I like how the answer is not go next door and offer to help your neighbor.
4
@Duffee you cannot help horder to clean up. It needs to be done through a professional.
10
@Duffee how? If you’ve never directly dealt with hoarder, how would you even know how to begin helping someone with their disorder?
Don’t think it’s simple as going over to offer a hand organizing or throwing things out.
7
@Duffee It's not their responsibility to take a month off work and clean out that safety hazard. risking mouse bites along the way.
6
I have encountered this issue in multiple cases that I have worked on this year. One thing this article fails to mention is that the hoarder can refuse services from APS which is the only organization that can help with the physical removal of clutter from an apartment. Other organizations like the Mental Health Association and In Home Support Services can provide classes and support groups for people with collecting problems, but cannot assist the tenant in removing items from their apartment. In cases like this, calling the Department of Public Health is almost never a good option, because this will give the landlord just cause to give the tenant a 30 day eviction notice.
4
Something called Advion worked wonders for me re: roaches. Mice, I dunno. Never had a huge problem with them. Also, diatomaceous earth at entry points can keep them out.
2
@With mice the old solution is the best: get a cat! JL Dixon, former urbanite
2
@JL Dixon, former urbanite
What makes me think that a hoarder isn't going to follow your advice?
And why should a next-door neighbor have to throw diatomaceous earth, not great for pets or children, into corners? Obviously, one has to mouse-proof a home: steel wool in holes, the sparkle and paint; clear glue under baseboards if there's a gap, thin long pieces of wood, along with painter's caulk, for larger gaps (covered, of course, with paint).
But the problem remains: The hoarder is a health hazard and a fire hazard to live next to.
2
I am a Mental Health professional and have encountered this issue several times.
If the individual in intractable and refuses to acknowledge the issue.
And if the disorder is creating risk of harm to self or others then the individual may meet the criteria for using the Mental Health Act.
In which case the individual can be compulsorily removed and taken to a place of treatment.
During that time the property can be accessed and cleaned.
I suggest that the neighbour contact mental health services in the first instance. They will then involve appropriate services for cleaning.
5
It is so nice to see an article that is not only very well written, but actually contains information AND links for said information/assistance. Thank you for trying to be part of the solution and not part of the problem by just running off at the mouth!
As for the tenants, I hope this is resolved soon. I’ve often wondered how this would affect someone an apartment/condo situation. A house about 10 houses down from ours belongs to a hoarder, and when we would walk down the street taking our evening stroll, you could actually smell the awful odor coming from the house. So I can only imagine being wall-to-wall with someone like that. (The way our city handled it is they kicked the guy out of the house, but the mess remains the same. No solution.)
3
I rent a condo and had the same issue with mice due to a neighbor/owner next door. As a renter my responsibility for pest control is walls in. The building management company is responsible for walls out.
So when I realized that I had a vermin issue I immediately had an extermination company come and assess the issue. They created a detailed report for my property management company/landlord (including pictures) of how the mice were entering the condo from areas outside, how mice were able to (and were) moving from my neighbor's attic space into mine, etc.
My extermination people then sealed up all interior openings between my condo and hoarder, laid traps, sprayed certain areas and so on.
My property management company then took the building management company to task and the building management company then dealt with the exterior issues and the attic issues.
Now I have no more issues.
6
@Denise Mills How much did this cost? It sounds expensive.
3
@landless
My dad did all the hole-plugging and cosmetic stuff himself when I was a baby, and he did it for my cousin when I was a young adult.
Not for mice, but for a moth infestation, I did it myself as a middle-aged person, and two floors at that of an old house. It doesn't take forever, it's not expensive. Moths hide beneath baseboards too, in the bit of dust the vacuum doesn't get, and then they fan out to devour the rugs and lay even more eggs underneath.
2
Have they tried talking to the neighbor?
3
I have a close family member with this problem — by that I mean she is a hoarder —and until her building was privatized and rich people moved in, there were no roaches, ever. Her stacks of papers and compulsively purchased gadgets were not attracting or producing vermin. Parentally subsidized potheads and flyover state coeds moved in and boom, roaches in the kitchen adjacent to these people. You need to think long and hard about the fact that that’s someone’s family member you’re taking action against and whom you could potentially make homeless. Can you please consider that? If you don’t like it, maybe you should move. Your neighbor certainly cannot. You are not more important than this person.
8
@ManhattanNYC so they should have to endure or move instead of the other person causing the problem?
15
@ManhattanNYC why should they have to move? Why do you think they can? If someone is filthy and unable to care for themself thats not their problem. They have a right to live in a rodent/pest free home. If that family cares so much maybe they should come care for their sick family member. Eifher way the filth is not ok and they have a right to their home being habitable
19
@ManhattanNYC
You cannot be serious. Do you really expect a person without disruptive habits to move and accommodate a disordered individual?
25
Ugh I had a similar situation - I was renting a place and soon after I arrived I saw roaches and mice. The building had exterminators, which i kept calling. They finally told me that they could keep coming, but the problem wouldn't likely get fixed until the hoarder next door got removed, as his apartment was disgusting and likely causing the problem (for me and the other surrounding neighbors). Yuck!
