About hoarding

There are lots of reasons why we might hoard. And there are different types of hoarding.

Learning more about hoarding can help us to get the right treatment and support.

I tried to throw away things that I found on the floor, but couldn't because of emotional attachment. Whether it be for practical, sentimental or aesthetic reasoning, I couldn't do it.

What is hoarding?

Hoarding is having so many things that you cannot manage the clutter where you live. And you find it difficult or impossible to throw things away.

You might hoard because you feel a strong need to keep things. But your connection to these things can cause you distress. And the impact of hoarding can affect your day-to-day life.

Hoarding disorder is a mental health problem that a psychiatrist or other mental health professional can diagnose. But you might also experience hoarding as part of another mental or physical health problem.

If you hoard, you might:

• Feel the need to get more things, even if you have a lot already
• Have very strong positive feelings whenever you get more things
• Feel very upset or anxious at the thought of throwing or giving things away because of your emotional attachment to them
• Feel like you need to save the items, regardless of their monetary value
• Find it very hard to decide what to keep or get rid of
• Find it hard to categorise or organise your things
• Have so many things that you can't use parts of the place you live in – like not sleeping on the bed or using the sink
• Have lots of disagreements with the people close to you about your things

Why might I hoard?

Many of us have belongings we consider special and things we save. But this is different from hoarding.

When you hoard, it's because you might have emotional connections or beliefs about all your things. This makes it very hard to get rid of anything.

For example, you might believe:

• You need to keep items 'just in case' - even if it's been a long time since you last used the item or if you've never used it at all
• You'll forget important information or memories if you throw things away
• You won't cope with how you'll feel if you throw things away
• Throwing things away will harm other people or the environment
• If you throw anything away, you're being wasteful
• You should arrange or dispose of things perfectly, or not at all
• Your things make you feel happy or keep you safe
• Your things are all unique and special, even if they're very similar
• You simply need more storage space, or more time to sort your things out

Lots of us share some of these beliefs about certain belongings. But we don't feel as strongly about them. For those struggling with hoarding these beliefs have a direct impact on the person's day-to-day life.

How is hoarding different from collecting?

The main difference between collecting and hoarding is:

• How you organise the items
• How much it affects your life

Collecting normally involves saving certain types of items, such as vinyl records or stamps. You'll carefully choose them and normally order them in some way, such as in display cases or folders.

Hoarding is not normally as selective. It doesn't involve organisation in a way that makes the items easy to access or use.

Someone who doesn't recognise they have a hoarding problem might call themselves a 'collector'. They might not see their behaviour as any different to collectors.

Other types of hoarding

Hoarding doesn't only involve keeping objects in the place you live. There are other types which you might not recognise as hoarding at first. But they can make you feel the same way, for the same reasons.

Digital hoarding

Digital hoarding is when you make and keep a large number of digital files. Deleting files can cause you the same distress that other people who hoard might feel around physical objects. And you may want to keep these files for similar reasons.

It might involve buying lots of hard drives and devices. Or using cloud storage or other software to keep the files. The types of files can include:

• Photos and videos
• Documents, such as Word files or spreadsheets
• Emails
• Texts or chat messages

You might experience digital hoarding on its own, or along with hoarding physical objects.

Digital hoarding might start out as a way to reduce physical hoarding. For example, you might start taking pictures of objects instead of buying them. But you might end up causing similar problems as you would with physical hoarding.

I had reasoned with myself that taking photos would not help because I would be creating five objects not just one, whether it be digital or physical, if not both.

Animal hoarding

Animal hoarding is when you keep too many animals to give proper care to. You might have trouble noticing that this lack of care causes harm to the animals. This could include the animals not having:

• Food
• Shelter
• Enough space to exercise and stay healthy
• Vets or medical care
• Clean environments
• Safe breeding environments

To class your behaviour as animal hoarding, you don't need to have a set number of animals. It's more about how you get the animals and how you care for them.

You might experience animal hoarding on its own, or alongside other types of hoarding. Some of us might experience delusions, such as beliefs that animal rescue centres harm animals or can't look after them.

