Condo Media - May 2017 - 22

Clutter Blindness
The clinical definition of hoarding
has three components, explains Marnie
Matthews, MSW, LCSW, a clinical
specialist in hoarding, who heads the
North Shore Center for Hoarding and
Cluttering:

1
2
3

Excessive attachment to possessions. "It's not the volume of
'stuff,'" she emphasizes. "It's the
attachment to it."
Clutter so excessive that dwelling spaces can't be used for their
intended purposes.

Some additional level of social,
medical, or emotional distress.
"People with hoarding disorder
overwhelmingly have some other type
of mental health issue," Matthews says.
"Sixty percent suffer from depressive
disorder, 30 percent have anxiety issues
or anxiety disorder, and another 30 percent have ADD. Most have a combination of some or all of these," she notes.

A DISABILITY, NOT A CHOICE
People who base their understanding
of hoarding on the reality television
show featuring it have the wrong idea,
Matthews says. Contrary to many of
the situations profiled there, "people
who suffer from hoarding disorder
aren't lazy or dirty" or living in squalid
conditions. "Ninety-five percent of our
clients are nothing like that," she says.
Research suggests, and her experience
confirms, "they have above average
education levels and higher IQs, are creative and overwhelmingly perfectionist.
Hoarding isn't a lifestyle choice," she
emphasizes. "People don't choose to
live this way."
Health care experts estimate that
from 2 percent to 6 percent of the
population suffers from hoarding
disorder, but Matthews thinks that
"seriously understates" the prevalence
of the problem. People who have the
condition don't self-report, she notes,
and many hoarding situations aren't
discovered.
Hoarding behavior doesn't develop
overnight, she emphasizes. The condition is "chronic and progressive,"
usually triggered by a traumatic event
or a series of traumatic events. By the
time it is discovered, the condition has
been evolving, and possessions have
been accumulating, over a long period
of time.
That's the situation condominium
associations are likely to confront. "A
hoarding situation in a single-family
home is troubling enough," notes Jared
McNabb, CMCA, PCAM, general manager at the Brook House. "In a condo-

minium, it takes on a totally different
dynamic. "You're not just dealing with
behavior inside an owner's unit that
may be endangering that individual.
You're dealing with a situation that
could also endanger the people living
around them and perhaps the entire
community."
Managing a hoarding situation is
every bit as complicated as the disorder
itself, McNabb says. It requires "diplomacy, delicacy" and sensitivity both to
the owner suffering from the disorder
and to the needs of other residents of
the community who are affected by the
owner's behavior.
He speaks from firsthand experience at two condominiums he
managed before the Brook House.
In one, a manager investigating the
source of a water leak found "horrid
conditions," including mounds of
garbage that had produced a vermin
infestation. In the other, the owner's
unit was "clean," McNabb says, and
the accumulated papers, books, and
boxes filling the unit were "piled
neatly"-but they completely blocked
every doorway. "There was no way
emergency personnel could get in or
get her out."
DIPLOMACY AND
SENSITIVITY ESSENTIAL
In both cases, the association first
contacted the owners personally and
asked them to address the problem.
Formal letters followed, noting the association's authority to act if the owners
didn't. That was enough to motivate
the second owner, who de-cluttered her

"You're not just dealing with behavior inside an
owner's unit that may be endangering that individual. You're dealing with a situation that could
also endanger the people living around them and
perhaps the entire community."
-Jared McNabb, CMCA, PCAM, General Manager, Brook House

CONDOMEDIA

Condo Media - May 2017

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