidden Epidemic Among Us

September 23, 2013

NORTHJERSEY.COM : NEWS

Hoarding - a hidden epidemic among us

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

MEGHAN GRANT, STAFF WRITER

SOUTH BERGENITE

Viewers glimpse into the lives of hoarders through television shows like Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC, but people may be surprised to learn those struggling with the compulsion aren't all figures on TV, and can be as close as your next door neighbor.

Passaic Fire Chief Patrick Trentacost said that the three-alarm fire in December 2011 at a home of a hoarder was one of the most dangerous fires he has seen in his career. The fire started in the basement and spread throughout the house. Trentacost said that there was so much debris that it was difficult to move around the house and climb the stairs. Debris in the front of the house was removed by the fire department from the stairs and entrance way of the home.

Earlier this year, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognized hoarding as a disorder, placing it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

"It's a hidden epidemic," said Marcie Cooper, founder of Fair Lawn-based Hoarding Disorder Institute, that trains and educates professionals and volunteers to work with those with the disorder. "We now look at hoarding as a mental health condition. Until now, people thought you can just throw out the contents of the house and that will cure the problem. Without intervention, there is 100 percent reoccurrence, it has to be ongoing and not just a one-time cleanup."

People with hoarding disorder excessively save items that others may view as worthless or as trash. Hoarders have persistent difficulty getting rid of or parting with possessions, leading to clutter that disrupts their ability to use their living or work spaces, according to APA officials.

Between two and three percent of the local population struggle with a hoarding disorder, and reports have shown the tendencies to become a hoarder can start as early as age 13, though it takes decades to develop into a problem, Cooper said.

"In South Bergen County we're seeing so many cases because we live in very dense environments, so it won't take such a long time before a neighbor is made aware," Cooper said. Hoarding can go unnoticed for longer in more sparsely populated areas.

The hidden epidemic

But even in densely populated areas, the conditions can be hidden for years.

Rutherford may get one or two hoarding complaints in any given year, said RutherfordHealth Official Brian O'Keefe. They are referred to the department by the police or a concerned relative and sometimes by the schools if a child is involved.

About five years ago, an elderly female resident, "Karen" was refusing to let relatives in her home for years. Growing worried, the family called the police, who sent an officer to perform a welfare check. At first she wouldn't let the officer into the home, but after they spoke for about a half hour, she eventually let him inside.

"It was unbelievable," O'Keefe said. "Four or five feet of items stacked haphazardly, it almost looked like a garbage dumpster was dumped into the center of the home. You couldn't even tell where the stove or sink or kitchen counter was under all these items piled up."

"Karen" had also been using buckets in the living room in lieu of a bathroom since she couldn't get up and down the stairs, he said. In this case, the Bergen County Community Mental Health System responded and the woman was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

"You see some sad situations," O'Keefe said, recalling another similar incident involving an elderly resident years prior. "It was the same scenario, you couldn't get into the home but when we did get into the home, it was just deplorable with just the amount of items. If nothing leaves the home for 10 years, you can imagine how quickly things can accumulate."

Many hoarders are elderly, as more people are living longer and they are able to live independently with the disorder, Cooper said. Often underlying medical conditions are involved, such as diabetes or pulmonary problems from breathing in dust and mold, or psychiatric problems, like paranoia or anxiety.

O'Keefe said the most recent cases have been predominantly women.

A hallmark of hoarding disorder is spaces dedicated for particular uses, such as a shower or stove, are overcome with clutter and become unusable. In those cases, the resident can go for long periods without bathing and relies on a diet of take-out food, which can cause malnutrition.

"I've been in houses with pizza boxes and chicken buckets up to the ceiling because they can't reach their kitchen," Cooper said.

Another hallmark is the acquisition of items and the inability to discard, causing things to pile up.

A case of excessive hoarding that brought light to the issue in northern New Jersey was the situation surrounding a 68-year old New Milford woman, who died in her apartment and wasn't found until months later in spring 2013, buried under a pile of clothing and garbage. Her living space was so cluttered that family members, police and even county animal control personnel had conducted searches of the apartment, but due to the conditions, she wasn't found until her landlord arrived to clean the place.

The disorder often leads to substantial distress and disability for the afflicted, impairing social, occupational and other important areas of functioning, according to the APA.