4
Why did the LW even mention "rent stabliized"? Rich as well as poor can be hoarders. I notice no-one from the Colyer Brothers neighborhood thought to write in,
8
Rent stabilized tenants are very hard to evict. A landlord could simply not renew the lease to a non rent stabilized; not the case with a rent stabilized unit. It may take years for this issue to be resolved.
28
@PrairieFlax "Rent-stabilized" tenants in a co-op have certain legal rights a regular tenant does not. It is an important variable in the LW's question. Also, rent-stabilized tenants are not necessarily poor, they can be rich.
22
Call the Fire Department, I am the victim of a shareholder neighbor that kept a Fire hazard apartment and despite the Board and managing company being notified for over 2 years, they did nothing and the full building ,60 other units were destroyed in a 3am fire , this was over 18 months ago and the building is still not rebuilt and 60 families are still displaced,
Amazingly couldn't find any lawyers interested ,
22
@escapefromyonkers Hoarding was one of the reasons that the Knightsbridge building in Fort Lee was destroyed in a fire.
Spray mint oil insecticide everywhere you see evidence of roaches. They hate the stuff. I used it once when roaches were coming into my apartment (not sure from where)--never saw one again.
7
@Bill Scurrah, I discovered by accident that Fabreeze original scent makes roaches keel over almost instantly. The nonaerosole is my preference. I personally am allergic to insecticides, the plastic roach traps are limitedly effective and in a 77 unit, 1960s-built NYC building there are always roach reservoirs, so I now keep the Fabreeze handy.
2
@carol goldstein if it works, a temporary fix. There is a bigger issue in play
4
@carol goldstein
Fabreeze makes me keel over too!
1
This happened to me. Adult protection services came by, said he was fine and left.
The man clearly has dementia and mental illnesses, his habits were a massive health issue for the entire building, which included around 8 children under the age of 6.
It has been an ongoing nightmare of rotting fish and cockroaches. This person has my deepest sympathies.
18
establish evidence before you potentially accuse an innocent person to be the reason for mice and roaches in your apartment.
4
MLW obviously already has the evidence
7
Take the hoarder to court; this is a health problem and simply ridiculous. Your board does not care about you or your wife just the $ in monthly maintenance costs; get real. After getting the building more fines (and who cares you should be exempt from them) hire the best attorney you can afford and put an end to this nonsense.
11
@Jan While it can be tempting to turn this into a legal issue, hoarding disorder is a mental health problem and can only be solved through professional help. Taking somebody with a mental illness to court will do nothing but make them feel more isolated and less likely to accept help. Labeling hoarding disorder as "simply ridiculous" perpetuates the rampant stigma that is currently holding back efforts to help this under-served and misunderstood population. Please attempt a little bit of compassion and rationality next time you decide to chime in on issues you may not fully understand.
1
From experience I can tell you your co-op's building may not be in compliance with its fire insurance. I would start with a call to the fire department then note the potential of liability for all the co-op residents. Even this may not get results if you have a weak board as I did. The reputation spread and impacted sales prices.
15
@poslug FDNY doesn't respond to hoarding as a fire hazard.
Extreme hoarding is a fire hazard in terms of fire loading and blocked access to living areas. Ask your local fire department for some guidance. None of the firefighters wants to find a body in the mess on a secondary search.
19
I've known several hoarders and the gentle approach didn't work on any of them. it's possible to be compassionate but firm. Getting the house cleaned up is the easiest part of the process. It takes a lot of therapy, support, and monitoring to keep it clean.
27
There is no commute too long to avoid such a situation. Went through something much worse once, and never again.
10
Rule number one: Establish a working relationship with your neighbors before something bad happens. You don't want to be making introductions while discussing a point of controversy.
Rule number two: Work hard to maintain your reputation within the community. You want to make your presence well known to everyone for all the right reasons.
For instance, the co-op obviously has some relationship with the landlord which is taking precedence over your concerns. If you were more important to the co-op than the landlord, the situation is reversed. See rule number one for help here. If the community is on your side, the co-op might try a little harder.
Rule number three: Bad tenets are the landlord's problem. You're not getting paid to deal with their messes. When in doubt make it the landlord's problem.
A little research can generally identify the property owner. You can hire a lawyer but the information is almost always publicly available if you know where to look. We once found a name associated with an LLC and went through the phone book one name at a time. Trust me, you know when you've found the right name.
You can use this knowledge and more to pressure the co-op and the landlord. If you opt for public services, providing this information public officials makes their job easier too. They like easier. I can't promise anything will change but you have options.
19
Most likely the landlord is the sponsor of the conversion. I assume the conversion included a non eviction clause for rent stabilized tenants. This is how the Coop has a mix of individually owned units as well as rent stabilized ones. It’s complicated because a sponsor is not subjected to the same rules as the other owners (as an example, the sponsor’s lease cannot be terminated and he cannot be forced to sell). However, most likely, the sponsor would want to free this unit from a difficult tenant, in particular if this tenant is rent stabilized.
5
Neither the letter writer nor the respondents (with a couple of exceptions ) addressed the differences between hoarding and accumulated filth.
There can be a big difference.
