Compulsive Hoarding Disorder, Sentimental Clutter, and Healing: A Therapist’s Experience

Oh, honey can’t we get the coat cleaned, there is lint all over it.  

The little girl squirmed a bit in her chair. “But they will have no home if the coat is cleaned,” she told the therapist.

Speaking in Pittsburg in 2007 to a gathering of mental health clinicians from around the country about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Dr.Gayle Skeketee, told the story of treating the youngest sufferer of hoarding disorder she'd ever had, age seven. 

I sat in the hotel meeting room, just across the bridge from Duquesne  University that morning, hearing the story of this young girl who couldn’t shed her winter coat in the summer or get it cleaned for fear of harming the lint. It was their home, she believed, animizing (giving life-like qualities to inanimate objects) the fibers and hairs on it.

Dr. Skeketee’s story about the young girl paints a vivid picture of what some hoarders contend with. It is believed two to four percent of Americans have the disorder in varying flavors with its roots in childhood and adolescence.

“My name is Brenda,” the voice, elderly and crackly, said on the phone. “I am thinking, I am a hoarder. And my, uh, daughter found your name. She said you might be able to help me.” 

Because my work bio said I was an OCD counselor, hoarding fell somewhat in my wheelhouse. “I'll be glad to talk to you,” I said.

“Can you come to me?” she asked. 

Surprised, I said I would. Many hoarders, in my experience, put off  inviting therapists to their homes, opting to just show pictures of their troubles. 

Several days later I arrived at Brenda’s house, a small ranch style with a surprisingly well kept front yard. No visible signs of clutter were about. The curtains, stained and yellowed, were closed.

There was an old rusted Buick parked in the driveway near the garage where cobwebs had found a home. I’d neglected getting much information from Brenda, so I was walking cold into her situation. My mistake. 

I knocked on the door. Moments later, the door cracked open, the guard chain still attached. 

“Brenda,” I said, looking down at the white haired, diminutive, what appeared to be octogenarian. 

“Yes. You are Dr. Mcgee?”

 “Not, doctor, just Mike.” She opened the door. I stepped inside to a bolt of cat urine and mixture of something else, possibly vinegar.

Those who hoard animals have Noah Syndrome.The name likely relates to the Genesis story about the gathering of animals for the Arc. 

Animal hoarders are a subtype in the hoarding family. And hard to treat. 

I saw no felines about. But Brenda had other troubles too. 

My nostrils began to sting from the stench, which I tried to disguise the best I could. A covid mask would have helped. Brenda seemed unaffected. She was nose blind. My guess, the cats had the run of the place.  

Brenda jumped right in. “I want to get this cleared up before I go,” she said, gesturing behind her, at a living room of floor-to-ceiling stacks of newspapers, not elaborating on ‘before I go’. “Can you help me?” Her voice was more energetic than on the phone.

Paper cups, dirty dishes pasted in caked-on food, a garden hose, an assortment of hammers and a scattered selection of ceramic curios, lay on the newspapers, all left like abandoned vehicles. A fire hazard no doubt.   

A makeshift narrow aisle separated one large stack from another. Beyond the living room there was a hallway where it appeared more papers were stacked. The floor was hardwood the best I could tell.

Her age, and the severity of the trouble I was witnessing made my answer to her question “Can you help me,” a “No.” But I kept the comment to myself. 

I said, with a light chuckle, “You certainly have a lot of newspapers, Brenda.” Sneeze. 

“Yes,” she said, pointing me to a chair, next to a white stained couch, a likely potty place for her cats. It encroached on the kitchen which was home for more papers, magazines and hard covered books. 

Boxes of detergent, mostly TIDE, lay on the kitchen counter top. Near the sink there was a rack with clean dishes in it.

Brenda sat on the arm of the couch. Oddly, she appeared well scrubbed. Her off-white flower covered dress was clean. Her hair and fingernails were well cared for.  

Another sneeze. Then another. I wasn't sure how long I could last. 

Momentary silence, then, ”Do you take medicaid, or medicare?” 

I told her I didn’t. But I gave her the amount of my session fee. “That’s reasonable. But I will need help from my daughter.”

Another sneeze. I wasn’t making a good impression for this person in distress. “Not to worry,” I said about my fee. 

I asked Brenda the dates of her oldest papers, figuring she kept them due to some personal need. 