Calling in professionals

"It causes unbelievable mental anguish and suffering when you go in and remove what they consider more important than social interaction. Objects take on a whole new meaning due to their emotional attachment," Cooper said. "The worst thing you could possibly do is just go in and throw things away. People need to know that those with hoarding disorders aren't going to voluntarily change."

Volunteers, friends and family can undergo training to handle a cleanout conducive to a hoarder's disorder, and at their discretion, can donate usable items and recycle others, which can sometimes lessen the anxiety of letting things go.

Cooper recalled a tenant at an assisted living facility went on a hunger strike when she learned a social worker cleaned her apartment when her family took her out to lunch. In that case, trust between the facility staff and the tenant had to be regained.

Municipal officials are coming to terms with how to handle cases of hoarding. Cooper recalled a North Jersey municipal judge who kept ordering a house in violation of health codes cleaned within a month, growing frustrated when the order wasn't complied.

"When I spoke with him and explained this was a mental disorder, it was like a light bulb went off," Cooper said. "He realized a more gentle approach was needed."

Hoarders rarely change voluntarily, and are often compelled to address their disorder by way of an evidence notice or health code violation, something that threatens their objects.

Last year, police and Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) notified Rutherford of a borough home unfit for habitation.

"A grammar school child was living in a home in town that was just loaded with items, it's almost like anything that had gone into the home in the last 10 years hadn't come out," O'Keefe said. Items typically discarded, like food containers, plastic and paper bags and boxes were not in this home. "They [DYFS] wouldn't let the child live there in those conditions, which was the incentive for the homeowner and her daughter, the mother of the child, to remove the stuff from the interior to make it satisfactory so they could return to the home."

The Lyndhurst Health Department has about three cases a year, said Public Health Nurse/Health Coordinator Sarah Anderson. In most cases, the health inspector, police department and typically the fire inspector step in to intervene.

"We try to make sure the property isn't a threat to the community and they aren't a threat to themselves, especially that they have clear exits from their homes," Anderson said. Family members are usually offered mental health resources following the township's intervention, Anderson added.

There are times when the institute is called in by a municipality or county and discover a home that's completely inhabitable and imminent risk. In those instances, especially if the person is in poor health, the person is removed and given proper medical treatment. From there, a care plan is agreed upon for successfully returning the person to their home or finding an appropriate placement, Cooper explained.

A hoarder's residence may also pose a risk to first responders.

Last February, a fire at a two-family home on High Street in East Rutherford claimed the life of a 77-year old man. Subsequent examinations of the house and fire officials reported it contained an illegal third apartment and was believed to be a hoarding situation, which caused firefighters to become temporarily trapped in the structure during the response. As the firefighters worked to remove the trapped occupant, the team had to stop to attack the fire before continuing since they only had one option of exit.

Excessive hoarding throughout the hallways and first floor rooms made it difficult for the search team," said Assistant Fire Chief John Giancaspro. "This is not just a few bags we're talking about. The floor was covered."

Typically, the agencies that could potentially become involved in an identified hoarding residence are child services, the building department and the fire marshal, O'Keefe explained.

"The building inspector determines occupancy and inhabitability, and there are always concerns about fire safety in the home- extension cords under piles of debris and whether or not the owners have working smoke detectors," O'Keefe said. "Sometimes you can't even get into the basement to get even to the circuit breakers for the electrical panels."

Training and understanding of "heavy content homes," as they're sometimes termed to avoid medical condition disclosure, by public safety is vital, Cooper said. For instance, hoarders don't often sleep in their beds. This detail is imperative for responding firefighters who may need to search for a resident.

"If they know there's a heavy content household, instead of trying to get through the front door, they might try to gain entry through a window," Cooper said. "If we could identify these households before there's an emergency, it would keep first responders from being put in extreme risk."

Some people would rather die in their homes than leave their possessions, Cooper added. This came to light during Hurricane Sandy when recovery teams were turned away from helping residents.

Finding help

Those with the disorder almost never reach out for help. "I think it's very brave of the family members to get involved because they will often meet with resistance from the person who is hoarding," Anderson said.

One of the most difficult things to overcome is the person's own unwillingness to challenge their disorder, and legally, a hoarder largely has the right to live as they choose, said Cooper.

"They have a civil right to live the way they want, unless they're going to be causing imminent harm to themselves or others," Cooper said. Many hoarders have full mental capacity, and therefore, are entitled to live autonomously. "Sometimes we see a conflict between a person's right to live autonomously and the community's right to a safe environment, it can be a public health issue. Most people with a hoarding disorder won't want to change and just want to be left alone. Many times the only way this happens is intervention from a third party."

