Trash or treasure? Hoarders pain their neighbours

When his garage was filled with bargains bought at garage sales and charity shops Sydney householder Joe Vieira shifted his car onto the street and used his carport for storing what to him was treasure and to others was trash. Hoarding didn't wreck his marriage - alcoholism got in first - but his wife was certainly glad to leave a home that grew to resemble a junk yard.

Australian psychologist David Foxley has studied compulsive accumulation and knows the tell-tale signs.

"The point where it starts to become a worry is when the house can no longer be used as a home - it starts to become a storage facility," the Newcastle University researcher said. "When this has been building up for years or even decades, it's not an easy thing to treat."

Vieira's house went with his divorce settlement and the new owners got rid of the polo sticks, car doors, woodworking tools, empty bottles and all the thousands of other almost worthless items he had kept for decades.

"A normal collector might specialize in one or two areas and will want to display their collections, whereas a hoarder will save a wide variety of things," Foxley said.

Sydney's most famous hoarders of rubbish are the Bobolas family in upmarket Bondi.

Late last year the local council sent in four men with a bulldozer, a digger and a dump truck to take away their rubbish.

Sally Betts, the mayor of Waverley Council, said the 3-day operation had cost taxpayers 30,000 Australian dollars (27,000 US dollars).

It was the 14th Waverley-funded clean-up and, with attendant court cases, brought the cost of dealing with the Bobolas' obsession to 350,000 Australian dollars.

Family members have been in and out of court for 26 years to defend their right to turn a Bondi residence into a rubbish dump with attached accommodation.

"A lot of residents are sympathetic to us," one Bobolas sister said of her mother Mary's addiction to junk. "It's a stress-related psychological problem for her and it's no different to an alcoholic who drinks."

Those sympathetic are unlikely to be fellow residents of Bondi's Boonara Avenue..." Link

Squalor and hoarding – a secret epidemic in the spotlight

The first National Squalor Conference, being held in Sydney this week, aims to highlight the growing number of people living in squalor in Australia.

The conference will examine the links between squalor, hoarding, mental health issues and social isolation.

Confronting statistics collected by a number of agencies in relation to people living with compulsive hoarding and severe domestic squalor, emphasise the number of Australians living in squalor is far greater than previously thought.

Over 1 in 1,000 elderly people are thought to live in severe domestic squalor and of course it doesn’t just affect the elderly. Catholic Community Services has been working with a variety of agencies, including the RSPCA and the Fire Brigade, to address the complex issues of hoarding and squalor.

Catholic Community Services launched the pilot Severe Domestic Squalor project in Sydney 12 months ago to provide a central point of coordination for services. Since that time, the project has received 218 referrals from across Sydney...

...RSPCA NSW estimates that there are approximately 700 animal hoarders in NSW, owning an average of 30 animals each. There are potentially around 20,000 animals in the hands of animal hoarders in NSW alone. And the RSPCA sees approximately 200 new cases every year.

Animal hoarding results in extreme suffering, affecting large numbers of animals for prolonged periods. The extent of abuse, neglect and social deprivation is such that euthanasia is often the only practical option for many of the animals rescued from these situations,” says RSPCA NSW CEO Steve Coleman.

Last year over 130 small dogs were seized from a property in the south of the state. Large seizures like this place enormous emotional and financial strain on the RSPCA.” Likewise, compulsive hoarding has become a huge concern for the Fire Brigade. “Hoarding represents an increased risk to the occupant, neighbours and responding firefighters in a fire..." More

SPCA seizes 33 dogs from Sydney apartment, dwelling

NANCY KING

SYDNEY — The SPCA has seized more than 30 dogs in two connected incidents in Sydney, but no charges are expected because it was a case of hoarding where the dogs were in good condition.

Patsy Rose, manager of Cape Breton SPCA said they received a call about an apartment building in the central Sydney area. On Sept. 1, when inspectors entered the apartment, they donned masks for their own protection, due to the odour of feces and urine, and seized 13 dogs. They subsequently returned two days later to a nearby dwelling, part of the same property, removing another 20 dogs. The same people were involved in both cases, Rose said.

She declined to say on what street the seizures occurred.

The dogs were in good condition, she said, although one dog was euthanized due to health conditions associated with its advanced age.

“It was just that the people had way too many dogs,” she said. “A lot of people, we call them hoarders, they get these animals then they get overwhelmed with them and then they don’t know what to do with them ... If (the dogs) had been in bad conditions, they were thin and there were problems with them, they would have been charged with cruelty to animals.”
Rose said she doesn’t know how long the situation had been ongoing. She added the people involved are not facing charges.

Seventeen dogs were transported to the Halifax SPCA to be put up for adoption, while a number remain at the local location also available for adoption..." More