Advice for Professionals

People in many job roles may encounter situations/behaviours which are labelled as ‘hoarding’ or appear at first sight to involve hoarding behaviours.

Hoarding is now a recognized psychiatric disorder (called Hoarding Disorder) with 3 key symptoms:

• The accumulation of a large amount of possessions. This can be direct (e.g. the person actively seeks out items) or indirect (e.g. the person might have accumulated possessions from say a deceased relative which they cannot bear to part with).
• There is a great difficulty in discarding these accumulated possessions, with the person displaying anxiety when asked to consider decluttering, or lacks the ability to make a firm decision about what to discard.
• This results in severe clutter to the extent that normal life becomes very difficult (e.g. inability to use a kitchen, bathroom or bedroom for the purpose it was intended for) and may result in dangerous and unsanitary living conditions.

It is important to note that just because a property may be severely cluttered, this does not automatically mean that the person is a hoarder – they may for example have reduced mobility, which makes it hard for them to keep their home tidy. Alternative explanations should be considered before you define the person has a ‘hoarder’.

Below we have listed some areas of advice for professionals. This is not an exhaustive list and if you come across some information that you think we should refer to please get in touch.