Hoarding is for Humans
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| Image from hoarderhelpline.com |
For
the first time in many years, Josette Buchman entered her sister-in-law’s home and
discovered a fully-clothed skeleton lying face-up on a bedroom floor. Josette was there to get some things for Rita,
her blind sister-in-law who had earlier been rushed to
the hospital. The authorities indicated
that the deceased had died of natural causes and was assumed to be Rita’s son Louis, who disappeared 20 years ago at the age of 29. The police said the bedroom looked like “a
garbage truck had dumped its load.”
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| Image from wordpress.com |
The
most well-known hoarders were of course the Collyer brothers of New York City
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| Image from pinterest.com |
In 1928 all utilities were cut off for good due to the brothers' failure to pay their bills. In 1939 the media reported that a thousand people watched as Con Edison forced their way into the house to remove two gas meters shut off ten years earlier. This eventually led to a punchline delivered by Ed Norton on The Honeymooners twenty years later. An in-joke that Jackie Gleason's writers inserted that was only understood by New Yorkers.
In 1942 reporters were on hand when a clean up crew arrived at the home as part of an eviction process brought on by three years with no mortgage payments. Police efforts to enter the brownstone were stymied when they forced open the front door to find the entry way crammed floor to ceiling with debris. The confrontation ended when Langley wrote a check on the spot to pay off the balance (equivalent to $97,000 in 2015 dollars).
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| Langley Collyer; image from pinterest.com |
One factor contributing to their behavior was Homer's loss of sight and other health issues which Langley chose to respond to as a 24/7 caregiver. The declining neighborhood also had an impact. The house was a constant target of vandals and repeated breakin attempts. Langley used his engineering background to devise a complex system of trip wires, booby traps and tunnels among the trash and contents that filled the house. The brothers resided in small clearings amid the debris. Langley would exit the house only after midnight to get water from a nearby park. On these early morning excursions he would also collect food discarded by grocers and butchers as well as any found items that captured his fancy. When asked by an interviewer about the piles of newspapers that were pressed up against the windows, Langley said he was saving them for Homer to read when he regained his sight.
In March of 1947, an anonymous call came into the 122nd Police Precinct insisting there was a dead body inside the Collyer brothers' home. A team of seven officers was dispatched to the home and spent half a day before they were able to enter the home by means of a 2nd-story window and find Homer's body in an alcove formed by boxes and other items. The medical examiner indicated that Homer, aged 66, had died the previous day of starvation and heart disease.
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| Image from notamystery.com |
The initial theory was that Langley had made the anonymous call and sightings by the public led the police to pursue these reports in nine states. A daily crowd of a couple of thousand watched as police continued to remove the contents of the brownstone over the next few weeks. Items included baby carriages, rusted bicycles, old food,
potato peelers, guns, glass chandeliers, bowling balls, cameras, the top of a horse-drawn carriage, dressmaking
dummies, paintings, photos, plaster busts, rusty bed springs, a kerosene stove, 25,000 books, human organs pickled in jars, eight live cats, a Model T chassis, tapestries, fabrics, clocks, fourteen pianos, two organs, banjos, violins, bugles, accordions, countless bundles of newspapers and magazines, thousands of bottles and tin cans and a great deal of
garbage.
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| Image from wordpress.com |
Seventeen days later the body of Langley Collyer, age 62, was discovered ten feet from where his brother had been found. The medical examiner determined that Langley had died a few days before his brother while crawling through a tunnel to bring food to Homer. He had accidentally sprung one of the traps he had installed, bringing down a mountain of stuff on himself and dying of asphyxiation. The brownstone had to be demolished and was replaced by a pocket park named for the Collyers that remains to this day.
Some types of rodents and birds stash food away for the winter but humans are the only animal known to accumulate massive amounts of stuff totally unnecessary for survival in any way. In The Descent of Man, Darwin stated that without continuous severe struggle mankind would "sink into indolence." Perhaps the improvements in the standard of living are contributing to what seems to be an epidemic of hoarding among humans of the western world. The emergence of the self-storage industry is evidence of the widespread nature of this disorder. Add to this the NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) made up of thousands of certified consultants who earn their living by advising others on how to deal with all of their stuff.
One of the best known of these professional organizers is Marie Kondo, the author of The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up - The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Her tiny book which claims to transform your life has sold over six million copies and has been on the bestseller list going on two years. Her book, lectures and training seminars are all aimed at moving hoarders to the other end of the spectrum, toward minimalism. Her picture on the back cover of her book says it all. She is seated, nicely dressed but simple. Sparse make up and jewelry with her hands relaxed and resting on a bare table in front of her. The table and the cubicles behind her are so white and clean that the sheer brightness bouncing off of them blurs the photo. Other than her hands the table is empty as are the cubicles behind her save three slim books, a picture frame and one small doodad I can't identify as it is obscured by the glare.