Authorities and officials need probable cause to enter a home, which comes when someone witnesses the conditions and comes forward.

"These situations are difficult to deal because these are private homes," O'Keefe said. "

The Hoarding Institute counsels family members about the condition and what they can do to help, striking a balance.

In one recent case, the institute received a call from a woman concerning her brother who had been struggling with a hoarding disorder and together they had been working with a social worker for the past two years. Recently the local health board raised a red flag about the conditions of his two-story house- every room had items piled to the ceiling and only a small path to navigate, in addition to blocked entrances.

On the advice of the sister's lawyer, she had attempted to gain guardianship, Cooper said. While well-meaning, this wasn't appropriate because the brother had full mental capacity and was able to make his own decisions. He ultimately was willing, with intervention from a specialist, to grant his sister power of attorney and he transitioned into an assisted living facility.

A method used by the institute is harm reduction, cooperating with the homeowner to make concessions like clearing a three-foot passage through the house to cause the least disruption to the person.

"Clients have accepted that because we're not altering their lifestyle or not threatening them, such as throwing out what they feel are precious to them," Cooper said.

Items can't be arbitrarily thrown away because important items like personal documentation or even money may be lying in the debris, O'Keefe said. This can prove to be a monumental task.

While bringing national attention to the hoarding disorder, Cooper said the TV shows often don't represent the struggle properly.

"I want to get the word out- that's not the way to help people," she said.

A benefit of earning recognition by the APA means insurance companies are more likely to cover the cost of counseling.

An informational session titled Hoarding Behavior: From Clutter to Chaos will be held by the Hoarding Disorder Institute at Behavioral Healthcare in Lyndhurst on Oct. 18 from 9 a.m. until noon. The institute also maintains a resource directory of professionals on its newly revamped website, www.hoardingdisordergroup.education.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/224352701_Hoarding_-_a_hidden_epidemic_among_us.html

New Milford Woman’s Lonely Death Casts Spotlight on Compulsive Hoarding

August 14, 2013

Source: http://www.northjersey.com/news/Sad_story_of_New_Milford_womans_death_puts_spotlight_on_disorder_of_hoarding.html?page=all

New Milford Woman’s Lonely Death Casts Spotlight on Compulsive Hoarding

Tuesday, April 16, 2013    Last updated: Thursday April 18, 2013, 2:01 PM

BY  KAREN SUDOL AND REBECCA D. O’BRIEN
STAFF WRITERS
The Record

Nothing was too worn or too frivolous for Alice Klee. The 68-year-old woman accumulated rooms full of knickknacks, clothing, tote bags, garbage, and even three dated TVs in one room alone.

Over the past two years, the unmarried retiree became distanced from her family, who knew she collected piles of stuff but never imagined that she would ultimately be found dead, partially mummified, under a mountain of her own clothes and garbage.

“I don’t know what was sadder — the fact she lived like that or the fact that she had nobody to reach out to and nobody checked on her,” said New Milford Police Chief Frank Papapietro. “I think people are going to have to start paying attention to mental health issues in the communities.”

Hoarding, a condition that typically affects older women, involves the compulsive accumulation of objects and animals. It often remains undiscovered until a crime, a tragedy or a natural disaster lays bare the full extent of the problem. And as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement and beyond, the disorder is becoming more commonplace — so much so that the American Psychiatric Association plans to designate it as a distinct mental illness next month. Previously hoarders had been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder.

“Now we have the criteria to say a person doesn’t just have quirks, they’re not just dirty or odd but they have a psychiatric illness,” said Marcie Cooper, a social worker and caregiver who operates The Hoarding Disorder Institute in Fair Lawn. “This problem is so prevalent. It’s unbelievable, but it’s hidden. And it’s a secret problem, but it’s all over.”

Cooper, on Tuesday, held a training session for caregivers, lawyers and other professionals who work with senior citizens. The event, sponsored by the Northern New Jersey Senior Care Network, was intended to help caregivers identify hoarders, why they hold on to items like newspapers, magazines, clothing and food, and how to help them.

Klee’s lifestyle and tragic death epitomizes the definition of a hoarder. Most are women, aged 60 to 70, but the problem can begin as early as the teenage years. It progresses over time, with the person accumulating unnecessary items for years before the “secret” is uncovered by emergency responders, caregivers and law enforcement, Cooper said.

