‘People think you’ve got 10,000 cats’: the support group for hoarders

Ruth Cookson struggled with Hoarding for decades. Now she helps people in the support group. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Ruth Cookson struggled with Hoarding for decades. Now she helps people in the support group. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian ‘People think you’ve got 10,000 cats’: the support group for hoarders Many hoarders are scared to seek help but one UK housing association is taking a more empathetic approach At one end of the table sits Tony*, who showers at his local leisure centre in Birkenhead every day. His landlord won’t fix his bathroom because of his Hoarding. Then there’s Sarah*, who ended up homeless with her three teenagers after their landlord evicted them because of Hoarding. In her new home the problem has started again, but she says she’s petrified to ask for help in case she loses her property. Sian Cowley, 35, who has struggled with Hoarding for decades, says: “I’ve lived without central heating for two years. A lot of us live without the basics like hot water, heating and cooking because we are too scared to get people in to do repairs because of the threat of eviction.” The three shared their experiences during a Bringing Hoarders Together session, a fortnightly peer support group for hoarders in Wirral, Merseyside, run by Prima Group housing association, where dozens of people find a safe forum to open up about living with their mental health condition. View image in fullscreen Sian Cowley, 35, at a meeting of the Wirral support group for people who hoard. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian A Guardian investigation has found that since 2020, UK fire services have recorded a 78% increase in fires involving Hoarding, or where “dangerous and excessive storage” was noted. Across the country, fire brigades have logged thousands of homes as high-risk because of Hoarding. Last year in London alone there were more than 2,000 properties flagged by the fire service due to the level of Hoarding inside, up from 1,200 four years earlier. People affected by Hoarding, which was formally classified as a mental health condition by the World Health Organization in 2018, say they are scared to seek help because they fear being evicted and feel trapped in dangerous homes. Many who have tried to get support say there is little help available, and still a huge stigma attached to the disorder, which means they feel they will be turned away even by qualified mental health professionals. “You’re better off being a drug addict. You’re better off being an alcoholic,” says Laura Miller, 65, who was offered help after falling on the stairs over built up clutter. “Programmes about hoarders on TV have just perpetuated it as some kind of entertainment, taking the mick out of poor people,” she adds. View image in fullscreen Laura Miller: ‘Programmes about hoarders on TV have just perpetuated it as some kind of entertainment.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian Chloe*, who began Hoarding after her mother took her own life, says: “As soon as you say you’re a hoarder, people think you’ve got 10,000 cats and loads of cockroaches. But we’ve all got something that’s made us like this – someone people might do sex, drugs or drink. Ours is stuff.” View image in fullscreen Prima Group’s Jenny Devon: ‘It just needs more empathy.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian Jenny Devon, a sustainment and cohesion manager at Prima Group, says: “What happens a lot is they get a skip and send people to clear the whole place. But it’s that person’s stuff. It’s such a personal thing, it’s not rubbish. It’s that trinket linked to the trauma, or to the parent who’s died. It just needs more empathy. It’s so badly dealt with. And it’s because people are not educated – the worst thing is that nobody understands.” She says there is a need to keep residents safe, by ensuring gas safety checks can be carried out, for instance, but long-term solutions are better than short-term fixes. Jo Cooke, the director of Hoarding Disorders UK, says that in the nearly 15 years she has worked supporting hoarders, she has never known an enforced clearance or eviction to help the person. “When the threat [of clearance and eviction] is looming, it will only increase Hoarding behaviours,” she says. “It leaves hoarders feeling violated and they will mistrust any professionals who could support them.” According to the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (Iriss), almost 100% of people who experience a property clearance without behavioural therapy will regress to Hoarding behaviour more rapidly. Cowley says social services became involved her case, and hundreds of pounds was spent on mandatory cleaning. “They would be better spending their money on peer support groups like this, because this is the only thing that has made an impact on me in 20 years,” she says. Cooke adds that the charity has supported countless people who have experienced Hoarding-related fires, including a woman who lost her husband in a fire earlier this year. View image in fullscreen Ruth Cookson’s home before she got help. Photograph: supplied Ruth Cookson, 53, a Prima resident, helped set up Bringing Hoarders Together four years ago. She has struggled with Hoarding for decades and says she was thrown out her family home aged 22 because of it. Her current home was flagged for Hoarding after a gas safety check, but she ignored the letters from her housing association as she was scared of eviction. After the situation deteriorated during Covid lockdown, she decided to get help. She says the smell in her house was so bad, any visitors had to wear a mask. “I just couldn’t cope. I didn’t want to hoard, but I didn’t know where to turn,” she says. “I wouldn’t admit I had a problem, I buried my head in the sand.” She says having a housing officer she could trust was essential, as was going at her own pace. She had some setbacks. Workers who came to help clear the property were rude and told her neighbours about the condition of her home. “Before they could start pointing fingers, I put it all over Facebook myself. That was the turning point of me knowing I was going to get the help,” she says. Now her home is safe and clean, she can finally get the cat she has been desperate for, and spends time helping people in the support group. “I’m here to say: if you think you can’t do it, yes, you can do it. I’m living proof you can,” she says. Explore more on these topics Mental health Housing Merseyside Health Communities North of England news Share Reuse this content