Part One
The subject of ongoing curiosity, at least two reality TV shows, and the character of Oscar the Grouch, hoarders are again in the spotlight after a recent article in the Globe and Mail about a BC landlord who evicted a hoarding tenant.
Members often call into the office, identifying their tenants as hoarders. But, unless that landlord's day job is to diagnose mental illnesses, how does s/he know that the tenant has this disorder? The term "hoarder" has become yet another word that is now commonplace in our industry, such as "renoviction" and "slumlord." So how do you assess whether or not your tenant is a real life hoarder, or a simple, every-day collector of stuff?
The Definition
While there is no clear definition of compulsive hoarding in diagnostic criteria, the most suitable description would be "the excessive acquisition of possessions (and failure to use or discard them), even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary." There is emerging evidence from mental health professionals that compulsive hoarding is, in fact, a mental illness. Having said that, it would still be difficult to establish whether your tenant could actually have this mental illness, or simply has a large amount of possessions. Dr. Front, a Smith College psychology professor, made a good observation: "When the accumulation of stuff interferes with their ability to live, or causes significant distress; that's the breaking point between hoarding as a [chosen] behavior, and hoarding as a disorder."
Quoted in the above article, Dr. Frost describes several varieties of hoarders: there’s the info junkie who stockpiles documents, the guilt-ridden collector who hates to waste anything, and another who feels an intense, emotional attachment to possessions. Objects are of great value to hoarders - even when they appear to be junk, and they fear losing a part of themselves along with a discarded item.
--Carly Ludwar
