Avery Associates

House Clearance & Probate Valuation Services


  • HOME
  • HOUSE CLEARANCE
    • Probate House Clearance
    • House Clearance
    • FAQ
    • Hoarder House Clearance
    • Garden Clearance
    • Charity Donations
    • Recycling
    • House Clearance Gallery
    • Our Locations
  • PROBATE VALUATIONS
    • PROBATE HELP
      • Probate Valuation Guide Fees & Advice
      • Probate House Clearance
      • Executor Assistance
      • Solicitor Assistance
      • Our Locations
    • Probate Valuation Explained
    • RICS Property Valuation
    • Classic Cars
    • Jewellery
    • Coins
    • Books
    • Stamps
    • Vintage Toys
    • Records
  • REVIEWS
  • NEWS
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
    • BOOK A PROBATE VALUATION NOW

Unpacking the Three Stages of Hoarding

May 4, 2019 By Richard Farrell

The three stages of hoarding are first acquiring, then cluttering, and finally an inability to discard things we no longer need. The first step has a great deal to do with the value public perceptions put on consumer goods.

The third stage is a process so secretive most hoarders don’t fully understand it themselves. The middle one, cluttering, is a bit of both. Let’s turn over the page and discover more.

Before we begin though, it’s important to understand that hoarding is a spectrum like so many other aspects of personality. Using a different example, we all sit somewhere on the line between introvert and extrovert for example. Neither is right neither is wrong.

The Spectrum of Needs: Social Acquisition

Research Gate says we acquire possessions because of the value they provide us. However they make a distinction between their public and private value, because the latter evolves during the hoarding phase.

The public value is the social esteem, or public approval of owning a particular product. Hence a brand new Mercedes Benz may raise our status in the neighborhood, while a battered old Nissan may have the opposite effect.

Marketers go to great lengths to attach social value in their advertisements. It’s a trick they play on our minds: A trick that lures us into buying the least nutritious food because so-and-so endorses it.

Perhaps this is why we end up acquiring things we later hoard because we have no use for them? Let’s find out more, this time about cluttering.

The Spectrum of Needs: Cluttering

Francois Rabelais was a famous Renaissance scholar who delighted in turning things on their heads. Sometime in the 16th Century he said “Nature abhors a vacuum”. If we have a clear mantelpiece in the lounge, we clutter it with things and we find it strangely difficult to tidy up later. The authoritative journal of the US National Library of Medicine has the following to say about this.

De-cluttering is not a natural thing in the absence of pressure. Children should be taught to de-clutter or else they may need therapeutic training in later life. Clutter is not an obsession and it can be untaught.  However hoarding is a different matter.

The Spectrum of Needs: Obsessive Hoarding

People who clutter do so out of habit. However hoarding is driven by an obsessive impulse to give nothing away. Scientists advance two different reasons why a clutterer becomes a hoarder.

In the first instance they may have a physical brain disorder following injury. Others may however develop the symptoms after an emotional disorder leading to deep depression. There is no real hope of solving this until we can fix the causes. The best that medicine can offer is various serotonergic antidepressants.

Psychologists believe hoarders hoard, because this takes the pressure off elsewhere by satisfying an impulse. Perhaps we should leave them alone unless this behaviour risks their health and safety, or that of another person. Most times the behaviour is not antisocial and the neighbours have no idea what is happening next door.

Landlords should however have the right to intrude within reason if their property is at risk, or the benefits of other tenants are impaired.

Related

Filed Under: Compulsive Hoarding Tagged With: clearing out a hoarder's house, introvert and extrovert hoarders, marketers sales tricks on the mind, social acquisition and hoarding, three stages of hoarding

Our House Clearance Services

We provide a full house clearance and property management solution:

  • We clear hoarded houses, regardless how big or how cluttered
  • We clear all types and sizes of property, irrespective of location, or access is restricted or where parking is difficult or not available.
  • We can help avoid water damage by draining the central heating system.
  • We can secure the property and change the locks.
  • We can reinstate the gardens and maintain them whilst the property is empty.
  • We can provide 24 hour security to eliminate the risk of squatting or unlawful occupation.

As well normal house clearances we specialise in clutter clearance and we can clear a hoarded house which may contain years of accumulated possessions, or which have abnormal amounts of general household items, sometimes as a result of compulsive hoarding syndrome.

Equally we can help to clear a property where the occupants were previously unwell and unable to care for themselves or their property which sometimes results in insanitary, dangerous or just plain unpleasant conditions.

More info

About Richard Farrell

What We Do

Get A Quick Quote

Client Reviews

Imogen
Aug 3, 2022
 by Imogen on Avery Associates
Professiuonal House Clearance

Dear Jeffrey I want to extend a heartfelt thank to you and your team for the hero’s work that you all did yesterday at the house in Highbury. You... Read More

Anne Wenham
Jul 26, 2022
 by Anne Wenham on Avery Associates
Fantastic service

So pleased to have found Avery Associates when we had to clear a three floor town house. The probate valuations for house and contents were swiftly ... Read More

Margaret Campbell
Jun 24, 2022
 by Margaret Campbell on Avery Associates
Amazing Service and Support

Hello Pam / Jeffrey, As requested, sorry it is late …. I forgot☹️ I used Avery Associates for probate content valuation, clearance... Read More

Page 1 of 45:
«
 
‹
 
1
2
3
›
 
»
 

Share, Email or Print

Looking For Something?

Our Latest News & Advice

  • Why Must I Place a Deceased Estate Notice?
  • If We Must Vape Let’s Recycle E-Cigarettes
  • UK Government Fly Tipping Statistics 2020 to 2021


Avery Associates
291 Mitcham Rd
Tooting SW179JQ

Tel: 0800 567 7769 or 0208 640 0044

Services provided throughout London and the Home Counties. View our clearance case studies.


Website Terms | Privacy Policy | Sitemap | Copyright © 2005-2018 Avery Associates
Website Development by Avara Web Media