“When I have to use my shoulder to push the door in, that probably means we’re going to take the job,” said Todd Reese, co-owner of Georgia Clean and Associates, which helps hoarders reclaim their homes from collectibles, debris and worse. The niche service has become a booming business for Reese and his associate, Gordy Powell, who recently combined their two companies to deal with demand.

They’ve overseen some well-publicized clean-ups, including the Sandy Springs home belonging to Mary Minter, who had to be rescued from chest-high debris in late June. She died two weeks later.

“People used to write [hoarding] off as someone just being messy, or lazy,” Reese told the AJC. “But I think people are learning that it’s a serious problem because of all the publicity from the TV shows.”

There’s currently three cable programs dedicated to the disorder: A&E’s “Hoarders,” TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive” and “Confessions: Animal Hoarding.”

“I think some of the things they do [on the TV shows] are silly,” said T.C. Griffin, owner of Bio-Hazard Services Inc. in Douglas. “To go into a bathroom covered in feces wearing just a pair of sanitary gloves is so unsafe.”

Companies that clean up after hoarders deal with such scatological nightmares all the time. Reese said that on one job he discovered a pile of used toilet paper by an able-bodied hoarder’s bedside.

“One man started tearing up, he was just so ashamed at the way he was living,” Reese said. “I still can’t understand how people can arrange their lives to live among trash.”

Some researchers classify hoarding as an isolated disorder while others believe it’s a symptom of another condition, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.

A recent study, conducted by the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders Program at the University of California, San Diego, found that hoarders tend to have decreased activity in the part of the brain involved in decision-making, focusing attention and regulating emotion.

“It’s a hard illness to treat, but there’s success,” said Dr. Dave Davis, an Atlanta psychiatrist who’s dealt with hoarders or 40 years. “It’s not a new phenomenon, but I am treating a lot more people lately because of the publicity. It’s been good, because it lets people know there is a treatment for it.”

Full Article. Cleaning up after hoarders is a booming business  | ajc.com.

Positive Motion Organizing  |  Atlanta Professional Organizers.

2. Garage Overhaul

Develop some hang-ups: Start by moving everything in this middle area — lawn chairs, hoses, extension cords — up onto the wall hooks (assuming you’ve got some). Hanging not an option? Line things up against the walls.

Organize garage bins: No need for fancy containers. Use what you’ve got: flowerpots and planters (good for collecting pruners and stray gardening gloves), an empty garbage can or two (for long-handled brooms, baseball bats, and hockey sticks), and a laundry basket (perfect for gear like balls and helmets).

Bag it: Next, open two trash sacks. Into one, toss anything broken, empty, or rusty; that can go in this week’s garbage. Use the other bag to hold things that are in the garage but really belong in the house (not that you have to put everything in its place at once).

More Here: http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-home/cleaning-organizing/staticslideshowgh.aspx?cp-documentid=24375107#

Positive Motion Organizing are Professional Organizers in Atlanta.

(CNN) — Rescue workers drilled a hole in the roof of a suburban Chicago home to extract an 82-year-old woman’s body this month.

They couldn’t get through the doorway because her home was filled almost to the ceiling with cardboard boxes, furniture, clothing and other junk. She and her daughter had been crawling through tunnels to move around the Skokie, Illinois, house.

They and others like them are hoarders, people who amass excessive numbers of possessions and don’t discard them. In extreme cases, hoarders’ obsession with junk has led to fires, attracted vermin, endangered their families, neighbors and themselves to the extent that experts describe it as a growing public health problem.

Hoarding has become so frequent that a growing number of cities have formed task forces to bring housing, elderly services and health departments together to address the cases.

Read more here http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/29/hoarding.mental.behavior/index.html 

Positive Motion Organizers are Atlanta Professional Organizers.