Nestadt offers six anti-clutter strategies for compulsive hoarders: Make immediate decisions about mail and newspapers. Go through mail and newspapers on the day you receive them and throw away. Hoarding Disorder often co-exists with other mental and physical disorders. They don't cause hoarding.They complicate life and the specialized work to recover from Hoarding Disorder. Hoarding is more common in older adults than in younger adults. Risk factors include: Personality. Many people who have hoarding disorder have a temperament that includes indecisiveness. There is a strong association between having a family member who has hoarding disorder and having the disorder yourself. Stressful life events.
How To Overcome Hoarding
Hoarding is a known anxiety disorder in which an individual is unable or unwilling to part with personal possessions, in turn, they accumulate huge numbers of possessions that clutter the entire home and property. This is an embarrassing situation to talk about, yet about 5% of Americans deal with a hoarding disorder and do not know how to control it. Considering that abuse typically involves anxiety problems, such as OCD, panic attacks, hypervigilance, and hoarding. Consider that as a child you never knew when you were going to get your next meal, it would make sense as an adult that you do everything possible to never feel the effects of hunger. This page is not going to give an easy fix on how to handle hoarding. Because if we are being honest, there is no quick fix, it may take some time for you to have to get hoarding under control. When an individual is forced to just quit hoarding, the anxiety becomes overwhelming and the problem gets worse. The tips we have are designed to help place practical suggestions into place that will improve the quality of life and help you deal with the situation with small steps. This guide was put together by the best hoarding cleanup experts in the nation. Continue reading for insight on the different steps to take in order to have more control of this bad habit.
Understanding The Problem
The first thing one must understand is that there is a difference between hoarding and collecting. When people hoard, the home itself becomes almost unlivable. whereas collecting allows people to live in the home without any hassles. You may see that some people like to buy bulk food, however, they place it in a special pantry. Food is bought with the understanding that it is going to be used within a specific amount of time and will not spoil. People with hoarding disorders tend to collect and collect and it never really seems to stop. With so many things piling up it is important to consider hoarding cleanup services. Fortunately, Biohazard is always available to help with all of your hoarding cleanup needs.
Address The Anxiety
It is important to know that hoarding is an anxiety issue at its core, and must be treated as such. The cluttered home is the symptom, not the problem. While the home can be cleaned up, it is not going to solve the root of the problem, it is simply going to become cluttered again or a new coping mechanism will be released that is just as unhealthy.
Store Like Items Together
It is important to find a spot to place similar items, such as mail in one drawer and canned food in one cabinet. This is going to make it much easier to find what is needed and offer less opportunity to buy things you do not need. By storing items where they belong, it allows you to see just how much you have of that item such as clothing, perishables, and cleaning supplies, if it can not fit in that space, there is no need for it.
Quitting Impulse Shopping
This is perhaps one of the most important steps to have more control over your bad hoarding habits. You need to buy the items you want but not in a spontaneous manner. This is the same even if you see items on sale. This is going to mean that you have to walk away from items you may really want, but that is OK. You have to focus on getting just the items you need.
Digital Service
In order to save more space in a house, it may be time to go digital. It is possible to store music, videos, magazines, pictures, address books, and just about everything else in cyberspace. If you are unfamiliar with computers and digital products, just ask for help and you will be ready to go.
Repurpose Items
Upcycling is a great way to get rid of items in your house while helping the environment. However, you must keep an eye on the prize and ensure you are getting rid of the clutter and not bringing more in. If there are too many projects available it is easy to get overwhelmed, in that case, it is just best to get rid of it.
Donate Items
If you already have a good number of items in your home, it is well worth considering donating them. While you have already spent money on these items, it is unfortunate that you are going to lose it, but holding on to these items is only going to aggravate the condition. If you just can’t give up the items just yet, go through the process of packing excess items up neatly, labeling them, and taping them to be ready for donation.
Keep Or Toss?
