How to help a hoarding Parent
Having a parent who hoards can be heartbreaking. You might feel helpless because you can’t make them help themselves. They might struggle with accessing parts of their home, have anxiety about parting with objects, or even withdraw from friends and loved ones out of embarrassment. And, as all this happens, you’re watching your childhood home deteriorate.
The way out seems obvious: Donate everything you can and throw away the rest. Surely, they just need someone to convince them that’s the way forward. So, what can you do to help them get there?
The answer depends on whether they want help. Here, we’ll talk about what you can do for a parent who’s ready for help and one who isn’t.
Hoarding is about Impact
How do you tell whether it’s hoarding? On the T.V. show, Hoarders, no one ever asks what “counts” as hoarding. All the cases are pretty clear-cut. Someone is buried in their own Target purchases. They can’t access their toilet. A therapist and clean-out crew show up. Boxes of greasy yard-sale toys are dragged out of the house. The hoarder in question frantically grabs empty Nutter Butter wrappers out of a cardboard box and tries to explain their emotional significance while the therapist races to uncover and resolve the underlying trauma. Constant reference is made to a time limit on the cleanup for reasons never explicitly stated (spoiler: it’s the budget).
Those cases are extreme—so extreme that you might be questioning whether your dad’s paltry ten bags of recycling in the foyer really qualifies. How do you know if it’s bad enough to require intervention?
The decision whether to treat hoarding is not about whether it can technically be called hoarding, but about the effect. Even low-level hoarding is important enough to be addressed if it creates an impact, like causing falls, blocking pathways, or making surfaces unusable.
In short: If someone’s collection makes their life worse, we don’t need to get into technicalities. They have a problem, and that problem exists because they keep objects they don’t need. Whether it meets the DSM criteria for hoarding or not, the treatment is the same.
Life circumstances can also make someone's level of hoarding higher or lower. They may have just moved to a larger space, had a cleanout, moved to a smaller apartment, or been evicted. All these things can make the presentation of hoarding better or worse. The exact state of their home doesn't matter. Therapists treat the underlying tendency to collect things, not the state of the home in a given moment.
How do you know whether someone needs help?
So, how do you know whether to offer help? Again, look for the impact clutter has on their lives. This may look like being unable to use surfaces, like tables or kitchen counters due to crowding. You might see blocked pathways or a buildup of trash, bugs, or dirt in their home. Other signs include misplacing objects, frequent falls, or tripping over items: all things that can impact their health or quality of life.
If they won't let you into their home or they stop reaching out, that can be a clue, too. The hoarding might get so bad they’ve stopped having guests over, or they might feel so much shame they stop contacting you. Or the signs might be subtler. You might notice their clothes start smelling a little musty or they haven’t gotten their mail in a while.
Things that look like hoarding, But aren’t
Several other conditions present similarly to hoarding. Executive dysfunction, physical disability, memory loss, and dementia, for example, can all result in hoarding-like symptoms, such as a messy home or an excess of objects. However, these issues must be treated differently because the root causes are different.
It matters why someone is hoarding. If someone is hoarding because they have trouble getting rid of objects, the treatment is different than if they're hoarding because they’re disorganized or have memory issues. If they have dementia, they might need a neurologist or memory care. If they have ADHD, they might need access to medication or a coach to help them build executive functioning skills. These solutions are distinct from therapy specific to hoarding, even if the issue looks the same from the outside.
What if your parent doesn’t want help?
Sometimes, if your parent says they don’t need help, the most you can do is be respectful of their space and set boundaries, regardless of whether you’re living together. If they invite you for dinner, but their home is musty or there’s nowhere for you to sit, tell them you can’t come over and offer to host somewhere else. Be ready to enforce those boundaries, like refusing objects brought to your home or taking stored items out of your room. You’re allowed to describe what you’re seeing clearly, even if it hurts someone’s feelings: “I have asthma and I don’t feel good about breathing all that cat hair.”
You can support them without trying to fix the problem. Invite them out if you worry they’re getting too isolated. Leave the door open for when they’re ready to receive help. Remember, you can’t force them to change, and insisting on helping now might make it harder for them to accept your help in the future. Forcing a cleanout or making them part with objects does nothing to treat the underlying issues and could damage your relationship.
There’s an exception to this rule: If you think someone vulnerable is in physical danger, such as an older adult, a child they’re caring for, or a person with a disability, you might have to make the decision to call adult protective services, child protective services, or another local authority. If this happens, keep in mind that there will likely be consequences to your relationship. You may have to rebuild their trust, even if you think you did the right thing.
What if they do want help?
Let’s say you’ve had a conversation and they’re open to help. What do you do?
First, take a step back. How much help are they asking for? What kind? Are they really asking for help? Or, are they just wishing the clutter away while giving six paint-by-numbers to their neighbor’s grandson?
One common ask is for help cleaning their space. This could be a big task, regardless of their home’s size. Before you agree, think carefully about how much help you can give. How much time do you have? What kind of a commitment seems reasonable to you?
Remember, your own health is a priority, as is your relationship with your parent. Handling a cleanout on your own can cause a lot of strain. For them, items may hold a lot of emotional value or represent a possibility that they’re closing the door on (like going kayaking or finally making zucchini in the air fryer). You might have to go at a frustratingly slow pace. If you push them to get rid of things, this could strain your relationship.
Before you commit to anything, think about what your boundaries are. Remember, you’re not the only possible helper. If you can’t or don’t want to help, or you don’t think your help is enough, connect them with a therapist or help them find a support group. Call home organizers, cleaning services, or junk removal (with your parent’s consent, of course). Check out the IOCDF’s website—they have support groups, materials, conferences, and other resources for hoarders.
What not to do
You might be asked to do things that seem like they’ll address the situation, but may not actually help. Hoarders love giving things away, helping it find its proper “home.” Don't get guilted into taking stuff you don’t want unless you’re donating it for them or bringing it to the dump. Giving things away feels safe for people who hoard, like a germaphobe shopping with gloves on, but it doesn’t do anything to help them get comfortable discarding objects. Making empty promises to keep an object while planning to throw it away could cause mistrust.
You might be tempted to take matters into your own hands and start throwing things out against your parent’s wishes. Don’t do this either. While a cleanout makes it look like the problem has gone away, it doesn’t get rid of the disorder and may worsen the secrecy and distrust that often accompanies hoarding.
To understand why these things aren’t a good idea, it might help to understand how hoarding therapy works. The goal of therapy is to learn that it’s safe to make the choice to get rid of something. Secretly throwing something out for your parent, arguing about it, or trying to convince them doesn’t help them learn to make that choice on their own. Therapy works because the person is allowed to feel all the complex, messy emotions involved not just in losing the object, but also in making the choice to lose the object. Think of throwing things away for someone with hoarding disorder as bailing out a tub with a bucket when the tap is still on and the drain is plugged. It is, at best, a temporary fix. Therapy is about unplugging the tub and turning off the tap while learning it’s safe to do that.
Can family therapy help?
If a close family member is struggling with hoarding but not ready to seek treatment, sometimes family therapy can help you draw boundaries and preserve trust. Find a therapist today. Or find an individual therapist for yourself to help you make decisions about your relationship with your hoarding parent.
