8-minute read time.
This will be the first part of a series of commentaries on each chapter of the fascinating book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and The Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. During these informal commentaries, I will list each annotation I noted in the chapter, explaining why I pointed the lines out, what I thought was interesting, questions it sparked, story ideas the content inspired, etc. After I have finished the book, I will share a review of the total work. Lastly, I hope to convince the authors to participate in an interview with me (my second time emailing both of them). If you find that your curiosity is peaked by the lines I include, I highly recommend you get the book and read along with me. It can be purchased on Amazon, used, for less than $8. Let’s begin!
Dead Body in the Collyer Mansion: A Prologue to Hoarding
- Page 1: “On Friday morning, March 21, 1947, the police in Harlem received a call.”
- This is the first line of the book. Damn. The first thing I noticed was the date. Immediately, I thought, “Reports of hoarding as early as 1947?! I wonder what the earliest record is?” I guess one of my misconceptions is that hoarding is a newer occurrence. I just assumed that with the rise of fast fashion, deliverable items, and the societal lean on consumption, capitalism, and convenience, hoarding would be pretty much obsolete in days past, at least before the 1970s. I suppose it makes sense that with the Second Industrial Revolution, more people would acquire more things, but back when items were carefully crafted, I assumed that less would be more. Interesting. Even as a child of a hoarder, I can have my own misconceptions.
- Research/story idea: How has the introduction of modern consumerism practices over the past 5-10 years, like the rise of fast fashion, access to 2-day delivery, and the loss of retail stores, affected how hoarders hoard and what they hoard? Do they hoard more or less? How much do they spend on acquiring objects? How has it affected their sense of the value of their possessions?
- This is the first line of the book. Damn. The first thing I noticed was the date. Immediately, I thought, “Reports of hoarding as early as 1947?! I wonder what the earliest record is?” I guess one of my misconceptions is that hoarding is a newer occurrence. I just assumed that with the rise of fast fashion, deliverable items, and the societal lean on consumption, capitalism, and convenience, hoarding would be pretty much obsolete in days past, at least before the 1970s. I suppose it makes sense that with the Second Industrial Revolution, more people would acquire more things, but back when items were carefully crafted, I assumed that less would be more. Interesting. Even as a child of a hoarder, I can have my own misconceptions.
- Page 1-2: “Behind the door was a wall of newspapers, tightly wrapped in small packers and too thick to push through.”
- Of the six or seven interviews I have given so far, each person has mentioned that their hoarder parent/hoarder family member/hoarder friend has collected, in some way, newspapers or magazines. It seems to be a pattern. What about newspapers makes them so hard to get rid of? Is the switch to digital reporting helping this conundrum?
- Page 2: “Homer had not been seen by anyone for several years, and over the past few decades there had been numerous reports of his death.”
- This makes me sad because I have seen firsthand how isolating hoarding can be for everyone who lives in the home.
- Page 4 and 5: “Each day of cleaning brought new and strange discoveries: an early x-ray machine, an automobile, the remains of a two-headed fetus,” …. “At this point in the cleaning, workers had removed 120 tons of debris, including fourteen grand pianos and a Model T Ford.”
- These two sentences make me wonder what the weirdest things my mom has hoarded and what the weirdest things other hoarders have hoarded. Lately, my mom has collected and held onto packs of diapers for a long time before being forced to donate them by her partner. Why? I have no clue. Her children, my brother and I, are both in our early adulthood, and she has not needed children’s diapers in many years.
- Page 5: “Most of the family ostracized them.”
- This sentence made me think of the saying, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” Rearranged to fit this scenario, the appropriate question is: “What comes first, the isolation or the hoarding?” Are family members who show early signs of hoarding tendencies typically ostracized by their family before the hoarding disorder can fully bloom, or is it the other way around?
- Page 6: “Langley studied engineering and graduated from Columbia but never worked as an engineer, though by all accounts he was gifted: he built a generator out of parts of an automobile kept in the basement, and his elaborate tunnels were no doubt a reflection of his engineering skills.”
