CATEGORY:
Hoarding Cleanup
Summary:
Term hoarding is a psychological condition in which people collect goods regardless of their usefulness or value. Hoarding is considered a mental disorder that can lead to lasting complications such as anxiety, depression, and severe headaches. Psychiatrists believe that hoarding occurs when a person becomes isolated from society or family and becomes aggressive in their behavior. Greed is often the root cause of hoarding, and it can lead to psychological disorders. Hoarding can be caused by anxiety, restlessness, severe depression, and traumatic life events. Family members must understand that hoarding is not a choice but a symptom of a disease. Symptoms of hoarding include a focus on collecting goods, moodiness, aggression, and a desire to live alone. Various resources are available to help family members and loved ones understand hoarding and how to deal with hoarding parents.
Term hoarding is basically recognized as the passion and aggression among people to collect the goods regardless on grounds of usefulness or useless. There are a number of people who are involved in hoarding. There are basically many reasons and conditions that compel people towards the hoarding. In recent days, there are many psychological and behavior changing research reports over the people who are found hoarders. In fact, hoarding indicates a psychological condition in which sufferings do not pay attention to others and they do what they want.
Hoarding seems very simple and ordinary activity among the people, especially aged persons, but in reality it is a complicated psychological condition. Most of people suffer from hoarding due to their weak psychology and brain strength. People always greed to collect the things and when they become aggressive to do this activity, they come to the circle of hoarding. Doctors consider hoarding a mental condition in which sufferings change their behavior, dealing with people and they also prefer to live alone. Definitely, hoarding can suffer the patients form lasting mental disorders and complications like anxiety, brain depression and severe headache.
Psychiatrists always give their different opinions about the behavior and mental condition of the people. They consider hoarding is a psychological disorder that happens when a person starts living alone and he makes himself cut off from society or family. The people do not give attention and time to elders, especially parents who have nothing to do, so they start doing whatsoever they want. Hoarding always appears when a person suffers from mental disorders and extreme love for the goods.
No doubt, opinions of psychiatrists are quite rational reasonable and impressive. According to psychologists, the greed is the first thing that motives people to hoard goods. Many people start collecting goods in abundant quantity regardless they need or do not them. It means greed among people causes the hoarding and finally hoarding leads psychological disorder. On the other side, if greed among the people is overcome and treated by some good ways, then there will be minimum possibilities of hoarding in people. So, it means no greed and no hoarding that will be a good way to prevent psychological disorder among people.
There are many ways one may become a hoarder. Basically, most of psychologists agree that anxiety, restlessness and severe depression cause the mood change that will be a reason of hoarding. Often, hoarding signs begin to appear in early adolescence and it can stay dormant until middle aged. A traumatic life event may occur that causes one to begin to fill the emotional void with items, and in other cases, people hoard due to social isolation and view the items they hoard as their social interaction. Sometimes it is a fear of being poor and hoarding gives them the feeling of security since they have so much, even if it has no real monetary value.
To understand why your family member is hoarding, you have to unravel the situation. When did the hoarding begin? Was there a traumatic event in the person’s life? Have they been hoarding since they were young? Was their mother, father, or close relative a hoarder as they grew up? All of these are risk factors that can lead to hoarding.
As a family member, you have to understand that it is not a choice by the symptoms of a disease and is not a simple matter. It is important to understand what hoarding is and how it begins before you begin trying to tackle it. Each case is special, each person unique, and each case of hoarding is defined by the circumstances that foster it.
Similarly, there are many symptoms which you can observe among hoarders. First of all, you can observe them talking less and acting more. Secondly, they always remain busy in many types of activities, even useless things. Thirdly, they become moody and change their behavior according to their mood. Fourthly, they also react aggressively with everyone and desire to live alone. Their focus is always over collection of goods and they avoid sharing their hoarded goods with anyone. Life a hoarder becomes dull, boring and full of anxiety.
Here are more resources to help family members and loved ones.
For landlords, maneuvering around the complex issues concerning hoarding and tenant rights can be tricky. Because of the connection between hoarding and mental illness, your tenant, by law, is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). One wrong move, and you could face a lawsuit.
As a landlord, everything and anything that happens on your property becomes your problem. Hoarding affects over one million people in the US in some capacity, which means that as a landlord there is a high likelihood that one of your tenants may hoard. Due to hoarding being recognized as a mental disability, hoarders are protected under the Fair Housing Act and cannot be evicted for the act of hoarding. Though they do have rights as a tenant, if the hoarding causes a breach in the lease, that may be grounds for eviction. Many times, hoarding may cause emergency exits to be blocked, old food to attract rodents, and cause damage to the apartment or home – this would be a breach of the lease.
Hoarding is a severe problem for a large amount of people around the world. It tends to be first-world nations like the United States that have greater incidences of hoarding. This is likely because people here have acquired disposable income. The more you learn about hoarding, the more you realize that you do not have to have disposable income to become a hoarder. People often collect free and found items as part of their hoard. Over the past 50 years, the number of people who are hoarding has increased exponentially.
