We are looking forward to seeing you this Thursday!
The next meeting of the Orange County Task Force on Hoarding is Thursday, February 18, 2016 from 9:00am-10:30am, at the Council on Aging, 2001 E. 4th Street, Suite 106, Santa Ana, CA 92705.  (Meetings are monthly on the 3rd Thursday.)

Hoarding in the NEWS:
  
Crosby: It takes a community to tackle hoarding problem
Senior Services Associates wants to do more to clean up the hoarding problems in our communities. That's why the last time you went to a movie at Randall 15 in Tinsletown in North Aurora and Kendall 10 in Oswego you may have seen an advertisement before the feature show that gently reminds families there is help out there that allows loved ones to "hold on to the memories and not be buried in the clutter." "Senior Services, Miller said, has had an unfunded legislative mandate to serve hoarders and self neglecters for many years. But for the first time, after writing a grant, there was money that could be put toward increasing services and educating the public.The "last time we wrote a grant we got billboards that were put up around the three-county service area," she said. This year, after the state encouraged us to "think outside the box," the agency decided to make the movie ads. Those ads, which will hopefully reach a different audience, are already paying off, Miller added, with phone calls coming in from Kane and Kendall residents who saw it at local theaters. Read more at http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/opinion/ct-abn-crosby-hoarding-st-0125-20160125-column.html
 
Firefighters deal with hoarding issue at North County blaze
SAN MARCOS, Calif. – Firefighters were able to stop a fire from spreading beyond the kitchen inside a hoarder's house in San Marcos, according to North County fire officials. Crews from San Marcos, Escondido and Rancho Santa Fe fire departments contained the blaze to the kitchen. No injuries were reported. A dog was found but did not survive. San Diego County Sheriff’s Arson Investigators say the home had been foreclosed and was auctioned off just as the fire began. “Crews made entry and found the occupant had a lot of debris piled up throughout the home which made it very difficult to not only find the source of the fire but if anybody was trapped inside.” Said San Marcos Fire Department Battalion Chief Jim Colston. Read more at http://fox5sandiego.com/2016/02/08/firefighters-deal-with-hoarding-issue-at-north-county-blaze/
 
More money sought to fight bedbugs, hoarding in the District
Citing an increase in hoarding and bedbugs among older residents, advocates are pushing the District to allocate more money to combat both. The two often go together and can create a Catch-22. “We can’t get home and health services to go into a bedbug-infested apartment, but in order to get anyone to come in and clean on a regular basis, you’ve got to get the place clean first,” said Fiona Druy, a gerontological nurse practitioner with Iona Senior Services, one of eight nonprofit lead agencies that work with the city’s Office on Aging in providing services for seniors. “It’s a costly and challenging problem.” The city’s Office on Aging already sets aside $47,000 a year to deep-clean hoarders’ homes but does not earmark money specifically for bedbugs. “We’re seeing more cases” of both, said Jennifer Berger, supervising attorney of AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly, which provides free legal and social work services to District residents 60 and older. “Ninety percent of the cases that our social workers see have housekeeping or hoarding issues, and about 20 percent of that group have bedbug issues.” Her organization alone counted 92 new hoarding cases in the past two years, in addition to unresolved cases from earlier years. Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/bedbugs-and-hoarding-require-more-money-district-advocates-say/2016/02/07/0aad3c3e-c6a7-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html
 
Was Andy Warhol a Hoarder?
A provocative and entertaining new book by Claudia Kalb takes a fresh look at the lives of several famous men and women, viewed from the perspective of mental illness…In the case of American artist Andy Warhol, who died in 1987, Ms. Kalb skillfully picks through the whys and whats of his obsessive accumulation of “Time Capsules” to conclude that he was a hoarder who embraced his mental illness as a part of his creativity. For more than 30 years, from about 1974 until the end of his life, Mr. Warhol filled and kept these cardboard boxes with random things. After he passed away, his New York townhouse was found uncontrollably crammed with things. Though the artist’s case is an extreme one, Ms. Kalb cites recent studies to explain the disorder. She says: “Hoarders get nervous about throwing things away; they worry that they might need it, won’t remember it if it’s gone, or must hold on to it for sentimental reasons. By not getting rid of anything, they are able to ward off their uneasiness.” She also quotes Smith College psychology researcher Randy Frost, a leading scholar on hoarding and a co-author of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, who says: “Hoarding affords many of its sufferers the illusion of control and replaces fear." Read more at http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandraaseno/2016/02/08/was-andy-warhol-a-hoarder/#19084a212b6a
 
Florida woman barred from owning cats after 102 felines removed from home
A Florida judge has ruled that a woman who had 102 felines taken from her home can no longer own cats. The ruling from Marion County Judge Thomas Thompson came Wednesday some six months after the county's animal control officers removed the cats from Diana Darnaby's home in nearby Summerfield. The Ocala Star-Banner reports 60 of the cats were euthanized immediately after they were taken from the home. The rest were treated for severe upper respiratory infections. Darnaby represented herself and argued that she should be allowed to keep pets. The county's attorney recounted Darnaby's history of cat-hoarding, saying she's faced two other judges regarding cat issues over the years. She was ordered to turn over nine cats she's picked up since July. Read more at 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cat-hoarding-florida-woman-barred-owning-felines-article-1.2513885
 
