(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.