Some people do hoard things like books, magazines, newspapers, linens, clothing , old letters and documents, dead electronics etc. There may or may not be serious and hazardous piles and stacks and boxes. Indeed there may be piles on the bed/s so that they end up sleeping in a recliner. They may barely have elbow room to eat at a cluttered table. If they never clean up the bed or the table then they will have dirty sheets and crumbs accumulating. And hence the bugs.
But there are hoarders who are pretty clean. They do the dishes, clean out the fridge, take out the trash , and mow the grass. One part of a couple may be the one who does the cleaning to maintain a semi civilized existence.
Hoarding, as a psychological compulsion, is different from an unwillingness or inability to keep house. A person who lives with a sink piled with weeks or months of dirty dishes, who can't be motivated to throw out food containers, who has a refrigerator exploding with mold and slime and odors , and an unspeakable bathroom is not necessarily a hoarder.
Also as to mice. I live in a very old house. Mice sometimes get in. They are discoverable due to their tendency to dart about in the evening when it is quiet. It is pretty easy to deal with one or two. A filthy house with runways everywhere is mouse heaven though.
12
Elimination of rent control in NYC would go a long way toward solving this problem.
7
@davebarnes so only really poor people would have to deal with hoarders and vermin, which is already a problem because they can't afford better living spaces?
8
@davebarnes Rent stabilization is the only way counselors and teachers can afford to live near the schools they work in. Also, police officers, fire fighters, sanitation workers and everyone else working for the city. When there is an emergency we come to work anyway. You really want us all to clear out to the suburbs? My building is full of us which is part of why my neighborhood is safe.
23
@davebarnes - rich people can be hoarders too. It's a mental problem, not a money problem.
16
As a defensive measure, spray some strong disinfectant on your neighbor's doors and items left outside.
To be more proactive or aggressive, use some foul-smelling substance on the same targets.
7
This co op owner is in a situation where the terms of his co-op lease are not being met. So definitely that person should send a notice to the Co-op of the current conditions. Also the situation may be reported to NY City Adult Protection services in addition to the agencies mentioned.
The sanitary environment and hygiene is just a necessary to the co-op owner. That person's priority is not to pacify the landlord or the co-op. No such conditions should be tolerated as elsewhere in the co-op there may be children or people with allergies, or elderly whose health is affected by this situation.
12
Buy the hoarder a cat.
I grew up on a farm; we had numerous barns and other old buildings that perhaps should have been torn down but weren't.
We also had cats - and hence no rodent problems.
3
@PrairieFlax
They've already demonstrated that they can't keep the place clean enough to avoid vermin and now you want to add a cat to the mix? Because the stench of a filthy litter box (assuming the cat even uses one) on top of everything else can only enhance the situation?
Even assuming the (unlikely) best and that the hoarder does clean up after the cat and the cat gets rid of the mice, unless it also eats the roaches, the problem is not solved.
42
@Prairie Flax, If you have ever watched the tv program "Hoarders", you would know that eventually the cat's body will be found decaying underneath a pile of hoarded material, or the cat's feces will be found all over the place creating another attraction for vermin.
28
@PrairieFlax -- have you never watched an issue of Hoarders on television? The end of too many hoarders' cats is not a pleasant one ...
13
Many people are claiming mental illness as a excuse but that does excuse causing harm to another person. Calling for compassion and patience is easy when it doesn't affect you.
64
@Paulie Labeling hoarding disorder is not an excuse, it's the reality of the situation and the first step to creating a solution. Hoarding disorder affects between 5-7% of the population; there is likely somebody in your life that you care about who is suffering from some degree of hoarding disorder. How would you want that person treated? You cannot control other people's behavior but you can control how you react to it. Shaming and stigmatizing somebody with mental illness is just about the worst thing you can do. Please attempt a little bit of compassion and rationality next time you decide to chime in on issues you may not fully understand.
@Paulie Caring and compassion never means that a person who is paying to live in apartment housing has to tolerate over the long term living conditions that compromise their health and safety of themselves and their children and dependents. It means that they have to seek to implement change with the appropriate measures, legal and medical included, and go to court if necessary if other avenues of improvement are not working.
2
We went through this in our coop back when I was in the city. The key is to get the board to put all the pressure on the landlord. The board should explain in a certified letter to the owner of the unit that any fines, charges or expenses will be accrued and billed to him/her directly. The owner can then decide to either let the building deal with it and pay for the expense or can deal with it directly. If the owner of the unit does not cooperate quickly then you have to start the process of evicting the owner/shareholder. File the papers and make it real. if worst comes to worst the building incurs all the expenses, takes over the unit, sells it and gives the balance, minus the expenses, to the shareholder.
39
This is a California approach. If you call the Police to do what is a wellfare check, to see if the tenant is even alive, is the first step. Second step is to contact Code Enforcement.
If what the rent-controlled tenant says is true, then the tenant is in violation of New York State laws regarding the tenant's duty to maintain a sanitary dwelling and her/his surroundings. The City's code enforcement is the best way to go.
Code Enforcement Officers do deal with all kinds of dangerous rental housing conditions and difficult people. They can communicate with the person who is a hoarder. They can make recommendations that are strong to the tenant-hoarder.
