A sad family drama spilled out into the street recently in north Orange County.
A father, at wit’s end about his daughter’s collection of junk and cats in the house he owns, called a cleaning crew to haul away five years’ of accumulation of stuff.
Her hoarding, he suspects, might have been triggered by the death of her mother and his wife. But the stuff was waist-high, and even with mental counseling, her progress has been too slow for him.
Workers wearing gloves and dust masks went to work, while his daughter wailed inconsolably. They filled four trucks in one day – just from the garage.
At issue is how to deal with compulsive hoarding: A mental disorder that compels people to collect too much stuff and then suffer great emotional difficulty getting rid of it.
Meantime, in south Orange County on the same day, a very different scene unfolded.
Orange County Fire Authority Inspector Darren Johnson was paying a repeat visit to the home of a man with a history of hoarding. The scene is far less dramatic, but infinitely more satisfying to everyone involved.
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Johnson is greeted at the door like an old friend.
The resident immediately boasts that he has already thrown out three bags of trash and a box of books. He wants to sort carefully, he explains, because in the process he finds valuable things.
“I just have a little more than average … But I have a helluva time throwing stuff away.”
Johnson met the personable 85-year-old a month earlier responding to a complaint about possible hoarding. They got to talking, established a relationship, and Johnson left with eight bags of trash. They’ve stayed in touch by phone and the man has agreed to cooperate with a social worker.
The house, Johnson says, was a moderate mess with foot-deep clutter covering the floors.
On this visit he is pleased. Every surface is covered in something, but you can see the carpet and a vague form of organization.
The second bedroom remains a jumbled mess. Johnson suggests he pitch a foam mattress, but the man demurs. Not ready yet.
“You have done a substantial amount,” Johnson reinforces. “There’s no fire hazard here.”
The resident is proud of his efforts.
“You’re the first person to be in my corner,” he replies. “I’m not gonna let you down.”
Johnson walks softly for a big guy wearing a badge.
“We’re gonna get the job done, but there are two ways to go … Giving them a citation and walking away doesn’t do much good.”
First, he builds a level of trust and earns an invitation inside. This takes time; in one case as long as two weeks.
“I just chip away by setting a lot of little goals …I can say: ‘Wouldn’t your life be much better if you could use the shower?’ “
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Johnson, who serves on the Orange County Task Force on Hoarding, has been a fire inspector for 23 years. He never heard of hoarding until about 10 years ago, but now he is referred 10 or 12 cases per month.
Maybe half require intervention.
Two years of time, for example, went toward a condo owner in Yorba Linda whose cluttered home became infested with mice. A neighbor complained about the smell.
Johnson has pictures of maggots in the kitchen. The home was red-tagged as uninhabitable.
“It looked like it must have taken 20 years to make that mess. We got it cleaned. (But) one year, two months later, the mess was completely back.”
The Fire Authority, which concentrates on multifamily dwellings, becomes involved when hoarding creates a safety issue.
A few years ago a Laguna Niguel man suffered a heart attack in his second-story bedroom, but firefighters couldn’t enter on the first floor. They had to climb a ladder and get in through the bedroom window.
“Then the firefighters had to dig their way out,” Johnson says.
Stacks of newspaper pose a fire hazard themselves, but extreme hoarding can also leave no room to maneuver even a gurney.
“Our gear is big … What if a fireman can’t get in to run a hose down a 12-inch pathway?”
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Some problems are obvious; others less so.
Johnson observes: “It’s not illegal to have a messy house.”
The United Mutual Homeowners Association in Laguna Woods recently passed a policy that could compel residents to allow inspections of their homes.
Johnson is cautious in his response.
“I’m happy to see them be proactive, but I don’t want to see them go overboard.”
He notes he’s there to enforce the state fire code – not to help associations enforce their rules. His concern is community risk, not aesthetics or property values. Assessing safety issues, and hoarding, requires training.
“I hope they don’t see a lot of stuff and say: I don’t like this. It must be hoarding.”
Responders throughout the county are trained to evaluate clutter using a uniform five-point scale.
Level One is like my garage.
Level Three means some rooms are not fully usable (think papers stored in the shower) or exits are blocked.
Level Five indicates pests and standing water are visible and the house has structural damage.
Johnson mentions a Level Five condo that filled six containers with junk. The condo was 1,500 square feet; a container is about the size of a conference room.
Johnson’s priority: Addressing any fire hazard and community risk. Then he leverages the county task force as a resource to help the individual and effect improvement.
He sent health-care workers to monitor the 85-year-old’s health and nutrition, plus social workers to address his mental disorder.
Mostly, he is working toward progress.
“They did not hoard all the stuff over one weekend, so I cannot expect them to fix it over the weekend. I try to give them time.”
Contact the writer: terylzarnow@gmail.com.
