Hoarding

Explains what hoarding is, possible causes and how you can access treatment and support. Includes tips for helping someone who is hoarding, as well as helping yourself.

What is hoarding?

Hoarding is having so many things that you cannot manage the clutter where you live, and find it difficult or impossible to throw things away.

You might hoard because you feel a strong need to keep things. But your connection to these things can cause you distress. And the impact of hoarding can affect your day-to-day life.

Hoarding disorder is a mental health problem that a doctor can diagnose. But you might also experience hoarding as part of another mental or physical health problem.

If you hoard, you might:

• Feel the need to get more things, even if you have a lot already
• Have very strong positive feelings whenever you get more things
• Feel very upset or anxious at the thought of throwing or giving things away because of your emotional attachment to them
• Find it very hard to decide what to keep or get rid of
• Find it hard to organize your things
• Have so many things that you can't use parts of the place you live in – like not sleeping on the bed or using the sink
• Have lots of disagreements with the people close to you about your things
• Find it hard to pack for trips away, like a holiday – you might pack many more things than you really need, because you can't decide what's important.

“I tried to throw away things that I found on the floor, but couldn't because of emotional attachment. Whether it be for practical, sentimental or aesthetic reasoning, I couldn't do it.”

Why might I hoard?

Many of us have belongings we consider special and things we save. But this is different from hoarding. When you hoard, it's because you might have emotional connections or beliefs about all your things. This makes it very hard to get rid of anything.

For example, you might believe the following:

• You need to keep items 'just in case'. Even if it's been a long time since you last used the item or if you've never used it at all.
• You'll forget important information or memories if you throw things away.
• You won't cope with how you'll feel if you throw things away.
• Throwing things away will harm other people or the environment.
• If you throw anything away, you are being wasteful.
• You should arrange or dispose of things perfectly, or not at all.
• Your things make you feel happy or keep you safe.
• Your things are all unique and special, even if they're very similar.
• You simply need more storage space, or more time to sort your things out.

Lots of us share some of these beliefs about certain belongings. But we don't feel as strongly about them. And we don't experience these beliefs and feelings as part of hoarding.

Other types of hoarding

Hoarding does not only involve keeping objects in the place you live. There are other types which you might not recognise as hoarding at first. But they can make you feel the same way, for the same reasons.

Digital hoarding

Digital hoarding is when you make and keep a large number of digital files. Deleting files can cause you the same distress that other people who hoard might feel around physical objects. And you may want to keep these files for similar reasons.

It might involve buying multiple hard drives and devices, or using cloud storage or other software to keep the files. The types of files can include:

• Photos and videos
• Documents, such as Word files or spreadsheets
• Emails
• Texts or chat messages

You might experience digital hoarding on its own, or along with hoarding physical objects. You might keep a digital record of things you hoard physically. For example, by typing up an index.

Digital hoarding might start out as a way to reduce physical hoarding. For example, you might start taking pictures of objects instead of buying them. But you might end up causing similar problems as physical hoarding.

Animal hoarding

Animal hoarding is when you keep too many animals to provide proper care for. You might have trouble noticing that this lack of care causes harm to the animals. This could include the animals not having:

• Food
• Shelter
• Enough space to exercise and stay healthy
• Vets or medical care
• Clean environments
• Safe breeding environments

To class your behaviour as animal hoarding, you don't need to have a set number of animals. It's more about how you get the animals and how you care for them.

You might experience animal hoarding on its own, or alongside other types of hoarding. Some of us might experience delusions, such as beliefs that animal rescue centers harm animals or can't look after them.

The reasons behind hoarding animals are very complicated. Those of us who hoard animals can often:

• Believe very strongly that we are saving the animals or have a duty to look after them.
• Have a very strong emotional connection to all the animals.
• Find it difficult to see that we are harming them, which can be very hurtful when people tell us we are.