The Difference Between Hoarding And Collecting

By Debra Kelly on Friday, September 26, 2014

82173239
The maggots are crawling down my hand and biting my wrist, Stan. Can we throw thi
s away?
Dr. Chinstrap, Insheeption, South Park
In A Nutshell
Between 700,000 and 1.4 million people in the United States alone have issues wi
th hoarding, and the difference between hoarding and collecting is largely how a
person feels about their surroundings. Generally speaking, collectors are proud
of their items and display them, while most obsessive-compulsive hoarders keep
their possessions because they can t bear to throw them away, even though they may
be ashamed. They may feel anxious whenever anyone asks them about getting rid o
f things and, unlike collectors, there s often an element of disorganization to th
eir stash.
The Whole Bushel
According to the International OCD Foundation, about 1 in every 50 people has a
serious problem with hoarding. One of the most common explanations a hoarder mig
ht have for their overwhelming amount of stuff is that they re just a collector. T
hat can be difficult to argue with, but there are some very clear differences be
tween the two sets of behaviors.
Both involve buying stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. Hoarders can focus on a handf
ul of particular items and collectors can amass collections of different things
. . . so what s the difference?
Much of it boils down to what s going on inside a person. Most collectors are thos
e who are proud of their collections, who collect certain things because of the
love of the item, or theme, or object. They re also proud to share their collectio
n with others they like talking about it, they like sharing stories, and they like
showing it to others.
There is also usually a sense of organization to the collector. Things are of va
lue, they re neatly displayed or organized, and if there s overflow, the items are b
oxed and stored carefully. There s a sense that even though there s a lot of somethi
ng too much, some people might say it s all cared for.
You might think someone s crazy for having 500 different types of pickle jars, but
if they re proud of it, they re a collector.
Hoarders, on the other hand, may often be ashamed of the state of their house an
d the items that they ve amassed. Most hoarders go to great lengths to keep people
out of their houses and away from their things; many know that they re getting ca
rried away, but they can t help it. They may be embarrassed rather than proud, but
they still don t know how to stop.
There s usually no organization to a hoarder s home, no sense that everything has it
s place. There s often a wider variety of things that get collected in the hoarder
home, and many hoarders gravitate toward free things or stocking up on bargain
items that they can t possibly use.
A collector will find other collectors to share and swap items with, while a hoa
rder may suffer in isolation.
There s also a difference in the reason a person accumulates things. Collectors ge
t things because they take pleasure in having them, while hoarders may keep thin
gs because they re afraid of not having them. While a collector might loathe to pa
rt with a few prized possessions, it s because he ll miss them, not because he think

s something horrible might happen because he gets rid of them.

Hoarding is an obsessive compulsive disorder, and it s not something that a person
comes by voluntarily. Collectors collect because they want to; hoarders hoard b
ecause they have no choice.
Hoarding also often has an element of danger involved as well. The behavior is a
ssociated with fire hazards in the home, health problems, sanitation problems, a
nd, in the cases where a hoard spills outside the home, there can be issues with
town and city regulatory agencies. And when animals are involved, that can esca
late the situation to a whole other level.
Perhaps most importantly, collectors and hoarders don t respond the same to interf
erence from concerned loved ones. Hoarders often need intervention to help keep
things from getting completely out of control, and require respect, understandin
g, help, and usually therapy to get over their hoarding tendencies.
Show Me The Proof
International OCD Foundation: Hoarding Fact Sheet (pdf)
ADAA: What is hoarding?
Psych Central: 10 Things You Should Know About Compulsive Hoarding
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Lisa 39
My mom and step dad are hoarders, when they moved from Parkman to Cleveland it t
ook 5 months to pack up and clean up, I talked my mom into throwing out a lot of
junk but it wasn t easy. Just the thought of the Parkman house keeps me on my toe
s about not hoarding and getting rid of crap I really don t need.
Clyde Barrow
I watched as one of my good friends developed into a hoarder. It got pretty bad
on multiple occasions, with the city coming out to force him to clean up the pro
perty multiple times of course he had the cats, too.
In 2012, he once again attracted the attention of law enforcement when he was sh
ooting off a replica Civil War cannon in the yard, much to the chagrin of the ne
ighbors. By this point, I hadn t talked to him in a few years because his mental h
ealth deteriorated with the escalation of his bad habits/hoarding. But he manage
d to get himself arrested, and the cops found his house in shambles, with stray
cats running amok, and a collection of gunpowder and explosives. He s serving a 5 ye
ar prison sentence because of the explosives, now. However the city charged him
a bill to clean up the property which he couldn t pay, because he s in prison, and t
hey confiscated his house and property to pay the bill! So when he gets out of j
ail, he ll be homeless, and still likely not received any treatment for his mental
condition.
A whole host of problems come with hoarding, and almost always include other men
tal health issues.
Lisa 39
Wow, that s awful, poor guy. I think hoarding is a side effect of mental issues, m
y parents have plenty of of those with paperwork, the Parkman house was so bad t
hat there was a path from the back door through the whole house, when we tackled
the living room I found a table with chairs in an alcove with a bay window, the
y had arts and crafts, books, magazines and just junk piled to the ceiling, it w
as a long and shitty 5 months.
I feel bad for your friend and you re right, he s not getting the help he needs in p
rison, if I were the judge I would have had him committed to a mental health fac
ility, people don t live like that and fire cannons in their front yard because th
ey re criminals, they do it because there s something not right going on upstairs.
Clyde Barrow
Exactly. I think the judge recognized mental illness because the D.A. wanted to

