Anxiety Zone - Compulsive hoarding

- Click on the banner above to visit the Anxiety Zone forums -

Compulsive hoarding

Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding) is a term which is used to describe extreme hoarding behaviour in humans. It involves the collection or failure to discard large numbers of objects even when their storage causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as moving around the house, cooking, cleaning or sleeping. Hoarding rubbish may be referred to as syllogomania.

While there is no definition of compulsive hoarding in accepted diagnostic criteria (such as the current DSM), Frost and Hart provide the following defining features:

* the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value

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

* significant distress of impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding.

Case study

The following (edited) case study is taken from a published account of compulsive hoarding:

The client, D, lived with her two children, aged 11 and 14, and described her current hoarding behaviour as a 'small problem that mushroomed' many years ago, along with corresponding marital difficulties. D reported that her father was a hoarder and that she started saving when she was a child. In addition to hoarding, she reported several other obsessive-compulsive symptoms, such as fear of hurting others due to carelessness, an over-concern with dirt and germs, a need for symmetry and a need to know or remember things. D also suffered from a handwashing compulsion and engaged in lengthy cleaning rituals of household items. The volume of cluttered possessions took up approximately 70 per cent of the living space in her house. With the exception of the bathroom, none of the rooms in the house could easily be used for their intended purpose. Both of the doors to the outside were blocked, so entry to the house was through the garage and the kitchen, where the table and chairs were covered with papers, newspapers, bills, books, half-consumed bags of chips and her children's school papers dating back ten years.

Another case study is a 55 year old man who lives in a dingy one bedroom apartment above a converted warehouse. In just three years, when he moved in, the apartment went from being clean and empty to looking like a recycling depot. The only furniture he had was an old broken sofa bed, a table and an old black and white TV. Within three years, piles of newspapers, flyers, old magazines, empty bottles, cardboard boxes and plastic bags littered the whole apartment. The front door could hardly open because of junk piled up behind it. The piles were waist-high on an adult and were in every room - the bedroom, living room, kitchen, front entrance and even the bathroom. The man made a 'TV stand' of a pile of newspapers so that he could watch television over the garbage. The table was stood up against the wall so that he could fit more junk in. The fridge was never defrosted and rotting food sat there for years. He even put empty bottles back in the fridge with the excuse as a 'reminder to buy some more'. How one person could fill an entire one-bedroom apartment with such garbage after only three years, leaves one wondering. The cleanup was estimated to cost about $5,000.

Related conditions

It is not clear whether compulsive hoarding is a condition in itself, or simply a symptom of other related conditions3. Several studies have reported a correlation between hoarding and the presence and / or severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Hoarding behaviour is also related to obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). There may be an overlap with a condition known as impulse control disorder (ICD), particularly when compulsive hoarding is linked to compulsive buying or acquisition behaviour. However, some people displaying compulsive hoarding behaviour show no other signs of what is usually considered to be OCD, OCPD or ICD.

The information above is not intended for and should not be used as a substitute for the diagnosis and/or treatment by a licensed, qualified, health-care professional. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It incorporates material originating from the Wikipedia article "Compulsive hoarding".