Hoarding - Severe Hoarders and Caring About The Hoarder
When handling severe cases of hoarding it is important to remember that this was brought on through no fault of their own, but by a mental condition. You as their loved one, friend, or family member need to understand that there is a cause for concern. And this is of greater concern when there is severe or a life threatening situation that involves that loved one. How can you tell that this situation has become severe or life threatening here are a few characteristics you should note.
When there is structural damage to the property that needs to be addressed and it has not been the possibility of collapse of the building can be greatly exaggerated due to the decomposition of the building itself due to the hoarders neglect. Also, the case of severe hoarding needs to be addressed when there is the possibility of biologically hazardous waste becoming a problem which can greatly affect the individual hoarder’s health. That is when a specialist needs to come in and discuss with the hoarder there problems.
A therapist or a psychiatrist is advisable to be brought in when dealing with a severe hoarding problem, since they can often discover the root cause of why this individual hoards. Often hoarding can be triggered by a traumatic event in someone’s life an example of this could be a fire where it consumed all that individual’s worldly possessions. Also, the other factor is the death of a significant individual in this person’s life could have a traumatic affect and thereby cause them to a wide variety of items that deteriorate over time such as medicine or food. All this plays into consideration when helping the hoarder.
Your responsibility is to make them feel comfortable by talking to them about the events that preceded their hoarding. All the while you need to discuss the possible paths of remediating this problem before it is too late. When remediating this problem you need to look into hiring a cleanup company, because some of the items can be saved. Address Our Mess is a company that can help you in sorting, cleaning, and donating items that are still useful.
Always think about the hoarder and their feelings because the possessions that can be considered useless are considered useful in certain instances by hoarders. Address Our Mess has staff that can help the hoarder with the decision making process with helping to determine the value of the items. Call us today for more information on how we can help.