A Connecticut woman was found in her house six months after police came for an initial welfare check when a neighbor reported she hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. The police came back several more times in the ensuing months, but each time were stymied by the mountain of junk that made it nearly impossible to move through the house. The overwhelming stench didn’t help the efforts. On one visit, they even sent in a drone to look for her, but it got tangled in cobwebs and was disabled. Finally, when they brought in a trash removal team with an excavator, they found her three feet from the front door under piles of debris. All that was left of her was her skeleton.
CT house where missing woman found dead had debris piled high, newly released photos and videos show
If you have been in EMS any length of time, you have encountered hoarders. They are more common than many would believe. Data shows as much as 6% of the population are hoarders, with the possibly that as many as 14% are. Hoarding even has its own medical diagnosis. Hoarding Disorder (HD) is generally categorized by two factors.
- An accumulation of stuff that becomes so profligate that it interferes with activities of daily living.
- A Deep anxiety over throwing anything out for fear that you may need it again someday.
There is no cure for hoarding, but it can be partially treated with some medicines and therapy groups.
Years ago I was called for a welfare check in a house in the north end of Hartford. From the street it appeared to be a nice older style single family home in a neighborhood that had deteriorated quite a bit over the years. We got called by the postman who was concerned that the retired school teacher who lived there hadn’t picked up the mail for a week and the daily newspapers had also been accumulating. The postman said the old woman usually met him at the door when he came on his daily route.
With the help of the fire department we broke the front door open and immediately saw we had a hoarding situation. The downstairs rooms were piled high above my head with newspapers and magazines and there were narrow walkways between the stacks. After only a few minutes of looking, we found her. It reminded me of the scene from the Wizard of Oz where the wicked witch of the west has a house land on her and all you can see are her legs sticking out from under the house. That’s all I saw –two skinny legs sticking out from under a six-foot stack of newspaper and magazine debris that had fallen on her. The legs were cold, stiff and waxen white. There was no way I could get all that debris off her, and if I did, where would I put it? I looked at my watch, called the time, got her name from the postman and when the police arrived, I explained the situation and left. I think of her every time I pass that house.
My experience has been most hoarders are elderly women who live alone. We get called by a relative or visiting nurse who are concerned about them. Most hoarders don’t want to leave to go to the hospital. They can be short of breath, having a bad case of the flu, or have fulminating ulcers on their legs, but they are afraid someone will come and take all their stuff away while they are at the hospital so they are very resistant to leaving. They are usually sick enough that we are able to get the police to paper them if they continue to refuse.
Me, I like throwing stuff out. I do accumulate, but then the act of throwing something out gives me pleasure. I feel like I am cleansing myself or my house. I feel lighter, fresher. It does seem though like a some of the times I throw something out, I need it a week later. Still I like simple spare living. I want to be certain as I age, I begin the process of getting rid of most of my possessions so they are manageable for my survivors. I do have boxes of books in my garage and under the stairs., and boxes of my old writing before the days of digital storage. I have no real space in my house for a library, which I always wanted. I can’t even get to many of my books in the garage so I end up buying them again digitally if I want to read them. My garage is complicated by my wife’s efforts to collect things to send to Jamaica. People are always dropping off clothes and other items. The barrels don’t always go out as fast the stuff comes in.
With all the dead bodies I’ve seen I have always imagined the chore the families have to face of sorting through the possessions the deceased couldn’t take with them. I don’t want my family to have to go through that. I just want to leave behind one footlocker worth of possessions, just the things I most value.