Collectors v. hoarders: Is there a difference?
Linda and her “pack rat” husband keep four storage lockers crammed full of stuff, a substantial downsize from the 25 units they used to keep. Their basement is stacked floor to ceiling with plastic bins and 300 banker’s boxes. There are also rugs, lamps, and piles of linens and dishes. Never mind the multiple homes the couple has sold “fully loaded, right down to the placemats” to get a “fresh start” away from the mountains they’ve amassed.
What distinguishes a hoarder immobilized by possessions from your run-of-the-mill collector, compulsive saver of mementos, or a neat, high-functioning one such as Linda?
“When the accumulation of stuff interferes with their ability to live or causes significant distress, that’s the breaking point between hoarding as just a behaviour and hoarding as a disorder,” says Randy Frost, a Smith College psychology professor who has studied hoarding for two decades and wrote Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things with Gail Steketee.