“People don’t believe that this exists, but we’re seeing it more and more,” Papapietro said. “In a country such as ours, that this exists is terrible.”

Superstorm Sandy “blew the lid” off the hidden culture of hoarders, Cooper said on Tuesday. As Federal Emergency Management Agency officials tried to help victims rid their damaged homes of debris along the Jersey Shore, they discovered some to be hoarders who would not part with their belongings or leave their homes, Cooper said.

People amass items, she said, because of emotional problems that make them more attached to “things, not people.”

“They believe they need to keep their items from harm and are extensions of themselves,” she told the group gathered at the Valley Home Care Dorothy B. Kraft Center in Paramus.

Hoarders also have difficulty making decisions, categorizing and organizing material and gauging their true needs.

In Klee’s case, she appeared to know that she had acquired far too many things – even stuff from trash cans – said her 99-year-old neighbor, Blanche Layne.

“She was getting rid of a lot of stuff,” Layne said. “She was clearing out everything. She said she was going to call the Salvation Army and get rid of it.”

Klee, who had several cats, was declared missing in February. Previous visits to the home by family and police the past three months failed to locate her. A Bergen County K-9 unit searched the woods outside her home while Bergen County Animal Control officials were in and out of the apartment in the weeks after her disappearance to locate any animals.

Her half-mummified body was discovered last week beneath a pile of garbage, clothing and blankets in her bedroom by her landlord, who was cleaning the apartment after she failed to pay rent.

The cause of death was a “cardiac event,” Papapietro said.

A glimpse on Tuesday into her ground-floor apartment in a three-story building on Main Street and Prospect Avenue revealed dingy rooms with piles of plastic bags, tote bags, clothing, pillows, televisions and a cat kennel. On one shelf was a book called “Home Remedies for Dogs and Cats.”

Short of removing all the belongings from her home – which Papapietro said he didn’t believe police had the legal authority to do – “I don’t see anything more we could have done” to find her, he said.

He said he plans to ask the borough attorney to review a recent state Supreme Court decision that prevents police officers from entering homes to check on residents without consent, a warrant or reason to believe there is an emergency.

Staff Writer Jay Levin contributed to this article.

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Hoarders take toll on families

April 8, 2013

Source: Daily Record
By: Lorraine Ash @LorraineVAsh

The hoarding life can continue, uninterrupted, for decades.

Help often only comes after an emergency or when a slow debilitating course of self-neglect reaches a crisis stage.

It was the slow route that finally brought relief for the parents of Erin Marucci of Old Bridge.

“Back in January of last year my cousin passed away suddenly,” said Marucci, a 40-year-old mother. “My sister-in-law and I went to pick up my parents and take them to the memorial service.”

But her 78-year-old father, weakened by lack of nutrition and light and close to death, could barely walk. Marucci said her mother’s lifetime hoarding eventually had forced the couple to live in their basement. The self-neglect was so pronounced, she said, that her uncle threatened to pick up her father and physically take him to a doctor.

When police first removed her mother from her home, her Vitamin D count was eight due to lack of sunlight and proper diet, Marucci recalled. The normal range is between 30 and 74 nanograms per milliter.

It was a move that both Marucci’s parents had long vehemently resisted and the only thing that ultimately lifted them out of the misery of the hoard.

But the long and exhausting journey is still not over for either Marucci or her brother. Not in the least.

The emotional and financial toll that hoarding takes is large and ongoing and affects people well beyond the hoarder. A hoarder’s sphere of influence extends to loved ones who deal with the fallout of a condition they can’t control and helping professionals whose presence is at first unwelcome.

Marucci said it has fallen to her brother to take care of both his parents’ affairs. For his father, he has power of attorney and, for his mother, who has issues beyond hoarding, he is legal guardian. Additionally, both siblings bring their families to visit their parents in their respective facilities, their father in a nursing home and their mother in an assisted living facility.

Then there is the hoard itself — those mountains of junk that have so plagued and disgusted Marucci her whole life. They still exist and there’s no one to clean them up except her and her brother.

 

Dozens of people, mostly friends from church, volunteer to help out of the goodness of their hearts. Nevertheless, the siblings spend countless hours and days sifting through thousands of items and tossing unopened Christmas gifts, pictures of grandchildren, thousands of lottery tickets, clothing, empty cigarette packs, newspapers, hundreds of restaurant sugar and jelly packets, detergents, and on one day, 17,000 aluminum cans.

