Can you report a hoarder

For years, hoarding was understood to be a form of OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Research surrounding the disease has evolved, however, and the American Psychiatric Association now recognizes compulsive hoarding as its own mental disorder.

The symptoms are familiar enough to anyone with a Netflix account and a free Saturday afternoon: a deep inability to part with even the most worthless-seeming objects hello, four broken VCRs and five TV remotes! But it can get much worse than that.

Food refuse can attract rats, ants, roaches, and squirrels that can then meander over to your house for dessert. Stacks of newspapers are obvious fire hazards that significantly increase the chances of your own home getting caught in a downdraft. And then there are the overtly lawful issues — the public health and hygiene violations that could plant a legal black eye on your otherwise issue-free neighborhood.

Who knows? Officers of the court are working together with social service providers to implement a more sophisticated approach that coordinates both pressure on the individual to change and support in making necessary changes.

A key part of this process is creating an explicit plan that clarifies necessary changes in the home and establishes a timeline to reach mandated benchmarks. For those who decline treatment but fail to make progress, judges can mandate treatment or other human service intervention. The mistreatment of animals due to animal hoarding People with hoarding disorder may fail to recognize these dangers of their hoarding behavior, a characteristic that may stem from the nature of hoarding disorder itself.

As a landlord, you are likely to face a catastrophe at your rental property if a person with hoarding disorder lived in the premises.

And a catastrophe is not an overly dramatic term. The amount of garbage and other items in and around the premises are likely to be overwhelming. In addition, as a hoarding situation progresses, a biohazardous situation is likely to exist at the residence. This type of dangerous situation necessitates professional biohazard remediation.

An experienced entrepreneur, Emily assisted in founding Eco Bear as a means of combining her business experience with her desire to provide assistance to people facing challenging circumstances. Emily regularly writes about her first-hand experiences providing services such as biohazard cleanup, suicide cleanup, crime scene cleanup, unattended death cleanup, infectious disease disinfection, and other types of difficult remediations in homes and businesses.

We value privacy. Skip to content. Knowledge Center. Dealing With a Hoarding Neighbor If you have a neighbor who is a severe hoarder and his or her activity is impacting your ability to enjoy or even live in your own property, there are steps you can take to attempt to address the nuisance created by a person who hoards In all Southern California communities, on the county and city levels, there exist ordinances that address nuisances created on residential property.

The Aftermath of a Hoarding Tenant As a landlord, you are likely to face a catastrophe at your rental property if a person with hoarding disorder lived in the premises. Related Posts. On the one hand, she may have no one helping her to face her problem. I thought that I recalled you saying you are in the Portland, OR area? I found this info on Dr. If you do manage to make a personal connection with her, this is ino you might be able to provide:.

Less personally, here is information on the code violation and an online form you can fill out to report a neighorhood nuisance as a result of property neglect, etc. Hoarding would qualify as it has posed a health threat to you and your family. I would not hesitate:. At least you could try that before you call some federal or local agency on her. Contact the Health Department in your area and file a complaint. They go and investigate and give the home owner or renters x amount of time to get the thing cleaned up and in compliance with health standards in your area.

I know a woman who had the health department called on her when I was a kid. She actually lived around the block from where we lived.

She thinks one of her sons friend complained to his mom about her house. So the health department came. So after that her husband did help her more with cleaning and laundry. The health department after that came back about every six weeks for a visit for about a year to make sure the home was continuing to be cleaned.

Eventually they hired a person to come in and clean about once every couple of weeks.