People hoard, Gayle Skeketee said, for aesthetic, instrumental or sentimental reasons. The unconscious struggles with loss and loneliness often were at the gut of their emotionality.

“The oldest one goes back to the late 1800s,” she said, nodding toward the back of the living room near a window in dire need of cleaning. “My daddy was a publisher of a small paper and I have all his writings.”

I asked her the name of the paper and town. She said the newspaper no longer existed.  

My thinking, at least about dad’s newspaper, was that Brenda couldn’t part with his papers for sentimental reasons. 

Sneeze. “I am sorry,” Brenda said. "This is very stressful for you. I should have come into your office.”

Another sneeze. “My daughter took all the cats. You're allergic to them. She found homes for them, except for Porridge and Boo. They’re around here some place.”  

I smiled off another sneeze, knowing it wasn’t any allergy to cats, in fact I’d had cats for decades. It was the putrid smell. Brenda’s nose blindness made her oblivious to the rank odor around her. I needed to somehow make a graceful exit, even though I’d just arrived, but leave her with some hope.

Brenda stared hopelessly at the sea of clutter. “I just don’t know what to do.”   

I asked if she’d ever worked with someone about her situation. She said she did talk to someone, once, but she didn’t keep her appointments up with the person. I told Brenda, the trick is to begin with something doable and simple; realizing for a hoarder the simplest task of discarding something acquired, is easier said than done.    

“So, Brenda, for starters, can you make a list of the newspapers which are treasures?” I explained that the objective is to separate items into treasures, trash and things to give away. I guessed Brenda believed all her papers were treasures of some kind. “ I don’t expect you to look at the papers. Please don’t. My guess is you want to keep your daddy’s.” 

She got up. From underneath a stack right in front of us and pulled out a legal pad as if to take notes. “Yes. I can do that,” she said. She looked at the back wall, toward where her father’s papers were. 

Sneeze. “I bet you know where his stacks begin. Make sense?” 

“Oh. Yes. And then am I to call you?”

“Yes. Or, I’ll call you. How about that?”

Sneeze. I was near the front door. I hadn’t taken a gander at all of the house, realizing it was likely as in bad shape as the living room. 

I continued inquiring about her life. The death of husband some twenty years earlier, the father of her two daughters who lived 125 miles away in St.Louis. Brenda herself was a former librarian and once an active reader who entertained her book clubs at her home. She had hoped to one day have her house presentable enough to hold book club meetings again. 

“I think I need to take care of this sneezing,” I said, the stench getting the best of me. 

“Oh, thank you,” she said. 

I opened the door to fresh air, feeling defeated, guilty about my exit. “So, start with that list. Remember this is just your treasure list.” I knew Brenda would need help with making her list. That in itself would be a monumental task. 

She profusely thanked me again, even though my stay was only for a half an hour, apologizing for making my allergies to felines act up. 

I sat in my jeep. I thought I saw her peek out of the curtains. She was likely housebound, another characteristic of a hoarder. Her profile was similar to other hoarders, older, living alone and in dire need of a magic formula to get her out of her fix. A fix for a trauma which had started long ago. 

I didn’t know my next step. 

Several days later, I got a reprieve of sorts. Brenda’s daughter called me and said she had decided to move her mother in with her. Brenda had consented. The daughter said Brenda told her about our meeting and that the family would make sure to take the old papers of archival value along with the two cats.

She said she'd found a cleaning service who specializes in cleaning and clearing out homes where hoarders live. I was cautious of those services because some stormtroop in with little regard for the hoarder’s feelings.   

“I know, you will be sensitive to your mom’s condition,” I said to the daughter. “And make sure she keeps those items which she feels are her treasure.”  

The daughter assured me she would. 

Of the reasons people hoard, I find discarding items which have a sentimental value the hardest nut to crack. Deep emotions are attached to items, which to a reasonable person would seem trivial.

The little girl Gayle Skeketee treated for lint on her coat is now a woman. I wonder if she’d reckoned with her hoarding.

From time to time I drive by Brenda’s old house. The Buick is gone. The yard seems tended to. If she hasn’t passed on, hopefully Brenda is living her days without clutter. And with a few, very few, of those old newspapers. 

Brenda’s name is fictitious.

For more information about hoarding contact: The International Obsessive Compulsive Foundation ( IOCDF).