Hoarding is a complex disorder that causes people to accumulate excessive amounts of possessions. This leads to cluttered living spaces that are often unsanitary and unusable. When family members or others attempt to clean up a hoarder’s home by throwing away their belongings, it can have serious consequences.
Why do hoarders accumulate so much stuff?
There are several factors that contribute to hoarding behavior:
- Strong emotional attachment to possessions – Hoarders often feel their things are an extension of themselves and get comfort from having them.
- Fear of losing information – Many hoarders worry they will need their papers, receipts, newspapers etc for future reference.
- Indecisiveness – Hoarders struggle with decision making and have trouble categorizing, organizing or prioritizing possessions.
- Avoidance – Sorting and discarding items can provoke extreme anxiety, so hoarders avoid the task.
These issues make it extremely difficult for hoarders to manage their possessions or discard anything at all. Professional help is usually required for them to declutter and organize their living space.
Hoarders often react negatively when others touch their possessions
Most hoarders have strong reactions if others attempt to clean up or throw away their possessions without permission. Common reactions include:
- Extreme anger and hostility
- Severe anxiety or panic
- Intense grief and despair
- Reclusive or avoidant behavior
- Refusing to cooperate or lashing out
This happens because hoarders develop deep emotional attachments to their belongings that non-hoarders struggle to understand. Having items discarded feels incredibly violating, distressing and traumatic to them, even if the items seem worthless.
Throwing away a hoarder’s things often backfires
Attempting to forcefully clean out a hoarder’s home, whether through a one-time purge or gradual decluttering, often does more harm than good. Common consequences include:
- The hoarder immediately reaccumulates the discarded items, sometimes even removing them from the garbage or dumpsters.
- The hoarding behaviors get worse, causing faster accumulation and higher clutter levels.
- It breeds resentment, destroys trust and strains relationships with family members.
- The hoarder’s anxiety reaches extreme levels and other mental health symptoms worsen.
This is because the root issues causing the hoarding have not been resolved. Forced cleanups typically provide only temporary superficial relief and the hoarding soon returns in full force.
Some decluttering tips when living with a hoarder
While forced cleanouts are not recommended, family members living with a hoarder can try more gradual decluttering by:
- Going slowly and tossing only a small number of items per week
- Starting with areas that will impact health and safety first
- Hiring a professional organizer to mediate and support
- Allowing the hoarder to oversee and approve each item being discarded
- Avoiding ultimatums about cleaning or threats to discard belongings
However, the best solution is to convince the hoarder to get professional help. Therapy and organizing assistance tailored for hoarding disorder are most effective.
Getting professional help for hoarding
Here are some professional services that can help manage hoarding behaviors:
| Service | How They Help |
|---|---|
| Cognitive Behavioral Therapy | Targets thought patterns around possessions and teaches skills to declutter |
| Support groups | Provides community and accountability for making progress |
| Professional organizers | Helps create decluttering and organizing systems tailored to hoarding |
| Clutter coaching | Provides motivational support and guidance through the decluttering process |
A specialized therapist can also prescribe medication for conditions like anxiety, depression or ADHD that often co-occur with hoarding. Multifaceted treatment addressing both the symptoms and root causes has been shown most effective for compulsive hoarding.
What happens when you clean a hoarder’s house without consent?
Sometimes well-meaning family members clean out or discard a hoarder’s possessions without permission in an attempt to force them to change. However, this almost always causes more harm than good by:
- Destroying trust – The hoarder feels violated and unable to trust loved ones.
- Increasing anxiety – Forced cleanouts are incredibly stressful and emotionally traumatic.
- Damaging relationships – Resentment strains family relationships and removes future support.
- Worsening symptoms – Anxiety reaches extreme levels, causing the hoarding to spiral out of control.
- Reaccumulation – The hoarder inevitably reclaims discarded items or rapidly accumulates replacements.
It fails to address the root causes fueling the hoarding behaviors. Forced cleanouts provide only an illusion of a solution and the hoarding soon returns to previous levels or gets even worse.
Is it illegal to throw away a hoarder’s stuff?
In most cases, throwing away a hoarder’s possessions without consent is legally considered destruction of property or theft. A hoarder could pursue civil or criminal charges against family members who discard their belongings without permission. However, authorities are reluctant to actually prosecute family over hoarding related conflicts except in extreme cases.
Getting consent before discarding a hoarder’s belongings
To avoid potential legal issues and emotional trauma, it is critical to get consent before removing a hoarder’s possessions. Some tips include:
- Make a contract outlining what can be discarded and by when.
- Obtain written or taped verbal permission before throwing items away.
- Review the decluttering plan regularly and adjust as needed.
- Work with a therapist or organizer to mediate and provide support.
- Offer to photograph items before discarding to ease anxiety.
- Start small and go slowly to avoid overwhelm.
With support and coping strategies, most hoarders can learn to let go of unneeded possessions. Patience and avoiding force is key in overcoming this challenging disorder.
Cleaning when the hoarder is away or incapacitated
Another common scenario is when the hoarder is temporarily absent, such as on vacation or in the hospital. Family members may use this as an opportunity to declutter behind their back.
Risks of secretly cleaning when the hoarder is away
Attempting to clean out a hoarder’s home in secret has many of the same risks as discarding items without consent:
- Extreme stress when returning home and seeing possessions missing
- Rapid reaccumulation to replace what was lost
- Severely strained trust and relationships
- Legal action if considered destruction of property
Secretly cleaning may temporarily improve conditions, but typically backfires by worsening overall hoarding behaviors once the person returns.
Cleaning tips for when a hoarder is incapacitated
In cases where a hoarder is seriously incapacitated and unable to grant consent, family may need to clean for health and safety reasons. Some tips include:
- Consult a social worker to ensure it does not violate laws.
- Document conditions with photos to demonstrate need.
- Keep any record of requests to clean up from landlords or authorities.
- Discard only what is necessary for safety and essential access.
- Work sensitively and have support in place for when they return.
With an incapacitated hoarder, cleaning should focus just on safety rather than fully decluttering. Their possessions still need to be respected as much as possible.
Providing aftercare following a hoarding cleanout
If extensive decluttering does occur, the hoarder will need adequate emotional support and aftercare, whether or not they consented. Recommendations include:
- Offer to store discarded items until they are ready.
- Provide reassurance and validation of their feelings.
- Arrange counseling and coaching to process the experience.
- Agree to go slowly and not discard more until they are ready.
- Assist organizing their remaining belongings.
With compassion and the right support, the hoarder can move forward while rebuilding trust and their ability to manage possessions. Ongoing therapy can also address underlying issues so relapse does not occur.
Conclusion
Hoarding disorder is a complex condition arising from emotional attachment, trauma, anxiety and other mental health symptoms. Forced cleanouts or discarding a hoarder’s possessions without consent often does far more harm than good. While family members may have good intentions, this approach destroys trust, increases distress and fails to treat root causes.
Professional help from mental health providers and organizers trained in hoarding is essential. They can provide specialized therapy, coaching and organizing assistance to help hoarders overcome trauma, manage emotions and slowly declutter in a healthy manner. With support, compassion and patience, recovery is possible.