You should not fear any possible repercussions from your "building". A complaint to the government about a legal violation in proximity to your dwelling is a protected Constitutional right (first amendment).
However, Code Enforcement will want to know if you reported the condition to the owner of the building first, because ultimately Code Enforcement will compel the owner to take action about the unhabitable condition.
35
Keeping sanitary living quarters is part of the public contract. And its a law!
Violating it demands intervention. If it results in an eviction that's on the party violating both the social contract, and the law! Period.
No tolerance.
45
A bit complicated and embarrassing to explain how, but my own dad became a hoarder. Fortunately, I caught on comparatively early on. As my dad is also very old, I was able to
1/put my foot down and throw the several cubic meters of junk and filth out
2/ tell me that it was either a cleaning lady every day or a retirement home. So it got to be the (wonderful) cleaning lady every day.
Now, no problem.
I of course know that if I and the cleaning lady, the same pattern would re-establish itself at lightning speed, but the lesson is this :
hoarding is indeed a mental disease, but its practical actualization can be stopped. But somebody must be there every day.
40
Children don't have legal authority over their parents. Getting it through the guardianship process isn't easy either as the bar is set relatively high for someone to lose their right to self-governance. You were lucky your parent agreed to follow your suggestion as it was not in the rule of law any enforceable mandate. This is the challenge many adult children face with elderly parents.
25
How about scheduling an appt for her with Marie Kondo of Tidying Up?
9
@Zareen if it is a hoarding situation "tidying up" is not the answer. She needs answer a consult with the people from the show "Hoarders".
14
@Trixie120 I think Zareen was being sarcastic.
9
Okay go ahead and try the "nice" approach first but if that doesn't work pretty quickly, you're not being "nice" to allow someone who is clearly mentally ill to live in a state of squalor so dangerous and unhealthy that they are impacting their neighbors. At that point, lawyer up and force the issue. How about mandating that the landlord hire a monthly cleaning crew to go into the apartment and dispose of all garbage? It will be a perpetual expense, but the landlord chose to rent to a hoarder so it's the landlord's problem to pay for.
25
@nerdrage No, the nice approach is almost certain to backfire. As another post underlines, hoarding is about as sticky as addiction. People don't get out of it on their own.
But, unlike addiction, it can be stopped fairly easily by OUTSIDE intervention.
20
@nerdrage
"...but the landlord chose to rent to a hoarder so it's the landlord's problem to pay for."
Thats a ridiculous statement. How do you know the landlord made that choice?
12
@lowereastside
The landlord may not have realized that the person they rented to was or would become a hoarder. Nevertheless, it is the landlord's problem.
9
Hoarding is in many ways about entropy and chaos. Hoarders are addicts whose lives have been bulldozed by addiction.
True hoarders will NOT respond to the pleading, coaxing, sympathetic approach - they essentially are immune to that and defenseless against the disease itself.
You must approach forcefully and aggressively and DEMAND a change and be absolutely ready to followup with whatever action is necessary. Don't wait. You've suffered enough! Its ridiculous.
You are dealing with an addict! And they will say anything they think you want to hear in order to not have to actually do anything.
55
@lowereastside Have you ever tried to demand an addict to quit using? How has the War on Drugs worked out? The only way to treat mental illness is through professional understanding and compassion. You need to have empathy, understand why this behavior developed, and treat the root of the problem while teaching the individual new behavior patterns. People suffering from hoarding disorder do not want to live in a cluttered environment, but they need professional help to make a change. They are unlikely to accept help from a forceful and aggressive person. Hoarding behavior takes a long time to develop, and if done correctly, it takes a long time to correct.
1
Surprising to me that the sponsor doesn't want to evict a rent-stabilized tenant to give him/her the ability to sell the apartment.
Shaun Eli Breidbart
www.BrainChampagne.com
4
The writer, if a tenant, should consult counsel and begin with his own landlord, throwing down the warranty of habitability and threatening to move after a short deadline passes.
If an owner, then he has far more sway with the board than he is letting on. He is probably not the only occupant with a vermin problem.
And a wellness check by the fire department is in order. For all we know the hoarder is incapacitated or worse.
A shared party wall with a hoarder is an invitation to vermin, mold, fire. There is time for patience and understanding after these threats to the safety and well being of the writer are removed. Get busy, writer. You are nowhere near as agitated as you claim if you are writing emails to the NYT instead of dealing with this head on.
25
@Gentlewomanfarmer
It's a rent controlled apartment in NYC, presumably. These are gold. The owner would love for the tenant to move, under any circumstances.
12
Hi -
Did the exterminators do anything to block up the sources of the vermin from the other unit? We had a mice problem about a decade ago. Steel wool in the cracks in the baseboard will block the mice. They try to chew it and it does not go well. Any crack that you can fit a dime into a mouse can fit through. Especially the babies. After putting in the steel wool, I then sealed with clear epoxy. You have to go inch by inch. It works.
Did the exterminators check the outside of the building? Those cracks have to be sealed. One day at the height of the problem, I noticed a hole in the exterior brick wall about the size of a baseball. Duh! Management filled in the hole within a day or two.