The reasons behind hoarding animals are very complicated. Those of us who hoard animals can often:

• Believe very strongly that we're saving the animals. Or that we have a duty to look after them.
• Have a very strong emotional connection to all the animals.
• Find it difficult to see that we're harming the animals. This can be very hurtful when people tell us we are.

Hoarding and your health

Hoarding can be a symptom of other physical and mental health problems. And it may be more likely if you're neurodivergent, for example you're autistic or have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

It's important to know if something else is behind hoarding, as this can affect the treatment.

You might be more likely to experience hoarding if you also experience:

• Brain injuries
• Dementia
• Depression
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Schizophrenia
• Personality disorder
• Recreational drug or alcohol addiction
• Prader-Willi syndrome (a genetic condition) - there's more about Prader-Willi syndrome on the NHS website

In these cases, getting the right support for your physical or mental health problem or neurodivergence, may help you stop hoarding.

Normally, you won't get a diagnosis of hoarding disorder if your hoarding is caused by another health problem. Because of this, not all of our information on hoarding might be helpful to you.

Is hoarding the same as OCD?

You can experience both obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and hoarding disorder at the same time. But experiencing hoarding disorder does not mean you have OCD. They are two different conditions.

In the past, doctors used to think that hoarding was a type of OCD. But now doctors consider hoarding disorder as its own, unique mental health problem.

Because of this past cross-over, some OCD organisations still offer information on hoarding disorder. OCD Action also runs an online OCD and hoarding support group. 

As a single mum working full-time suffering from depression on and off for years, I didn't have the energy to face throwing things away, especially baby clothes and toys, and my small flat became increasingly full.

Effects of hoarding

Hoarding could affect you in lots of different ways. For example, you might:

• Struggle to find things you need. This can sometimes lead to money problems, for example if you can't keep on top of bills and letters.
• Avoid letting people into your space or have difficulty answering the door. This could mean you don't have visitors or get repairs done, which could lead to housing problems.
• Find it hard to keep yourself clean. For example if you can't access your bathroom or washing machine.
• Find it hard to cook and eat food. This might be because you can't access your kitchen or there's no room inside your fridge.
• Be unable to use parts of your space. For example being unable to sleep in your bed or walk along hallways because they're very cluttered.
• Be unable to quickly and safely leave in an emergency. For example, because your things are blocking doorways or escape routes.
• Distance yourself from others or have issues with people close to you. This might be because you don't want them to know about your situation. Or because they say or do things that don't feel helpful to you.
• Feel ashamed or lonely. This could make you feel very isolated or affect your self-esteem.

You might also experience many of these effects if you live with someone who hoards. There's more about this on our page on helping someone who hoards.  

I stopped asking people round as I was ashamed and it caused me a lot of guilt that I was not hosting family meals. My family wanted to 'help' by turning up with bin bags but this caused more upset.

Hoarding and your rights

Official organisations might get involved if the things in your home, and the way you've organised them, cause safety risks to you or your neighbours.

This could involve:

• The local council, including the environmental health department
• Fire and rescue services
• Social services or safeguarding teams
• The courts
• Animal welfare teams, if you hoard animals or have animals that are at risk due to hoarding

These organisations might suggest things that you aren't comfortable with. In some cases, they might remove you or your belongings from your home – even if you don't want them to.

But remember: you have rights in these situations.

For advice on your rights, contact our legal line. You can find more information on our helplines page.

For legal support, search for a local law centre on the  Law Centres Network website.

Hoarding and stigma

Many of us have heard of hoarding, but this doesn't mean that we all understand it. The word 'hoarding' is sometimes used in the wrong way, such as:

• The media referring to panic buying as hoarding. This can happen during natural disasters or events like the coronavirus pandemic.
• People calling themselves 'hoarders' because they collect items or have more clutter than usual.

The media might also show hoarding in a very extreme way. This is different to many experiences. It can make recognising hoarding difficult. And make it harder to tell other people about your experiences.

People might also make hurtful assumptions about hoarding. For example, thinking it means being unclean or lazy.

Hoarding doesn't mean you need help tidying up – it's unhelpful if people try to do this for you. It can feel frustrating and upsetting if people don't understand this.

It's important to remember that you aren't alone.

For more information, see our pages on stigma and misconceptions about mental health.