Hoarding Disorder - How to Tell When There is a Problem

Hoarding disorder is a compulsive psychological condition which causes the individual to feel that everything around them or that they see should be saved or rescued, and is classified as a form of obsessive compulsive personality disorder. There is another type of hoarding disorder that is caused by delusional issues, where the person is completely out of touch with the world as we see it. These are quite serious and debilitating conditions, and require the expert and long term care of both a medical and psychological expert. Dealing with the messes and nests of those with hoarding disorder is a very painful and horrifying experience for the person inflicted, making the recovery process excruciating. Clean up and monitoring are both extremely important.

To view the home of a person with hoarding disorder can be a difficult and often unsanitary thing to deal with as well. It is quite normal to see every corner, crevice, surface, and all floor space covered to the top with junk. Some hoarders are rather orderly with their presentation and storage of odds and ends, but this will eventually spill over into mayhem as well. It will become impossible for even the most meticulous hoarder to hide the disorder for too long, and any warning signs should be tended to right away. Again, this is not a condition of laziness or selfishness, this is a very real and serious mental condition which takes over easily and is difficult to overcome.

Hoarding disorder can be a dangerous and unsanitary condition to deal with as well, especially when litter, garbage, food, or animals are involved. Food hoarders are highly susceptible to invasions from bugs and wild animals, while animal hoarders are putting themselves and innocent living creatures at risk of ill health, starvation, over crowding, and death. Some victims of this disorder are a bit luckier in the obsession which chooses to take them over. Bibliomania is a form of hoarding disorder, for example, and because books are such a common and well loved thing to so many people, it can be considered normal for people to collect great numbers of them over the years. The absolute stock piling and storing of them until there is no room left in the cupboards, on the shelves, on the sofa, or along the walls on the floor is a great indication of an obsessive compulsive hoarding disorder.

When there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the things that a person is hanging onto, the hoarding disorder that they suffer is usually classified as the delusional type. This type of condition knows no logic or order, the person is just unable to see what's around them in a common on proper context. The disorder of this nature is basically a result of nothing ever leaving the home.