About the neighbor: Adult Protective Services is not your first move. First move is to talk to the person to give them the opportunity to clean things up. That is the job of the co-op board. Then the landlord. The board should work with him to correct this. If the co-op board is not producing results, I see no reason you can't start calling 311. If it is okay to fine the neighbor or the landlord for inaction, you should be able to fine the co-op and management if they don't attack the problem.
Now that the vermin are in, they will start appearing everywhere. Start contacting your neighbors to see who else is having problems. More people approaching the board is better.
Finally, run for the board. Or ask to chair a committee to monitor vermin. Help out.
18
@K Kelly Something else that affects vermin, I believe, is construction in the neighborhood -- and the bigger and closer the construction, the more likely you are to see them.
8
@ellienyc
Yes - you nailed it. Now that I think about it our situation happened when there were new town homes being built across the street!
8
@K Kelly sound advice. I can attest to the steel wool applied to all cracks/openings thwarting mice entry. I might add: moving out the the kitchen appliances to apply steel wool in and behind those gaps, necessary; applying a trail of borax powder around door entry and baseboards, behind appliances will stop roaches in their tracks.
4
I would NOT recommend going the guardian route! Not after reading the NYT's own article about the horror show that is NY's guardian program. The person loses ALL autonomy!
11
@PrairieFlax A hoarder has usually already lost a great deal of autonomy and has become a physical danger to himself and his neighbors.
19
@PrairieFlax The person loses all autonomy and possibly all their money.
8
@PrairieFlax
Their right to a mental illness ends at their neighbor’s threshold.
19
I have a relative who lives in an NYC apartment. Over the years they developed a condition and changed from a working professional to a virtually home-bound addict. The hygiene situation went from bad to worse- inability to make it to the bathroom and clean up afterwords and the like. Every time they went into the hospital I would have the apartment from top to bottom. The only way an ongoing housekeeping arrangement was finally accepted was that I was told neighbor s were going to get him evicted. I used this information as a threat and he now has a cleaner who comes in to tidy up.
Do I blame the neighbors? He’ll no! I wouldn’t tolerate living next to a deeply unhygienic apartment. I’m not even sure I could be compassionate. I’m not putting forward trying to unearth a relative in this situation. My relative was lucky he had me. But I do know even from my perspective this is a very very complex situation.
43
I have a single person living in the next door apartment to me who is living like a hoarder. He has become totally blind. Food is laying about his apartment. His kitchen boarders mine. Roaches are infesting my kitchen. These apartments are government subsidized. Management claims they can do nothing about it except exterminate periodically. I tell them that his mess is also a fire hazard. Management will not act.
16
@Sick and Tired
Where do you reside?
Most municipalities in California have several days out of the year where they will pick up "junk" for free, or you can haul it out to a "dump" for free on these special days.
These efforts are specifically directed at hoarders. The cities eat the costs of doing so because ultimately they save money from preventing future fires.
3
@RR
thank you RR but management cannot (Will not?) act, even as to suggesting to that tenant as what to do. They claim HUD disallows them to intervene . I live in Rockland County New York.
2
@RR
I don't feel like you have a clear understanding of hoarding. It's not about not having someplace to get rid of your junk, it's about not wanting to get rid of your junk. Even if the city was willing to pick up junk every single day of the year, it would do no good because a true hoarder will not get rid of it unless forced to do so (and even then, still might not).
12
Your sympathy and tolerance of the vermin and sanitation issues are very generous, but please do not forget that true hoarding is a SERIOUS fire hazard to the whole building. (If mice are living there, I’m guessing the apartment is full of flammable items, as hoarding usually is.) It’s one thing if a hoarder lives in a farm house far from others. It’s a totally different thing living in an apartment building, putting countless lives at risk, not only your own but everyone else in the building. Your commendable generosity to this one person’s mental illness is clouding your view of the whole picture.
- former NYC Legal Aid housing attorney
77
@NYC Totally in agreement. My late ex husband after years of being tolerated by his neighbors in a small coop off Gramercy Park was reported to Adult Protective Services when the odors and vermin coming from his apt became a health and serious fire safety issue. Long story short, after a year of non-compliance with the APS contracts he signed to clear out the place, he was forcibly removed by the NYPD and involuntarily committed to a hospital. During the hospitalization our family had to hire a commercial dumpster and a crew of workers who wore hazmat suits and masks to clear out the place. He was allowed to return, went off his mental health meds, resumed hoarding and was finally evicted. Best wishes to you. This is a long and very hard road.
17
Yes, this individual needs assistance and understanding. While awaiting intervention and assistance from the Coop, Sponsor, City or her other family members, you might consider getting those little disks called Combat. Combat comes in various sizes, and has something in them which causes the roaches to die where you see them and where you don't. Combat comes in different sizes. Regarding the mice issue, well, speak with the exterminator to see if he has any effective traps. Also, install a door barrier that will keep the uninvited vermin from entering your home. Above all, I wish you luck with your issue.
4
@Rita Harris
This is all fingers in the dike. You have to remove the food source, period. Mouse and roach breeding (in a warm, predator-free environment) leads to exponential population increase. None of these remedies will be more than trivially effective if you don't address the source.
