You Can Do It
Everyone saves something: A child's first birthday card, an old ticket stub to a Yankee game, your first Duncan Yo-Yo, but when does attachment cross the line into hoarding?New research indicates it does in as many as five percent of all Americans.Dr. Robert Hudak: "Early adolescence is when hoarding starts, and it doesn't become a severe problem at that point, because if you are a child or teenager, your parents can force you to clean up your room." Most of us are amateur hoarders compared to the Collyer brothers.They even have their own syndrome.The brothers lived together; both attended Columbia University, which had just relocated to its Morningside Heights campus, about a 20 minute walk from the Collyer house. When they died in 1947, 130 tons of garbage was removed from the Collyer brownstone. The salvageable items fetched less than $2,000 at auction.When hoarding reaches this extent, it's not merely eccentric— it's a disturbing mental problem.There's a little of the Collyer brothers in all of us—fortunately not a lot. Mike Nelson, author of "Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life" and originator of Clutterless Recovery Groups explains the difference between hoarding and accumulating this way.A hoarder cannot make rational decisions about what is useful and what is not. Then there's the NSGCD Clutter Hoarding Scale that can distinguish clutter from hoarding based on the interior of your home.In case you're wrestling with the initials NSGCD, it stands for the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. It sounds like something from a Mel Brooks movie, but they're serious. Four categories of clutter are taken into effect.Level 1 is normal clutter.Level 2 is, "I know that cashmere sweater is in this pile somewhere." Level 3 is you're TiVoing every episode of "Hoarders." Level 4 means you can't find your phone to call for help.Dr. David Tolin offers 12 tips to overcome hoarding like the "OHIO" rule, which I don't fully understand.But who can argue with someone who was on Oprah.So what, if anything, works for you?I thought with spring decluttering looming around the corner, it might be wise not to hoard any opinions on the subject.