TYPES OF HOARDERS

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TYPES OF HOARDERS

Hoarders 911 has nearly 3 decades of experience helping hoarders reclaim their lives. While all hoarders share some common symptoms, understanding the different types of hoarders enables us to create a personally-tailored solution for each individual case. Providing our hoarding cleanup team, and our customers, with this information is part of our commitment to a comprehensive and compassionate service.

Animal Hoarders

Animal Hoarders

When someone’s love for animals causes them to take on more pets than they can reasonably care for, there can be serious health risks and legal issues. Feeding and tending to all those animals’ needs can be expensive, and not keeping up with it can result with pets becoming ill. The high volume of pets can also cause damage to the home.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Failure to provide basic nutritional and sanitary care for pets
  2. Unable to recognize the negative effects on the pets well-being
  3. Compulsively brings animals into home despite worsening conditions
  4. Amount of pets accumulated often leads to the animal’s neglect
Compulsive Collectors
Compulsive Collectors

While there is no one particular object that defines compulsive collecting, anybody who obsessively acquires items in a way that impedes their welfare can be considered. The collecting is usually done impulsively, often as a coping mechanism or because of an unhealthy sentimental attachment to a specific thing. Compulsive collecting can be a symptom of an underlying mental illness such as depression or OCD.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Items collected are in disarray, causing overwhelming and hazardous clutter
  2. Experiences great distress when discarding items, or an inability to throw things away
  3. Strong urges to collect, regardless of the items use or value
  4. Cannot control impulses to acquire new things, despite diminished quality of life

Compulsive Shoppers

Compulsive Shoppers

For some, shopping can be a fun recreational activity, but for compulsive shoppers it can be a dangerously uncontrollable habit. A shopping addiction can lead to credit card debt and other financial trouble. Even those who limit themselves to bargain hunting can run into trouble by impulse-buying things they do not need.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Unable to control the urge to make purchases, especially on unneeded items
  2. Exhibits disappointment in their shopping behavior, but cannot stop
  3. Often having financial difficulties due to uncontrollable shopping
  4. Obsessively researches online shops for items they are attached to
Our Heavy Duty Cleaning service

For almost 3 decades, Hoarders911 Clutter Cleaning has been the leading heavy duty cleaning company in New York. Watch the video and understand how we work and what is our approach in dealing with hoarding condition.

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Food Hoarders

Food Hoarders

An obsession for storing food could be a coping mechanism as a result of trauma, or a desire to not be wasteful. However the urge to collect food for survival can extend far beyond what is healthy. Hoarding food, especially when expired, can expose the entire household to physical illness.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Obsessively collects and stores food beyond what can be reasonably consumed
  2. Difficulty or inability to discard food past its expiration date
  3. Stealing food, or stashing it out of fear of starvation even when food is available
  4. Collection of food overflowing and making spaces in the home unusable
Information Hoarders
Information Hoarders

An information hoarder will compulsively collect any material where information can be found. This can be in the form of books, pamphlets, old receipts or tax returns, recipes, business cards, magazine tears, or even video tapes. The information will usually be kept without ever being referred to again. Unfortunately, the extreme clutter caused by the large stacks of paper can be a fire hazard.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. A strong, irrational fear that the information will be unavailable if it is ever needed again
  2. Struggles to part with outdated paper items, such as old calendars
  3. Lack of willingness to discard unused materials even when not being used
  4. Unable to sort the stored information in a way that will make it accessible
Mail Hoarders
Mail Hoarders