When going through the clutter caused by hoarding, we get lost in the choices we have, keep it, where to put, where would I donate it etc? Instead make it a two question choice, keep it or toss it? Then just make two piles of the items you will keep and the items you are going to toss. This is going to make the hoarding cleanup much more simplistic and organized. The point of this project is to help you get your life organized and seeing these little steps is going to put you on the right foot. It is going to make it possible to make bigger and harder decisions in the future.
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You’ve likely seen the TV shows about people with extreme hoarding habits. You may even have this tendency yourself. A hoarder's home is stuffed with items ranging from old magazines to clothes to collectibles. The hoarder’s inability to part with items makes living conditions quite difficult. But as reality shows reveal, these folks can’t easily shake the compulsion.
Hoarding isn’t quite as entertaining when it’s happening in your own workplace.
Back in my TV days, the person in the cubicle next to me in the newsroom was a hoarder. She brought her own filing cabinet from home into the cubicle and her space was a sea of plants, books, office supplies, notes and other debris. When it overflowed onto my area I just placed those “overflow” items back into her area. It was distracting.
As a boss, this type of thing can put you in a precarious position. No matter how productive or talented your employee is, today’s office design makes it difficult to hide such an eyesore from visiting clients, not to mention the example it sets for any other workers on your team. Here are a few things you can do to manage the situation.
Understand the cause.
Chances are, you’re struggling to determine why your employee’s office or desk area is in the condition it is. This may be the first time you’ve seen this behavior up close and personal. It can help to understand that hoarding may not be a choice someone makes. Instead, it could be deeply rooted in a psychological condition that is difficult to overcome.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, the exact cause of hoarding isn’t known. Hoarding has been found to be more common in people with relatives who have the disorder, and some cases have been connected to a brain injury.
How To Overcome Digital Hoarding Disorder
Although in the past it has been considered an offshoot of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in recent years brain abnormalities have been identified in those with hoarding that aren’t present in OCD cases.
Sometimes, the cause of the “hoarding” may have nothing to do with mental health. At one of the Bay Area startups I worked at, one new employee had just moved from the East Coast. He was still getting his living situation figured out and kept most of his possessions at the office or in his car. He slept in the break room some nights. It took several months before he was able to get that all ironed out, with the support of his supervisor and the CEO.
Related: A Reformed Hoarder's Guide to Records Storage
Offer Resources
If the hoarding is a mental health issue, it’s important to deal with it in a responsible way. Keeping a healthy work culture is important to retaining and attracting employees, and dismissing workers dealing with serious issues can quickly damage your reputation (to say nothing of getting you sued). Instead, offer support, resources, and advocacy to the employee.
As an employer, you can't force team members to take advantage of opportunities but ensure they’re available and the employee knows about them. Health insurane plans are required to include mental health care, so look for local support groups that can help the employee. Have a talk with the worker about the behavior. Emphasize that you’re there to help, not criticize or condemn.
Related: How to Address Mental Health at Your Workplace
Accommodate
Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, employers are required to make 'reasonable accommodations' for a disabled employee, which can include shifting work hours, allowing remote work or reassigning the worker to a more appropriate position. Assuming the employee is a productive team member who can help your business, do what you can to help them overcome their issues. If the worker has performance issues, that’s a different matter to deal with.
If a messy office is a concern, relocate the employee to an area less visible to visitors or find a way to partition the office from view. But for small businesses, office space usually is at a premium, and you may even be leasing in a coworking space, where you have to deal with complaints from other tenants. In that case, you’ll have no choice but to clear the clutter.
Related: 4 Reasons Your Messy Desk May Be a Sign of Genius
Set guidelines
Being supportive includes setting reasonable expectations for anyone within your employment. If you don’t already have a policies manual, start one, and include a policy on workplace cleanliness among them.
Whether you have one employee or 20, you should be prepared to enforce policies uniformly. Remind the hoarding worker of your policy and set a deadline for clearing up the clutter. Be willing to compromise and allow some messiness in exchange for improvement.
How To Overcome Digital Hoarding Effects
Once your business begins hiring employees, you’ll face numerous challenges. When those challenges involve a disorder like hoarding, you may find that you need to be a little lenient, while also ensuring that you’ve created an environment where everyone can work comfortably.