Compulsive hoarders now amass audiences

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.

For years, no one on Crest Drive paid much attention to the little white house with pink trim. The front yard was overgrown with shrubs, and three cars sat motionless in the driveway. Neighbors on the quiet street knew the owner, a retired psychologist named Carina DeOcampo, was an odd, private person - even her family would leave bags of food on the front steps, then quickly drive away.

But folks here were shocked in early October when police forced their way into the home and discovered the 72-year-old Ms. DeOcampo dead, surrounded by heaps of garbage that packed the house.

Ms. DeOcampo was a hoarder.

“She had trails throughout the house, from her chair to the kitchen to her bedroom,” said neighbor David Collins, who peered into the front door after Ms. DeOcampo’s body was removed. “It was unbelievable.”

This year, compulsive hoarders are in the spotlight. Books, movies and TV’s “Hoarders” - a popular A&E; reality show that begins its second season Monday - have all brought the disorder out of its shame-filled past.

Some hoarding researchers worry that the media sensationalizes the problem while making solutions seem tidier than they really are. But they concede any attention may entice people who suffer from the disorder to obtain help.

Stories like Ms. DeOcampo’s spring up across the U.S. with regularity; some hoarders are fined tens of thousands of dollars by local authorities for zoning or health code violations, while others are arrested on animal abuse charges after collecting dogs or cats. Hoarders’ family and friends often give up in frustration, unable to help clean out dangerous living spaces.

On the “Hoarders” TV show, people with the disorder recognize they have a problem, then work with psychiatrists and organization professionals to help clean up. Viewers are fascinated; the show is the No. 1 “freshman” nonfiction series on cable for the 25-54 age bracket.

“There’s just a core relate-ability that people feel for this subject,” said Robert Sharenow, A&E;’s senior vice president of programming. “People look at this show and see themselves to a degree, or see people they know.”

An estimated 2 million people in the U.S. suffer from compulsive hoarding, according to several mental health groups that treat the afflicted. Hoarding is an obsessive-compulsive mental health disorder defined as the acquisition of, and inability to discard, things. Sometimes those things are new; in many cases, it is literally garbage, as in the case of Kitty Lewis, an Oklahoma City woman whose decomposing body was found in her mold- and cat-infested home in May.

Some, like Paula Kotakis of San Francisco, don’t have problems accumulating.

“I’m what is called a passive hoarder - most hoarders have a compulsive acquisition problem, buying or getting stuff,” she said. “For me, stuff comes in the normal way, with papers, mail and subscriptions. My problem is, it never went out.”

Ms. Kotakis, 51, feared throwing things away.

“If I get rid of this, I may need this sometime,” she would think.

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