While information hoarders collect a variety of paper products, mail hoarders specifically collect items they receive in the mail and hold them for future use. Items can include old, outdated bills, coupons past their expiration date, and greeting cards. Often, the clutter caused by the overwhelming amount of mail will cause items to become lost and not usable, and can result in a fire hazard as well. But, that will not stop a mail hoarder from collecting.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Inability to differentiate between important mail and junk mail
  2. Severe clutter that prevents access to the mail being stored for future use
  3. Sentimental attachments causes difficulty throwing stored mail away
  4. Obsessive belief that they will need the mail in the future
Hoarders 911 uses an innovative 7-Step Solution that allows us to develop personalized solutions to your exact needs – no matter what. Our tried and true methods include clutter cleanup and junk removal all the way to handyman repairs. We are a one stop shop for all of your heavy duty cleaning needs
Step-2 Clutter Cleanup & Junk Removal
Our team will work with you directly to help get you organized and clean out clutter. By doing this in the beginning, we maximize our ability to sanitize and restore your home. We will never make a decision about your personal belongings without you. Once all the clutter has been sorted through, the Hoarders 911 trained professionals will pack up your unwanted items and discreetly remove them from your home.
Step-3 Professional Organization
After the junk removal process, we will ensure that any items that you decided to keep will be given a permanent place in your home. This step reduces the likelihood of clutter developing in the future, and helps to restore functionality to your home.
Step-4 Pest Extermination
Should any unwanted pests such as bed bugs be discovered during the clutter removal, our extermination team will work swiftly to ensure the pest situation is mitigated before moving forward with the restoration.
Step-5 Paint, Repair, and Handyman Services
Often during a heavy duty cleanup, it is ideal to freshen up the home. We come prepared to execute minor repairs such as patching up holes left by wear and tear and providing a fresh coat of paint to make your home look good as new.
Step-6 Restoration and Constructions
If your home has sustained more severe structural damage, our experts will work with you to create a more in-depth solution to restore your home and leave lasting results.
Step 7 Heavy Duty Cleaning
During the final stage of our service, the Hoarders 911 team will clean every nook and cranny of your home from top to bottom. This last step is a highly detailed process that fully transforms your home.
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Miscellaneous Hoarders

Miscellaneous Hoarders

Similarly to compulsive collectors, miscellaneous hoarders can amass a wide assortment of objects. There is often not a cohesive collection, but instead a large array of stored objects that are not necessarily needed by the household. Homes can be filled to the rafters with anything from clothes, to postage stamps, to power tools. For miscellaneous hoarders, the act of collecting itself is the focus more than what is being collected.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Unwilling to throw things away, even when they are broken or duplicated
  2. Overwhelming clutter causing parts of the home to be unusable
  3. Keeps and acquires things obsessively, whether they will be used or not
  4. No storage space in home – overflowing cabinets, closets, and garbage cans
Trash Hoarders
Trash Hoarders

Syllogomania, more commonly known as trash hoarding, is a condition that causes people to stash and store items that should be discarded. Examples of items kept by trash hoarders would be packing materials, old food containers, broken furniture, or perishable items that have expired. Trash hoarders might be suffering from Diogenes Syndrome or other mental health issues that can result in severe self-neglect.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Extreme disposophobia, unable or unwilling to throw away trash that has piled up
  2. Avoidant of visitors due embarrassment or shame of living conditions
  3. Large compilation of unusable items that may be hazardous to the health
  4. Piled up trash is overwhelming and causes slight to severe odor in the home
Recycling Hoarders
Recycling Hoarders

Recycling hoarders tend to collect trash with good intentions. They will stockpile old paper, empty bottles, and used boxes in order to take them all to a recycling facility to dispose of at once. Unfortunately, the plans always seem to fall through and the recycling trash accumulates. Hoarding recyclables can lead to dangerous levels of clutter, and unsanitary conditions in the home. Over time, the collection of recycling items will grow beyond a single person’s ability to manage, sort, and dispose of everything.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Exhibits disposophobia towards recyclables, stockpiling them for the future
  2. Clutter from recycling hoard blocks off rooms, or becomes hazardous
  3. Recyclables accumulated too much to be sorted and transported easily
  4. Overflow of recycling cache in multiple parts of the home

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Hiding Hoarders
Hiding Hoarders

The storage and caching of items can make hiding hoarders a little less obvious to diagnose, however the strong impulse to compulsively collect is still there. This type of hoarder will try to stash their collections out of sight, sometimes out of embarrassment or an obsession with keeping their belongings safe from outsiders. Items will often be hidden in unusual places that do not compliment the function of the item being stored.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Feels a sense of security from hiding their personal belongings regardless of their use
  2. Strong obsession to collect and store items hidden away in secrecy
  3. An intense avoidance of throwing things away even when they serve no purpose
  4. Distressed by personal possessions being seen by others

Diogenes Sufferers

Diogenes Sufferers

Patients diagnosed with Diogenes Syndrome experience severely deteriorated mental health that often causes them to live in isolation. The disorder is characterized by a deteriorated quality of life that is a result of extreme self-neglect. Diogenes Syndrome sufferers often compulsively collect, and show symptoms of syllogomania. Because they cut themselves off from social interaction, it is often difficult for sufferers to get help.

CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Intense distrust for others that results in self-isolation
  2. Obsessively hoards trash and other items, causing sufferer to live in squalor
  3. Poor coping mechanisms and self-care, putting health and wellbeing at risk
  4. Extreme depression, withdrawal, and apathy towards quality of life