- This sentence made me realize that a large portion of my mother’s hoarding was a reflection of her education as well, especially her Master’s in Community and Global Health, which led her to collect things that she thought would be beneficial to her community.
- Page 6: “Despite the appearance of slovenliness or laziness created by the condition of the house, Langley was always busy and often complained of not having enough time to do the things he needed to do. One of those things, Langley told the police on several occasions, was clearing and organizing his home.”
- This sounds all too familiar.
- Page 7: “A large crowd gathered, as it always did when things happened at the “Ghost House.”
- This reminds me of the neighbors surrounding my home as we experienced the house fire last year, whispering snide remarks to each other behind their hands, clearly judging the situation as the family affected mourned. I thought the onlookers looked pitiful.
- Story Idea: “Bullying”
- My mother was bullied by her next-door neighbors, whose response to the hoarding was aggressive and cruel. Sometimes, when people don’t understand mental health conditions, they vilify the person, which is exactly what happened in that situation.
- Page 8: “The salvaged belongings were sold at auction but netted less than $2,000.”
- Granted, around the 1950s, $2,000 equates to $26,200 in 2024, roughly speaking. Still, that number is VERY low for the amount of objects in that home. This remains a fact, though: Hoarders attach value to their items, even monetary value, which is unrealistic. For example, my mom used to hold onto things she thought she could sell to make extra money. She would not accept that most of these objects lost their value after years of collecting dust and sitting unused.
- Page 9: “You will undoubtedly recognize some of your own feelings about your stuff in these pages, even if you do not have a hoarding problem.”
- This is a hard truth to swallow. I don’t particularly appreciate admitting to myself that there is even a tiny likelihood that I could be any bit similar to a hoarder. Still, it’s very likely that, as I continue reading, I will find myself throughout the pages.
- Page 9: “Until we began our research, the scientific literature contained few studies and scant mentions of hoarding.”
- Their research helped immensely, but I still think this topic is still severely understudied and misunderstood.
- Page 9 and 10: “That means that six million to fifteen million Americans suffer from hoarding that causes them distress or interferes with their ability to live,” … “OCD has become a relatively high-profile disorder, experienced by an estimated six million people in the United States…”
- So, there is a high likelihood that there are more people with hoarding disorder than those with diagnosed OCD, yet OCD is still a higher-profile mental health disorder than hoarding disorder. Interesting.
- Page 10: “We visited the homes of several of our volunteers and discovered a wide range of clutter, some relatively mild and some quite severe.”
- As difficult as this will be, I need to do it in the future to write accurately about the people I interview.
- Page 11: “In the past decade, we’ve learned that hoarding seems to be such a marginal affliction in part because of it’s carried on largely in secret: we think of it as an “underground” psychopathology, occurring most often behind closed doors.”
- This book was published in 2010, almost 15 years ago, and the research was done long before that, but sadly, I think this statement still applies today.
- Page 12-13: “In hoarding, however, we frequently see positive emotions propelling acquisition and saving.”
- In this part of the chapter, the author describes how, with OCD, the main emotions are negative, but with hoarding, the emotions can be positive and negative, depending on whether the hoarding is acquiring or getting rid of items. They then go on to list reasons why hoarding disorder, OCD, and ICD (impulse control disorder) are similar but different. It’s a really illuminating but long part of the chapter.
- Page 14: “At present, there is a growing consensus that hoarding should be included as a separate disorder in the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”
- The DSM-5 was published on May 18, 2013, three years after this book was published, where hoarding disorder has its own category.
- Page 15: “Many people with hoarding problems have a predominant theme to their hoarding, such as fear of waste, the allure of opportunity, or the comfort and safety provided by objects.”
- My mother’s themes are giving back, fear of waste, and maybe more.
- Page 15: “It is no coincidence that most of the people described in this book are highly intelligent. Although hoarding is considered a mental disorder, it may stem from an extraordinary ability.”
- The section that these sentences lay within made me emotional. Mt mother is not stupid or silly, just misunderstood.