12
Went through this in a place on Capitol Hill in 1990 ... woman downstairs was a horder who also refused access to the exterminator - we got fleas that came up through the floor. Bites all over our ankles.
However, upstairs we had drug dealers. On of their deals went bad, and the guy they ripped off ended up in our apartment with a knife, demanding compensation. After we called the cops we were advised that the healthy thing would be to leave, right-away. So we did.
19
The author should get legal representation and have the lawyer address the owner of the unit. This is more than a quality-of-life issue, it is a major safety risk.
If those reality shows are any indication, dealing with the tenant could be difficult, dangerous or impossible.
Because it is a co-op, it could be complicated for the board to intervene successfully. Being fined will not make the co-op more enthusiastic about helping the complainant.
Our hoarder neighbor is in a NH, and the unit is just beginning to be excavated by the legal guardian. My neighbors don't want to think about the vermin and fire risk sitting above or next to them. I can't stop thinking about it...
11
@Cathy Dealing with the tenant could be dangerous? Why are you slandering someone you never yet? The hoarder could be very sweet.
BTW - What's the difference between hoarding and collecting? A hoarder lives in a small place; a collector, a large place.
6
@Cathy
One of my best friends is a hoarder. Another one, a professional attorney at law, who is going blind, is too a hoarder.
The friend is considered the kindest person in the world by any one who meets him.
He lost an apartment he lived in for a decade to his packing and stacking all of his possessions in cardboard boxes. I had no idea that his habit was pathological. He packed himself in, surrounded by cardboard boxes with his precious things - really precious.
Termites found his boxes. They ate all the way through the subfloor, flooring, and then through his boxes. They made multiple pathways to his boxes.
It was hilarious to me at the time because his boxes were an issue.
He may suffer from autism. He has several advanced degrees in science, bioinformatics, and computer science.
Oh. He was cited with for hoarding when a fire broke out in his apartment complex and the fire persons had to get through his apartment to the apartment next to his to extinguish the fire.
They had a difficult time moving through his apartment, so one of the inspectors and or the Fire Department fined him and demanded that he quit his packing.
He never could comply with their order. They let it go.
5
@RR Sure a hoarder can be very nice. My ex-hoarder dad is a very nice person.
But if I had not physically ejected the stuff, and then hired a very determined cleaning lady to come EVERY DAY, the apartment would have caught fire long ago.
Hoarding is a mental disease, period.
29
As any firefighter will tell you, hoarding is a particular danger in multi-story buildings because of two additional risks of fire. The first - storing things atop stoves and heaters - is well known. The lesser-known is that when there is a fire, the water that the firefighters douse it with gets soaked up by the clothes and papers. This weight puts great stress on the floor, and it is common for it to fall through, destroying the apartment beneath and compromising the structure of the whole building. Point is: your hoarder may be putting the entire building at risk. In addition to the vermin, this is the point you need to take to your condo board.
106
@Patrick Bowman Thank you very much for putting this in perspective. One person because of their mental limitations is putting the health and safety of many others at risk when this occurs in a residential apartment building. It is complex, but must be addressed.
I read a NYT article on hoarding that said it was a chromosomal defect (I cannot recall the exact chromosome). Research revealed that counseling helped more than medication for hoarders.
10
The Coop can take action against the owner of this apartment, who probably bought this or many sponsor apartments in this building and others when they converted to non-evict coops at the time. If they are sitting on their hands there maybe good reasons for it - self interest? In any event a hazardous and unsanitary condition exists detrimental to the building's residents and interest.
8
I'd suggest making a report to Adult Protective Services, and hope that their caseworkers are skilled, AND that there is a way to assist.
BUT it might be useless if no actual action has been taken against the landlord, and/or against her, threatening eviction.
Why? she may be perfectly rational except for this condition, and the only "in" that outsiders may have is in preventing eviction.
OTOH, if the report is taken, someone will be eyeballing the apartment and speaking to her, and possibly she might accept help. Or, if the caseworker observes dangerous conditions, not just clutter, the health or building departments can be involved and this can be a way to legally force a clean out, and/or a mental health evaluation. But then there is no way to avoid having the co-op involved.
I isn't an easy process, from any perspective.
7
@cheryl My understanding is that the moment Adult Protective Services is contacted legal action is taken to set up a custodianshp and make someone else responsible for cleaning it up, institutionalizing the resident, etc.
I know of a case where this happened to someone who had been run over by a car, returned home following hospitalization with temporary help from VNS ordered. The VNS workers apparently refuse to work in clutered apartments, report to their supervisors, and the supervisors contact Adult Protective Services to order a custodianship.
6
If the tenant isn't too mental, then they can do what we did. When we left our home of 40 years and moved from San Francisco overseas, we had a whole room of STUFF. Letters and photographs from our long gone parents and anything else important should be SCANNED, a few originals kept, and then: Auctioned; Donated; Garage Sale; Recycled; or SHREDDED (like 12 boxes, including 1967 college bank statements). The entire naval history collection of art, models, and books, enjoyed for 60 years went that way, except for 10 books and 1 model.
Please do not leave for your executor, that's not fair, it will end up like the cowboy collection haphazardly dumped at an secondary auction house.