In the two rooms where they’ve worked, the siblings have gotten the piles down to one foot deep.

According to the AARP Public Policy Institute, self-neglect is present in 40 to 50 percent of cases reported to adult protective services.

“Most people who hoard also self-neglect,” said Marcie Cooper of Fair Lawn, a social worker, educator, geriatric care manager, and founder of the new Hoarding Disorder Institute in New Jersey. “The institute will train specialists to work with people who are hoarders and self-neglecters.”

Starting this week, the institute, which services the whole state, is offering a myriad of services from education forums for the public and training sessions for professionals to workshops for loved ones and relocation and respite programs for hoarders.

A common medical emergency among hoarders, according to Cooper, is an injury incurred when pathways through trash cave in or slide. After a fall, a hoarder may be brought to a hospital and then a rehabilitation center before being sent home with a referral to a visiting nurse.

Those nurses may be the first people to set foot in a hoarder’s home for decades, Cooper said. They become the first to see the situation is not livable.

“A whole gamut of professions is affected,” said Marcie Cooper.

They also include health inspectors, home health aides, adult protective services workers, professional organizers, specialized cleanout services and more.

The average professional hoarding cleanout job alone goes for $9,000 to $12,000 and many are in the $50,000 to $60,000 range, according to Josh Rafter, co-owner of Address Our Mess, a division of SI Restoration opened a year ago to meet increasing demands for hoarding cleanouts in particular. In the past year Address Our Mess, which uses unmarked trucks, clear trash bags (to promote transparency), and provides an on-site case manager to work with the hoarder, has done about 40 cleanouts in New Jersey.

All professionals involved with helping hoarders follow the law of the state in which they work. The New Jersey Adult Protective Services Act calls for intervention only in cases, such as that of Marucci’s mother, in which an adult lacks capacity to act on their own behalf.

In the Garden State, Adult Protective Services investigates abuse, neglect, and exploitation of vulnerable adults, defined as people 18 and over who are the subjects of abuse, neglect, or exploitation. Such people also must live in a community setting, as opposed to an institution, and lack capacity to act on their own behalf.

In other words, if a New Jersey resident with the capacity to make his or her own decisions opts to hoard, that’s OK — as long as the hoard doesn’t create a public nuisance.

 

“New Jersey respects self-determination,” said Beth Denmead, a social case worker with Morris County Adult Protective Services. “We believe in our law. There’s not one of us who works here who doesn’t believe in self-determination.”

But sometimes, Cooper said, allowing autonomy while protecting the lives of hoarders and their neighbors presents challenges.

“It’s an ethical jumble of issues,” she said.

Harry (not his real name) lives in Sussex County and has struggled with his parents’ hoarding all his life. In one way, he said, it’s fortunate that his parents are “dry hoarders,” meaning they don’t hoard things like garbage, food, and animal feces. On the other hand, he worries about fire.

“The extra stuff is just more fuel if a fire did get started,” he said, “and the means of egress are blocked.”

His parents’ home has been cleaned out twice, and both times the work crew was met with bitterness, resentment, and anger. Now it is filled up again.

Harry belongs to Children of Hoarders, a national online support network that has helped him feel less alone. Elizabeth Nelson of Michigan, spokesperson for the group, said it’s nigh-on impossible for adult children, no matter how compelling their arguments, to get a parent who hoards to make a change.

“Secretly, family members hope that towns step in,” she said. “We can’t get Auntie Harriet to act on this problem, but she has to listen to the town. If towns are rigid and harsh with a hoarder, and create huge consequences, they have no idea what kind of private happy dance the sons and daughters and nieces and nephews might be doing.”

Madison Health Officer Lisa Gulla said many people think it’s mean of a health department to issue summonses in cases where hoarding creates a public nuisance. But, mostly, she said, the summonses are motivators, not threats.

“I prefer to utilize warning or summons notices, mainly to get the person help,” Gulla said. “They help the family members say, ‘You have a problem,’ or ‘We need to come in here and do something about it.’”

If a hoarder lacks capacity, Gulla said, a warning also gives Adult Protective Services an opportunity to get involved.

But garbage and physical spaces are only part of the hoarding story, according to Harry, who said the condition destroys families.

