What triggers obsessive compulsive hoarding?

No one knows exactly what triggers compulsive hoarding. Ron Alford, Managing Director of Disaster Masters, a company that specializes in cleaning out apartments that have become "utter disasters", says, "Psychologists have been trying to figure out what triggers hoarding for years." Alford also says, "Compulsive hoarders may go into therapy, but they never manage to get their lives untangled as far as the physical clutter is concerned. Therapy doesn't work for this problem."

Alford has a great deal of experience dealing with compulsive hoarders, and he believes that "what will work is the hoarder deciding, at some point, that he or she wants to live a better life". It's making that decision that is key. "Talking to a therapist doesn't work," Alford says, "because many compulsive hoarders in therapy lie to their therapists. There's a lot of shame involved. They never tell their therapists that they have a problem with compulsive hoarding."

"Instead of talking about their clutter problem," Alford says, "they talk about their history, all about what happened to them when they were kids. All of that really doesn't matter when it comes time to deal with the clutter."

What matters, Alford says, is that compulsive hoarders really want to recover. Once hoarders are able to admit to themselves that they have a problem and that they would like to change the way they live, then they can begin to make progress. "If they want to recover, then they can. It's like switching on a light. 'I want to live in the dark.' Click. 'I want to live in the light.' Click. It is a choice, and it involves thinking. The moment they think that they want to live a different kind of life is the moment they start to explore other ways of thinking."

"The biggest obstacle," Alford says, "is getting someone to admit that they are a compulsive hoarder. That's hard. No matter how smart or competent a person is, the one thing they hate to admit is that they are inept when it comes to taking care of themselves. They feel ashamed. They hate themselves. I mean, gay people find it easier to come out of the closet than a hoarder does."

Last summer, the BBC made a documentary about some of the work that Alford's company has done. Alford says that convincing someone who was a compulsive hoarder to actually show her face on a live camera was one of the most difficult things that he had ever done. "It is tough enough," he says, "for compulsive hoarders to contact us and get us to come out and help them.

"The reason we are able to help them," Alford says, "is because we don't judge them. We are not in the business of looking at them and making judgments. They have already been through that. What they need is a solution. That is what we provide. We call this the freedom plan. It is very appropriate and that is what we do, we give the people a whole new life by helping them understand how to live better."