Cloudsend CIC

The founder of Hoarding Disorders UK says that since March, the organisation’s helpline has seen a spike in calls. Around two to five per cent of Brits are thought to be hoarders to some degree. In times of crisis, stocking up on essentials is normal human behaviour. But for around 1.2 ­million Brits, hoarding items is a serious issue, linked to anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. And for many sufferers, the lockdown has exacerbated the problem because staying at home means there is nowhere to hide from the clutter. Jo Cooke, founder of Hoarding Disorders UK, says that since March, the

Health authorities in Changhua County are looking to issue a resident with an order to seek medical treatment and impose fines after the woman’s neighbors complained of trash heaps at her house, but psychiatrists say she might suffer from compulsive hoarding syndrome. The village warden on Wednesday last week said the woman, surnamed Pan (潘), who is in her 70s, often picks up discarded items from the streets, although her family is not poor, and she had reportedly stolen broken electric fans and bicycles from other residents. Remember, if you or someone you know is suffering from hoarding, you can

When i go home to visit my parents a few times a year, my mom and I have a little dance we do. She asks me to go through some of the stuff in my childhood bedroom and decide what I want to get rid of. I tell her I will, and then I do not. I wouldn’t know how to begin sifting through the drawers and storage containers brimming with high-school notebooks and old sweatpants, and my mom offers no guidance. Instead, we both gesture at a mutual effort to declutter, and that’s enough to tide us over until

If you’ve been putting off that dreaded clear-out for way too long, we might have just the thing to push you into action: by decluttering your cupboards, unloading your loft, and clearing out the cellar, you can raise funds for animals. You even have TWO options! Option 1: Ziffit You can send unwanted items such as books, CDs, DVDs, and games to Ziffit in exchange for a donation to PETA. Simply visit the Ziffit website, choose the PETA Foundation as your charity, and enter the barcode numbers on your items. The funds you raise through your lockdown clear-out will go

If you these last few months stuck in coronavirus quarantine have felt a little weird, you’re not alone. For me, March absolutely dragged on, while April seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye. Now, in May, I can’t remember what day it is half the time. I’m regularly shocked by the number I see on the clock — is it really 4 p.m.? I’m starting to feel like I’m enduring a perpetual time loop, reliving the same day over and over. Bleak, right? But I’m not alone. Helen Rosner, a writer for The New Yorker, Tweeted that her

Lots of us know we probably have a bit too much stuff, and our homes would be calmer and easier to live in after a good sort-out. But for around 2-5% of the population, hoarding can be a real problem. Far more than just being untidy or collecting things, hoarding is a compulsive desire to hold on to things that may or may not have value – and the volume can get out of control, sometimes taking over people’s homes entirely. “The worst cases are often people who are really old and losing their health and mobility, and their homes

We are living through desperate times. On the one hand, millions of displaced people are dying of hunger and malnutrition, while on the other, the more fortunate are hoarding, preparing for a doomsday scenario. Noble Jones’ The Tomorrow Man, a 2018 film that premièred at Sundance, now seems eerily prescient. John Lithgow plays a sexagenarian retired systems analyst in small town America, who enters into a relationship with the quirky Blythe Danner, who is in the same age bracket as him. They both have secrets, but it is Lithgow’s that is germane to this column. I’m not giving anything away