“Hoarders are toxic people,” Harry said. “They create diversions and turmoil to take the focus off what they’re doing. It creates very serious family problems. The diversions include saying things that are not true and then creating a fight between the family members.”

From the beginning the children of hoarders experience social isolation because none of their friends can come over to play or for sleepovers. They also learn to lie to protect the family secret. But as they get older, Harry said, they realize they’re enabling, not protecting.

What angers Harry most are people who blame the adult children for the problem and say they are neglecting their parents.

“That’s the kicker,” he said. “That’s the one that’s the worst.”

Today Marucci visits her mother and father whenever she can. The nursing home where her father lives is two counties away, on the other side of the state.

What most angers her is the time that hoarding has robbed—time she could have spent with her father, time her parents could have spent getting to know their grandchildren. If only Marucci could have brought them over to visit.

“I can understand it’s an illness,” Marucci said, “but the truth is I still don’t really get it. When I’m sitting there, Indian style, in a Tyvek suit wearing gloves and a mask and cleaning their house, I just don’t get it. I guess only another hoarder would understand.”

Yet even in their respective facilities, her parents continue to hoard though staffers keep the behavior in check. When Marucci goes to visit her father, who learned to hoard, he hands her a handful of straws and says, “Here, take these home with you.”

“Or he gives me little washcloths … from his food trays,” Marucci said. “After 51 years of conditioning, you can turn someone into a hoarder.”

Hoarding Hits Home

April 7, 2013

Source: Daily Record
By Lorraine Ash @LorraineVAsh

When Hurricane Sandy dumped its fury on New Jersey last October, it also exposed a problem many say has been growing here for years: hoarding.

“Usually hoarders won’t allow people in their houses,” said David Haggerty, director of senior services for Family Service of Morris County, a Morristown-based human services nonprofit.

“But after the storm hit, many had no choice but to allow professionals like fire and emergency workers access,” he added. “So a lot of cases of hoarding came out of the woodwork.”

Storm remediation is at a standstill in homes of hoarders, experts say, because, hurricane or no hurricane, hoarders still don’t want to clean up their hoards.

Two Family Service intensive senior support care managers, Susan Donald and Laura Wrublevski, explained the stalemate: the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is asking hoarders to clean out their stuff so it can bring in people to remediate mold and other flood-related conditions.

“At the same time,” Wrublevski said, “there isn’t support to help hoarders sit, sort, and pare down their hoards.”

“That’s the problem right now,” Donald explained. “FEMA, or other groups willing to help people affected by Sandy, have a role to play. Their role is not to clean up a home that has been collecting for 30 or 40 years. Their role is to take care of the damage as a result of Sandy.”

In Morris County, Family Service has taken the lead on identifying hoarding because it has extensive case management programs that connect with people in the community, Haggerty said. It also offers trainings in how to handle hoarding for community professionals.

“Hoarding is a trend of epidemic proportions, and everyone wants information on how to make it better,” Donald said.

But not every region in the state can say the same.

Enter The Hoarding Disorder Institute, a private company serving all of New Jersey that opens this week. Its founder is Marcie Cooper of Fair Lawn, a social worker, educator, and geriatric care manager already known for leading training sessions on hoarding to those who encounter it in a professional capacity.

Her institute also will offer a myriad of services, including public education forums, resource directories of trained professionals, workshops for the loved ones of hoarders, and relocation and respite placement for hoarders.

The services could fill in the needed gaps, according to Steven Horvath, assistant administrator of the Monmouth County Mental Health Board.

“The idea of a hoarding disorder institute is exciting to me because we really don’t have resources for hoarding,” Horvath said. “It’s very difficult to match an individual with resources they can afford and that will meet their needs.”

In the meantime, Dave Adams, owner of At Your Disposal, a Shrewsbury-based hauling company, is quietly working with a few Shore families of hoarders to help clean them out. Adams has helped with cleanouts on TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” one of three popular cable shows on the topic.

“Still, most hoarders aren’t calling for Dumpsters, even after the storm,” Adams said. “They’re still holding on to their stuff. If some of the stuff we see—the feces and the garbage—doesn’t bother them, saltwater wouldn’t, either.”

Elizabeth Nelson of Michigan, spokesperson for ChildrenofHoarders.com, a 2,800-member online support group, said the disorder doesn’t slow down or stop due to a disaster.

“Sometimes we imagine it all going up in smoke, metaphorically, because of a flood or fire,” she said, “but a hoarder keeps water- or smoke-damaged belongings.”