16
@Edward K
What kind of a term is "mental?" That is derogatory and stigmatizing. Hoarding is a form of an anxiety disorder and if it has gotten to the point where the neighbors are seeing mice and roaches in their homes, then this person is suffering. She needs to be treated with patience, kindness and understanding as it will be difficult for her to part with anything she has collected for reasons difficult for any of us to understand. As stated in the article, Adult Protective Services is one agency to call in NYC. They will be able to find resources for this woman emotional and other that she needs, hopefully as the writer of the letter pointed out, without losing her apartment.
41
@Edward K Hoarding is an emotional issue not just a situation of someone not going through their belongings and weeding things out. This condition involves people who are comforted by being surrounded by there many belongings. The find it impossible to let things go. As hard as it is for others to understand they are ok living in conditions that most would run from. It’s truly a complex condition.
And yes as soon as I read “mental” in your post I knew you were in for comments. It’s just not a compassionate term in this day and age.
15
@Andrea
"Mental" is an much older common and casual word used by the British to denote a person with mental health problems. In the past it was a word used by less educated people or by an older generation who didn't keep up with changes in medical or psychiatric terminology.
In the USA, people still say so-and-so is "nuts" (as our president did in referring to former FBI director James Comey). "Nuts" is on the same level - that is low - in comprehending the nature of mental illness or else is used as an outright insult or derogatory term whether or not it applies in the situation. The writer is using a word he is long familiar with and has felt no need to modify his vocabulary as times and understanding change.
The old British usage of "mental" is often not at all derogatory but an expression of sad sympathy. The Brits and the Yanks still don't speak the same language.
32
I once consulted a very learned rabbi about the problem of what to do about the grave of my grandfather which was falling into disrepair. He advised me to do the least repairs that were essential to maintain it, because the site was holy.
Up in my attic and down in my basement I still keep many boxes of old letters and papers that belonged to my parents that I haven’t looked at for many years and don’t really know what to do with.
Sometimes I think about putting them in storage somewhere or just shredding them, but that has never worked out because they feel holy to me.
As matters now stand, the problem of what to do with them will one day belong to my kids. (Who I believe will probably and wisely end-up shredding them.}
Hoarders like many of us collect things that remind them of better times and offer them a sense of security.
48
@A. Stanton
Don't shred them. My father threw out most of the correspondence between his parents before he died, leaving only a few probably overlooked boxes. The grandchildren have been treasuring the letters (passed between his father and mother before during and after WWI)and between the various great aunts and uncles. We wish we had all the boxes.
32
@A. Stanton
I'm with KTT, and you.
Throw out old newspapers, but old letters? Let the next generation decide that they aren't interested. It's personal history, and it can be fascinating.
30
@A. Stanton, grief transforms a loved one's things into a bit of the loved one after they are gone. I just cleared out a box of my parent's papers 13 years after Mom's death, 30 years after Dad's. It was wrenching. It felt like I was throwing away my Mom and Dad.
One thing you could do is have the papers scanned before shredding them, creating electronic copies. Save a few hand-written ones, the most personal reminders of what they were. You then still have the papers, but not the fire hazard.
43
It's odd to me that there's no discussion about anybody trying to talk to the alleged hoarder. Shouldn't that be attempted, in as friendly a way as possible, before referrals to APS or any other intervention which may well be seen as a threat?
60
@Deborah I guess you've never known a hoarder.
28
@Deborah I am in agreement with you and did this for 20 years until the smell became overwhelming. It went from gentle discussions to pleading letters to disgust. She asked why I hated her so much.
The building management wanted me to write a letter of complaint, even though twice the health inspectors then the fire department said that the apartment - two door down from mine - was a health and safety hazard and they had the right to issue an eviction notice. They did not have the heart to evict her. They wanted to hide behind my complaints.
So after 20 years, when she became incompetent and incontinent, affecting our two other neighbors also, I did reach out to the Health Inspectors in spite of building management. Some buildings care, some don't. Yet even though my building did not care about our health and safety concerns, the responsibility lay with them. It is not easy to prompt a "solution" as a neighbor. But roaches (they used to freely roam out of her apartment), mice and smell are serious.
38
Patience and compassion go out the door when mice and roaches enter. I think the fastest way to deal with this situation is to call Adult Protective Services and I would do so if I were the letter writer.
117
If a few mice and roaches is all it takes to lose compassion you need a bigger heart
3
@Maxwell Stainback
My heart does not allow mice and roaches.
44
@Maxwell Stainback
Rodents can carry disease. This whole situation is unsanitary and unhealthy in the extreme. Trying to wait this out is a hazard to everyone in the building, even if they have compassion for the hoarder.
24
There is a difference between hoarding and uncleanliness. The two may exist together, probably often, but not always.
Clutter and hoarding aren't the same thing, either.
How does the LW know that the neighbor is responsible for the mice and roaches ? I wonder if the fact that the culprit apartment is rent stabilized has anything to do with the LR's complaint.
