Condo Media - May 2017 - 25

unit, but it had no impact on the first,
who also ignored a strongly worded letter from the association's attorney. The
situation was resolved without court action (which the board wanted to avoid),
when a relative the woman had listed as
an emergency contact stepped in. She
hired a cleaning service that threw away
some of the possessions, stored others,
and brought the unit into compliance.
And did the owner maintain the unit
after that?
Followup wasn't an issue here,
McNabb says, because "fortunately, the
owner moved out about a year later."
Had she remained, Matthews says,
the hoarding cycle would almost
certainly have been repeated. Clutter
is a symptom of an underlying disease,
she explains, and removing the clutter
doesn't eliminate the problem that
caused it. She likens it to an iceberg.
"You only see 20 percent of it above the
surface; but it was the 80 percent below
that sank the Titanic."
For those who don't understand the
disorder, Matthews acknowledges, the
solution to a hoarding situation seems
simple: "Just throw the clutter away."
But someone with a hoarding disorder
"can't just throw everything away,"
she says. Some have what is known
as "clutter blindness"-the risks apparent to others are invisible to them.
Even if they perceive the problem,
Matthews notes, they aren't able to
deal with it. "They may say they will
take care of it, and they mean it," she
notes, "but they can't."
WHAT NOT TO DO
So what should associations do when
they confront a hoarding situation? The
more important question, Matthews
suggests, is what should they not do.
Aggressive intervention ("we're going
to do this for you if you won't do it yourself") is probably the "least effective"
response "and one of the most damaging things you can do."
Trauma is both a major cause of hoarding behavior and a trigger that can exacerbate the behavior. The "full clean-out"
initiated by the relative in McNabb's ex-

ample would be extremely traumatic for
a hoarding sufferer, Matthews says, and
could make an existing hoarding situation
even worse. "You've created a [potential]
hoarding trigger, but you haven't taught
the skills and strategies the person needs
to manage their condition."
There are legal as well psychological
arguments against aggressive intervention by a condominium board, observes
Matthew Gaines, a partner with Marcus,
Errico, Emmer & Brooks. "You can't just
storm the gates," he cautions. A board
would need a court order before doing
anything inside an owner's unit.
In dealing with a hoarding situation,
"You want to be proactive" Gaines suggests. "You want to smell it out, literally
and figuratively, before it gets too bad."
But at the same time, he emphasizes,
boards have to recognize that hoarding
"is a severe mental condition. You have
to treat owners suffering from it [sensitively] and with respect."

"People don't choose to
live this way."
-Marnie Matthews,
Clinical Specialist in Hoarding
One thing boards should not do is fine
owners who fail to respond to a board
order to de-clutter their home. "Fines
won't make the disability disappear,"
Gaines notes, and boards levying them
would be "flirting with discrimination.
They would be punishing someone for
having a disability."
FAIR HOUSING IMPLICATIONS
Because hoarding meets the definition of an emotional disability under
both federal and state Fair Housing
laws, boards may be required to offer
a reasonable accommodation for it,
and it's not clear what that might be.
Some attorneys fear a court might

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May 2017

Condo Media - May 2017

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