Perhaps it is east versus west, or female versus male, but I couldn't get past the first few pages. Marie presents a process that begins with getting rid of things and then covers techniques for organizing and storing the remains. I immediately wanted to know why she herself had not thrown out the cubicles in the photo since she was obviously not using them for anything.
Her process begins with categorizing your belongings as clothing, books, papers and such, before picking through them and deciding what to discard. Her suggested categories and sub categories (clothing was composed of nine sub categories) were the first of many signs that she is obviously over-the-top OCD. Her instructions for clothing were to place all items on the floor and then to pick up, handle and decide whether to keep each item one by one. She was adamant that every single piece of clothing you owned go onto the floor. She insisted that every drawer, cupboard and closet be opened and searched. This baffled me. Does this mean she expects clothing on the floor to be a novelty? Does she really expect all clothing to be in drawers and closets? If you're serious about this how about under and behind furniture; under towels and rugs, on top of or in the washer, dryer and laundry hamper; the garage and cars; patio and backyard?
When all clothing has been collected and strewn on the floor, she advises beginning with "seasonal" clothing. I assume this means the jacket my sister-in-law gave me. You are directed to handle and evaluate each item with this test: "Will this bring joy if I keep it as part of my life?" This seemed to me to be a lot to ask of a pair of socks.
I was most puzzled by her concern that you would be inclined to hang on to clothing if it was still usable "especially if you bought it yourself." First of all, as far as I know, excluding the jacket from my sister-in-law, no other person is buying my clothes. Secondly, like any other normal person I would never dump the jacket from my sister-in-law before any of the rubbish I bought.
Eventually Marie goes into extensive detail, including visuals, recommending techniques for storing the items that you have determined "spark joy." This is where I had to put the book down and it probably wasn't in a place that Marie would have advised.
Here's my test for anyone other than Marie. Let's say you were in someone's house. Perhaps the house of a neighbor, an acquaintance or anyone other than a member of your own family. If we can avoid dwelling on what would lead to you opening a drawer in this person's bedroom, what would be your reaction to finding things laid out as shown in the adjacent photo? The proper response by anyone other than Marie would be complete terror. Anyone with drawers like this has sex slaves chained to a basement wall, get the hell out of there and notify the authorities.
Nothing personal Marie, but I'd rather live in North Korea.
Some types of rodents and birds stash food away for the winter but humans are the only animal known to accumulate massive amounts of stuff totally unnecessary for survival in any way. In The Descent of Man, Darwin stated that without continuous severe struggle mankind would "sink into indolence." Perhaps the improvements in the standard of living are contributing to what seems to be an epidemic of hoarding among humans of the western world. The emergence of the self-storage industry is evidence of the widespread nature of this disorder. Add to this the NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) made up of thousands of certified consultants who earn their living by advising others on how to deal with all of their stuff.
Perhaps it is east versus west, or female versus male, but I couldn't get past the first few pages. Marie presents a process that begins with getting rid of things and then covers techniques for organizing and storing the remains. I immediately wanted to know why she herself had not thrown out the cubicles in the photo since she was obviously not using them for anything.
Her process begins with categorizing your belongings as clothing, books, papers and such, before picking through them and deciding what to discard. Her suggested categories and sub categories (clothing was composed of nine sub categories) were the first of many signs that she is obviously over-the-top OCD. Her instructions for clothing were to place all items on the floor and then to pick up, handle and decide whether to keep each item one by one. She was adamant that every single piece of clothing you owned go onto the floor. She insisted that every drawer, cupboard and closet be opened and searched. This baffled me. Does this mean she expects clothing on the floor to be a novelty? Does she really expect all clothing to be in drawers and closets? If you're serious about this how about under and behind furniture; under towels and rugs, on top of or in the washer, dryer and laundry hamper; the garage and cars; patio and backyard?
When all clothing has been collected and strewn on the floor, she advises beginning with "seasonal" clothing. I assume this means the jacket my sister-in-law gave me. You are directed to handle and evaluate each item with this test: "Will this bring joy if I keep it as part of my life?" This seemed to me to be a lot to ask of a pair of socks.
I was most puzzled by her concern that you would be inclined to hang on to clothing if it was still usable "especially if you bought it yourself." First of all, as far as I know, excluding the jacket from my sister-in-law, no other person is buying my clothes. Secondly, like any other normal person I would never dump the jacket from my sister-in-law before any of the rubbish I bought.
Here's my test for anyone other than Marie. Let's say you were in someone's house. Perhaps the house of a neighbor, an acquaintance or anyone other than a member of your own family. If we can avoid dwelling on what would lead to you opening a drawer in this person's bedroom, what would be your reaction to finding things laid out as shown in the adjacent photo? The proper response by anyone other than Marie would be complete terror. Anyone with drawers like this has sex slaves chained to a basement wall, get the hell out of there and notify the authorities.
Nothing personal Marie, but I'd rather live in North Korea.