31
@Matt - LW claims the exterminator said the hoarder neighbor is responsible for the mice and roaches. Whether its true or not ... who knows? Odd that the LW stressed that the tenant is rent stabilized. And its also odd that he doesnt want to report the problem because "the building will just get more fines." If thats what it takes to get action then - Report Report Report. It almost seemed like the LW was looking for a way to get the tenant out. Its strange that the teaser "How do I solve the problem without forcing her out of her home" is so different in tone than the actual letter.
24
I’d be annoyed if a rent-stabilized tenant was ruining my quality of life, especially if my rent wasn’t stabilized!
As for “fines;” the board obviously doesn’t want to take any action against the landlord. So I assume they’re stressing “fines” which would potentially be passed along to ALL tenants, including the letter writer.
Basically, it seems like the board is claiming there’s nothing that can be done, except possibly pass on the fines to you & others for complaining to the Health Dept.
Look, I’m more than sympathetic to people with mental health issues, but public health & safety of needs to take precedence. This includes the health & safety of the Hoarder.
Take any & all action as necessary, but I would definitely contact Adult Protective Services given the harm this individual is likely also causing to herself.
39
@Matt Olson -
The LW knows this because "the exterminator says the hoarder is the source of our problems"
8
Our Board recommended and offered to pay for the initial visit of a cleaning service to a hoarder who lived here, with the caveat that it be agreed to congenially by the hoarding tenant, or, if not, it would become an issue dealt with as a violation of the proprietary lease, forced through legal channels, probably with an unpleasant result.
It was handled reasonably amiably, and the shareholder grudgingly decided to pay the service to clean once every two weeks, which solved the problem going forward.
More than five years of takeout containers were removed from the apartment. The building exterminator handled the little visitors afterwards.
Your Board should step up and take responsibility for solving this problem before it spreads vermin through the whole building, or ends in a fire.
186
Our Board recommended and offered to pay for the initial visit of a cleaning service to a hoarder who lived here, with the caveat that it be agreed to congenially by the hoarding tenant, or, if not, it would become an issue dealt with as a violation of the proprietary lease, forced through legal channels, probably with an unpleasant result.
It was handled reasonably amiably, and the shareholder grudgingly decided to pay the service to clean once every two weeks, which solved the problem going forward.
More than five years of takeout containers were removed from the apartment. The building exterminator handled the little visitors afterwards.
9
It’s great that you approach this from a perspective of sympathy. All of the mentioned options are potentially helpful. I would start first with adult protective services. But APS requires cooperation from the potential client which is not commonly welcomed by or given with hoarders. But, it’s a place to start and I believe you can file an online referral. I would simultaneously press the board or the landlord to take some action as well.
One of the problems with hoarders is that they rarely change. You may be able, through persistence and effort, to compel a clean up, but after a while they tend to revert to their modus operandi. It is a an ailment and so far as I know, there is no permanent cure.
71
The handful of bona fide hoarders I’ve known have not changed at all despite numerous interventions. Two of them died before old age of common treatable ailments because they preferred to nest amongst their stuff rather than deal with doctors and strangers. Good luck with a hoarding neighbor.
56
@Imkay cognitive behavioral therapy can help, if the hoarder has at least some willingness to improve. It's basically like exposure therapy. They learn to recognize and address their attachment to things by imagining scenarios where something they hoard is taken from them. But it's not easy, and as I said, there must be at least some willingness on their part to change.
I would encourage the board to have an apartment inspection. Some tenants in my building cleaned up their units when notified this was coming, though this is not likely for a severe situation. Tenants are required to admit "inspectors" after notice.
As mentioned, Adult Protective Services can be called, preferably by the co-op, but they apparently have a rule. The apartment must be so cluttered that you can not walk to areas because of items on the floor. Simply having a messy home is not sufficient grounds for action.
The co-op is required to provide exterminating services and I would certainly request this and perhaps even extra treatments if needed.
61
Since I have friends who are hoarders -- one whose apartment I have not seen in over a dozen years, the other whom I visit on occasion and almost always remain standing -- I am not unsympathetic. Hoarders, or at least my hoarders, are very aware of their bad habits. They try to clean up. I do not believe their neighbors suffer from smells or pests. Perhaps their psychoses are not full-blown.
On the other hand, a neighbor's or the co-op's bringing out all the guns might be a very good thing for them. At least in my hoarders' cases, the threat of losing their apartments would get them busy throwing things out. If the letter writer's hoarder is like mine, the same might apply.
If far worse, then social services have to take over. Unless the building is fireproof, it's a fatal disaster waiting to happen.
130
I now know a friend is a hoarder (it’s happened twice) if I am never invited inside, even after years of friendship. Once I caught a glimpse of the front hall (eeek!) and in the second case, the friend mentioned that she usually slept on a sofa because “there was always stuff on the bed.”
41
@Julie Zuckman’s
My ex-gf was engaged to a man who was a hoarder. He, too, did not sleep in a bed, but a lounge chair. He kept promising change, but nothing happened. Oh, his toilets did not work, either. And this man had a long term, quite responsible position at UT in Austin.
Kirsten rightfully gave up and left him.
Still trying to figure out why she left me, I'm no hoarder! Kind of a joke, there.
14
@Julie Zuckman’s
Or it could be the opposite situation: someone has almost no furniture and is not set up for any kind of entertaining or visiting.
1