give him 18 years! The judge stated during sentencing that there was obvious men
tal issues, and he didn t have any prior criminal record. He liked to make his own
fireworks and noise makers and set them off, but he lived on a residential stre
et, so I can see how the neighbors would be pissed. He might have deserved a lit
tle jail time, that s fair, but to take away a man s property, cars, and possessions
whilst a man is incarcerated is downright mean spirited and fucked up. So now t
he county has not only made him a criminal, but one that has nowhere to go and n
ot a dime to his name when he s released..which means he ll probably be going in and
out of jail for the rest of his life.
As for your situation, I feel for you. That can t be easy watching family go down
that road. Unfortunately, there is very little one can do about it once they get
in over their heads, and they will fight to the death to hold on to worthless g
arbage they ll never ever use. They don t realize it doesn t only effect them, but eve
ryone around them, including strangers, neighbors, family, et cetera.
Lisa 39
Basically the county just turned him into a homeless criminal with mental proble
ms, they didn t help him at all. Gotta love the American way. Maybe he can go to a
halfway house or a mental health facility, there are programs that can help him
but someone is going to have to guide him in the right direction. He should rea
lly be assigned a social worker to help take care of him or he will absolutely e
nd up back in prison, that s a very sad story.
I ve talked about my mom on lv before, its really hard to watch the steady decline
of a parent, this has been an ongoing issue for 35 years and I love my mom but
I feel like I m the parent most of the time, she s convinced herself that she isn t st
rong and needs to be taken care of, she really asks for help with things that ar
e above and beyond normal expectations and doesn t understand why people say no. I
will give her credit for one thing tho, since we cleaned out the Parkman house
she s been real good about not hoarding, she actually throws things in the garbage
! Like empty pill bottles, there were hundreds of them in Parkman, I asked her w
hy she didn t throw them out and she said that her & hubby saved them to store thi
ngs in, if there had been 50 in a box I wouldn t have said a word but they were ju
st strewn through the whole house, pointless and useless. Now every time I visit
I walk through the house and make sure crap isn t piling up, I ask her about ever
ything that looks like it doesn t belong there, my brother and his wife do the sam
e thing, I think my aunts do it also, it really does take a village to raise som
e children lol. Thank you Clyde, its nice to have sympathetic friends who unders
tand the struggle.
http://www.seguebythesea.com/ segue
My mum was a sort of weird cross between the two. She saved everything she could
foresee a possible future use for, but she saved them neatly. Another weirdness
was that she had rules about what one was allowed to actually use. There were t
ea towels, for example, that had been gifts which were not to be touched. She ha
d stacks of them which were still in the original packaging. When I suggested op
ening them up and using the, as they were intended, she got absurdly upset. So,
I m not sure if collector or hoarder was what she was, maybe a new category needs
to be found.
Lisa 39
Wow, that s odd, kind of cute tho but still odd. I m glad that she was at least neat
about it, that s way better than unorganized. I have 2 names for it,
#1, the ocd organized hoarder
#2, the neat collector of (a) oddities (or b) the mundane.
I only know about towels so I can t pick which word, but you can!
http://www.seguebythesea.com/ segue
A tea towel is a version of kitchen towel. They are usually made out of linen an
d are decorated with silk screen images. Ours were always Australian, with pictu
res of Koalas and Kangaroos and Australian flowers. Very pretty.
Still considering possible names for the condition.
Lisa 39
Oohhh they sound pretty! Do you know where they are now?
http://www.seguebythesea.com/ segue

After she passed away, my brother and I divided the towels and used them. Eventu
ally, they wore out, reduced to holes. I loved them. I am considering asking my
cousin in Australia to send me some.
Lisa 39
You should do that!
RotorRob
Yeah, my grandma was that way, either roosters or clowns on all kinds of stuff,
she was a collector. Very proud of the gifts or things she bought, and don t touch
em.
http://www.seguebythesea.com/ segue
roosters sounds like my ex mother-in-law.
michele
Yep, dealing with same thing. My mom is a hoarder and every time someone mention
s helping her clean up, it becomes a big family fight. She had a plumber in a fe
w weeks agg and was in a panic after he told her the house was in code violation
and he could not do the work unless she cleaned up. Yet, nothing has been done
and she refuses help.
Lisa 39
You have my sympathy, this isn t easy to deal with, I wish there was a phone numbe
r like 696 kids for hoarders, we could call and they d send someone to help but th
ere s not. Does your mom have mental health issues?
michele
She has never been formally diagnosed, but she has lots of issues. Very passive
aggressive personality. I too wish.for that magic number. I wanted to call the H
oarders show but they are no longer in production. How did you get yours to move
?
Lisa 39
My step dad had a heart attack and they moved here to be closer to bigger hospit
als instead of that little town hospital. I m really trying to think of suggestion
s to help you but we re kind of screwed. I know if someone calls and complains the
city can come out and make her clean it up or she ll get fined, I would feel supe
r shitty about doing that to my parents tho. Has she ever acted suicidal? If she
has you can call the suicide prevention hotline, they ll send a social worker to
her house and get her help with those issues and her house, because that s a menta
l thing.
Clyde Barrow
I ts Friday, so today I ll be a hoarder of full beers .tonight I ll be a collector of em
pty beer cans. Cheers!
http://www.seguebythesea.com/ segue
Is there a secret to getting KnowledgeNuts delivered via email, as Listverse is?
RotorRob
Yeah, we can t tell you, it s a secret.