Hoarding 'a huge issue' when it comes to firefighter safety
The day after a raging fire killed a 43-year-old man and destroyed his Scituate home, the muddy grass outside was littered with blue and green plastic storage tubs amid empty beer cans and wicker baskets. Other belongings lay nearby, heaped in piles and encased in ice, the Patriot Ledger reported. Fire officials said the clutter had filled much of the home and kept firefighters from getting inside to fight the fire and rescue the man, who was eventually pulled unconscious through a window and pronounced dead at a hospital. Officials in Scituate said they already knew that the residents had a problem with hoarding and had been working to help them. Mieth said hoarding makes firefighting more difficult and dangerous in several ways. The clutter, which often includes books and paper, becomes fuel for fires, and firefighters may become lost among the piles of stuff as rooms fill with smoke and visibility is reduced. If a firefighter can’t find his hose to lead him out of a building, other firefighters may have to be sent in to get him. “That’s when firefighters get hurt,” said Braintree Fire Chief James O’Brien. “That’s when you see multiple lives lost.” Read more at 
http://www.wcvb.com/news/hoarding-a-huge-issue-when-it-comes-to-firefighter-safety/37621876
 
'These people really suffer'
Sometimes the challenge in dealing with hoarders is finding them. "There are extremes," said Dr. Patrick McGrath, a psychotherapist who deals with hoarders. "But the majority of those who hoard, you have no idea. They get up, go to work … often, if you drove by their house, you wouldn't get any clue. The front of the house looks great, fine. It's when you get to the sides and the back that you start to get an idea. "But these people really suffer." McGrath was the keynote speaker at an all-day seminar on hoarding Monday at the Prisco Community Center in Aurora…Hoarders tend to want to avoid problems, seek reassurance and distract themselves from their anxiety. He said they "want to feel good now." McGrath said that dealing with and treating hoarders takes time. When first confronted, they will agree to anything you tell them. Read more at http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/news/ct-abn-hoarding-causes-st-0126-20160125-story.html
 
Tears flow as nearly 200 birds rescued from Passaic bicycle repair shop
Nearly five years ago, Luis Sejas, a Market Street business owner, was bludgeoned by a man bearing a hammer or a machete – knocked out cold while his cash register was looted of $1,500. To help him cope with the trauma of a serious injury and the robbery, a doctor told the now 65-year-old Sejas to take up a hobby, he said. So he hearkened back to his childhood days in Bolivia, where he loved bird-watching, and he decided to adopt a two exotic birds of his own, caring for them in the back of his bicycle repair shop. What started with just a few pet birds spiraled out of control in the five years since, culminating in an emergency rescue operation on Monday where volunteers removed nearly 200 birds, many of them exotic breeds, from deplorable conditions. “This is torture for me,” he said in Spanish, inhaling a deep breath while tears welled in his eyes. “To see the empty room is really difficult for me. It used to always make me happy to go in there.” “It was like therapy, the birds distracted me,” he said. “Every time I would see that one was born it would make me happy.” Read more at http://www.northjersey.com/news/tears-flow-as-nearly-200-birds-rescued-from-passaic-bicycle-repair-shop-video-1.1494361
 
Man shares his story of managing hoarding disorder
Hoarding is a disease that affects 1 in 20 people, according to personal organizer Terina Bainter. Bainter owns Puyallup-based Clutter Cutters and is a member of the King-Pierce County Hoarding Task Force. Through her work with the Hoarding Project, Bainter met a man in Port Orchard whose hoarding challenges became so severe his home was no longer safe. Relationships were strained with family members and loved ones. He is 69 years old and a retired postal worker. For almost three decades he purchased second-hand items to turn and sell. He used storage units, but eventually his house was filled. “You take three steps forward and two steps back,” he said. “Because it’s a mental condition it’s not as easy as having the strength to overcome things. You have to learn to readjust your thinking and what’s important.” Read more at http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article54960200.html
 
Hoarding Is Much More Common Than You Think — And It’s Tied Into Eviction And Homelessness
The language used to describe hoarding and cluttering behaviors, including being “outted” or “coming out,” parallels that used in the LGBT community. Stark, who loved entertaining and having people over until her possessions took over the house, remembers the day she was outted to her daughters. Someone had told them, and they showed up to do a clean out—a tactic that almost always fails because it doesn’t address the underlying problem. Stark agreed because they were her daughters. “I thought they knew what I loved and they would save more of my stuff,” she said. “But they didn’t … It was devastating.” Afterward, she described her angry phone conversations with her daughters—it took nearly a year for her to stop bringing up things that were missing. After paying for the cleaning, she had to pay to replace things like her silverware, which had been thrown out. Then, in a year and a half, the clutter was back worse than ever.
http://hoodline.com/2016/01/hoarding-is-much-more-common-than-you-think-and-it-s-tied-into-eviction-and-homelessness