Hoarding Illness Can Devastate Families

Everyone saves mementos of what's important to them -- a child's first birthday card, a Super Bowl ticket stub -- but when does an attachment to items cross the line into hoarding?

Hoarding is a mental illness -- a subset of obsessive compulsive disorder. New research indicates it may effect as many as 5 percent of all Americans.

Elaine Wagner is a hoarder, and she told Channel 4 Action News anchor Sally Wiggin that she loves watching the "Hoarders" reality show on television.

"It reminds me of where I was, and I got to keep doing it or I can get like that again," Wagner said. "It started when my kids were little, growing up. They couldn't bring their friends home. It got worse and worse when they left -- the empty nest thing."

Hoarding is inherited and begins in childhood, said Dr. Robert Hudak, a psychiatrist with UPMC.

"Early adolescence is when hoarding starts, and it doesn't become a severe problem at that point, because if you are a child or teenager, your parents can force you to clean up your room," Hudak said..." More

Agencies caring for 30 dogs rescued from trailer

By Anya Sostek

Local animal control agencies are working together to care for 30 dogs rescued last week from a hoarding situation in a small Greene County trailer.

More than a dozen of the dogs were transported Wednesday to the Animal Friends shelter in Ohio Township to be put up for adoption.

The trailer had no heat or electricity because of the snowstorm and one of the residents had become ill and needed to be hospitalized, said Jane Gapen, executive director of the Humane Society of Greene County.

The Humane Society rescued more than 20 dogs six months ago from the same trailer in Rutan, about half an hour from Waynesburg, Ms. Gapen said.

"We thought we had helped them and things were going to be OK," she said.

The resident of the trailer called the Humane Society last Thursday and asked that the dogs be rescued.

The dogs were fed, but have experienced psychological damage, Ms. Gapen said. "They were living in a pack where dogs were killing each other and they're frightened," she said. "We walked into some sadness."..." More