Even before the harshness of Sandy exposed the reality, however, informed eyes could spot the problem.

“When driving by, you’ll see there are always curtains drawn,” said Beth Denmead, a social case worker for Morris County Adult Protective Services. “The curtains are a little pushed toward the window. That lets you know it’s all up to the ceiling.”

Sometimes the hoarding is even more deeply hidden. Haggerty recalls arriving at a four-acre estate to help a homeowner after Sandy. The opulence of the home did not surprise him, he said, because hoarding crosses all economic, educational, cultural, and age demographics.

When no one answered the doorbell at the estate, Haggerty’s coworker looked in the windows. All the rooms were empty.

Later the two discovered the woman only hoarded in interior rooms.

“She knew that people could look in her windows so she only hoarded where it couldn’t be seen,” Haggerty said. “That speaks to the complete secretive nature of the problem. This is a hidden epidemic.”

According to the International OCD Foundation, recent studies indicate as many as one in 20 people have significant hoarding problems.

In New Jersey the problem isn’t more prevalent than elsewhere but is discovered in greater numbers because the state is so densely populated, according to Cooper.

“In New Jersey the instances of people with hoarding issues are more than anybody can even imagine,” Cooper said. “We live in townhouses and apartment buildings. Even our homes are close to each other so it doesn’t take a whole lot of time before a neighbor becomes aware a hoard is being amassed. In other states, when you may be acres from your neighbor, it’s not as evident.”

But there are other reasons hoarding has become such a hot topic.

First, hoarding will become its own psychiatric diagnosis in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as DSM-5, to be released in May. The American Psychiatric Association, which produces the DSM, hopes the unique diagnosis will help more cases come to light and stimulate research into specific treatments.

Second, hoarding is mostly encountered by social service agencies among seniors, Cooper said, because it takes decades for the psychiatric condition to become so severe that it comes to the attention of the community.

Indeed the famous Collyer Brothers, whose dead bodies in 1947 were extracted from tons of debris in their three-story Harlem brownstone, had been developing their hoard for 30 years before they died in it.

Today there are 79 million baby boomers in the nation. The more they age, Cooper said, the more time they have to accumulate items and potentially become hoarders. Sometimes the death of a non-hoarding spouse can activate hoarding tendencies in the surviving spouse, either as a psychological response to the loss or simply because there is nothing to stop a hoard from being created and grown.

“It moves from normal collecting to clutter to pathological acquiring, which is the psychiatric disorder,” Cooper said.

A case in point is Juanita (not her real name), a single 50something professional who owns her own home in New Jersey though it is so packed with items that she cannot walk in it or invite a repairman inside to fix her appliances. Not even her boyfriend has set foot in her home.

“I haven’t taken a shower in my house for 10 years,” Juanita said. “I have to plan ahead and be sure I can shower at the gym anytime I have people to meet or a wedding to attend.”

Her life, she said, is very complicated. She has sought help from an organizer who specializes in hoarding, read books, and attended decluttering group meetings, all of which have given her insight into her problem and convinced her to stop watching the Home Shopping Network.

That single move alone, she said, has stemmed the tide of items coming into her house and made a big difference.

“My childhood was typically upper middle class but there was a lot of violence and a lot of drinking,” Juanita explained. “I think I hoard things that make me happy. I’m constantly trying to create my image of a happy family life through stuff. When I was compulsively shopping, I bought things that I thought represented a normal, average, upper middle-class life.”

For instance, she owns every kitchen appliance imaginable though she never cooks and doesn’t know how to cook; seven slow cookers; three tarnished silverware sets; and “enough dishes to entertain for the next 400 years.”

According to Randy Frost, a research pioneer in hoarding and co-author of “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” (Mariner Books, $14.95), hoarding dates to at least the fourteenth century but has never been so visible as it is today in westernized societies.

“Perhaps the abundance of inexpensive and easily accessible objects makes it the disorder of the decade,” he writes.

Frost noted that there are now two billion square feet of space in storage facilities, which were almost nonexistent 40 years ago, and that the average house size has increased by 60 percent since 1970.

For Juanita, home has become a kind of storage facility.

“I have some crazy idea that my things are my essence, that they are assuring me of a good life, and that, if I get rid of them, I’ll have nothing,” she said. “People think I’ve got it all together. I don’t. The New Jersey suburbs are nothing like what people think they are.”