Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

Randy O. Frost (Goodreads Author),

Gail Steketee

3.88 · Rating details · 5,911 ratings · 1,078 reviews

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that's ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house?

Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they exp ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 290 pages

Published April 20th 2010 by Houghton Mifflin (first published January 1st 2010)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Stuff, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern

Procrasdemon - The Artist's Guide to Liberation From Procrast... by Neeraj Agnihotri

Best Organizing Resources

93 books — 73 voters

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Best Non-Fiction (no biographies)

5,703 books — 8,194 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.88 ·

Rating details

· 5,911 ratings · 1,078 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

Apr 28, 2010 Courtney rated it really liked it

made me clean my room. i shall call this book "mom" ...more

flag 124 likes · Like · see review

Apr 20, 2010 karen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfictions

oh, dear. this book was uncomfortable to read. i think i may be a hoarder, a little. not terribly badly, not yet. but the fine line between "collector" and "hoarder" is on the thin side. this is from the inside cover, and why i felt i needed to read the book:

With vivid portraits that show us the particular traits of the hoarder - piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, homes that have to be navigated by narrow "goat trails", stacks of paper that are "churned" but never discarded oh, dear. this book was uncomfortable to read. i think i may be a hoarder, a little. not terribly badly, not yet. but the fine line between "collector" and "hoarder" is on the thin side. this is from the inside cover, and why i felt i needed to read the book:

With vivid portraits that show us the particular traits of the hoarder - piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, homes that have to be navigated by narrow "goat trails", stacks of paper that are "churned" but never discarded...

see, that sounds like home!but maybe i'm not a hoarder, maybe i just have a small new york apartment. i won't know until my ship comes in and i move somewhere bigger... will i fill that space, too? will i be like that fat tolkien dragon lolling on my hoard of books and treasures??

but reading this book puts it into perspective, a little. i do not hoard garbage. i do not have roaches and mice. i do not collect supermarket circulars and newspapers from ten years ago. i am able to throw away junk mail. while there are frequent book avalanches at the home, my door can still be opened, and i am able to escape if (heaven forfend) there is a fire. "Hoarding is not defined by the number of possessions, but by how the acquisition and management of those possessions affects their owner." and i'm okay, i think. i read my books, i just buy more than i will ever live long enough to read, but i want to read them all -that's the plan, i just don't know how feasible it will be, mortality and all.

i highly recommend this book, even if you don't have the same fears i had. it is a strong cautionary tale, and while this is a psychological disorder, the hoarding, and being aware of the extent that it can actually take over a person's life isn't going to prevent it; you either have the tendency or you don't, you may see shades of yourself in some of the case studies, and it might give you a nice whiff of fear - enough to get you to go over to that mail table and sort it once and for all. and throw away that old fancy mustard you didn't even like - you are never going to suddenly develop a taste for it.

come to my blog! ...more

flag 121 likes · Like · see review

Mar 08, 2012 Stephanie *Eff your feelings* rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2012, psycology

I have one dog and three cats, onec at more than my limit. Any cat above two is “crazy cat women” territory (in my own circumstances) I'm hoping the presence of the dog would offset this.

My mom thinks three cats = animal hoarder.

She didn’t have to worry, I’m neither an animal hoarder nor a stuff hoarder but I have to admit people who are fascinate me. If I am flipping the channels and I land on the show Hoarders that is where the flipping stops, then I run around the house gathering up crap to ...more

flag 63 likes · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2014 Florence (Lefty) MacIntosh rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Pretty much everyone

Recommended to Florence (Lefty) by: Jim Dudgeon

Shelves: 2014, reviewed, non-fiction, social-issues, psychology

You’ve seen them, odds are there’s one on your street – that house with the curtains always closed, junk spilling out into the yard. Maybe like me you’re morbidly curious, wondering why on earth anyone would live like that and you’d love just one peek inside. This opens that door, you’ll wander through the goat paths of the compulsive hoarder, and explains all the complicated reasons behind it. Guaranteed it’ll have you questioning all the STUFF you worked so hard to buy and can’t bring yourself You’ve seen them, odds are there’s one on your street – that house with the curtains always closed, junk spilling out into the yard. Maybe like me you’re morbidly curious, wondering why on earth anyone would live like that and you’d love just one peek inside. This opens that door, you’ll wander through the goat paths of the compulsive hoarder, and explains all the complicated reasons behind it. Guaranteed it’ll have you questioning all the STUFF you worked so hard to buy and can’t bring yourself to let go of (books anyone?) "We may own the things in our homes, but they own us as well." - perhaps inspire a clean-out and yard sale...
Well researched you’ll get all the statistics, but it’s readable too - the case studies offer that human touch. I like art so enjoyed learning how most hoarders have an artistic bend, an appreciation of the beauty of mundane objects - a bottle cap, a scrap of cloth. “Every object is rich with detail.” Talks about Andy Warhol, the most famous of them all ”his five-story house in New York was so crammed that he could live in only two of the rooms.” Now I GET his soup can paintings! Click spoiler if you want to know about his time capsules - fascinating. (view spoiler)
Bottom-line it’s really interesting and well worth your time. Glad a mental disorder fraught with shame and secrecy is coming out of the closet.
Cons: Repetitive with a tendency to overstate the obvious. Not faulting the author, clearly a sympathetic advocate of hoarders and their families but it can be discouraging - most of the cases seemed incurable.
________________________________________
Meanderings - Opportunity Knocks… My spin, forget bargain hunting, the smart money’s in the Mini-Storage business. Your target market is huge, pretty well everyone has more stuff than they have room for, not just compulsive hoarders. Think of all those downsizing baby-boomers selling their homes and moving into condos… Spoiler is U.S. stats but suspect pretty universal. (view spoiler)
...more

flag 53 likes · Like · see review

Mar 15, 2012 Becky rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook, non-fiction, 2016, reviewed, yay-science

Some people hoard stuff. Some people hoard animals. I apparently hoard Currently Reading books on my Goodreads account.

OK, that's a bit facetious because I'm not really HOARDING them - I just can't consider them "finished" until I've reviewed them, so I just keep adding more and more until I have time to write the reviews to clear the list. *sigh* Does that make me some sort of OCD? Or just weird?

Just weird? OK then.

Moving on... In my house, we have some strange dynamics. I am not a neat frea ...more

flag 30 likes · Like · see review

Jun 30, 2010 Jason rated it liked it

Recommended to Jason by: Dolly

Whoa, too close to home baby! This book reveals secrets my family spent 2 generations disguising, and now, with grandkids in play, we may be foisting this problem onto the next genealogical branch.

Embarrassment?
Anguish.
Down-shot, slant-cast eyes--don’t, don’t look at me.
Shameface.
Uncomfortable stammer; no, make that painful acting.
Rituals. Save, save, save.
Followed by--always--rage: “DON’T...WANT TO...TALK.”
Disbelief, ignorance, disgrace, cruelty.
.................*help*
What is HAPPENING ...more

flag 27 likes · Like · see review

Dec 29, 2013 Shelby *trains flying monkeys* rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-2014

I read this book as a paranoid. I kept looking around my house and thinking...I might be a hoarder. I do have those books stuffed under the bed so the husband can't see them. (He knows). I do have that cabinet in the kitchen that crap falls out of when I open it.
This book takes a look at the why and how of people collecting things. Some of the stories just broke my heart, however it felt like the authors were just there to write a book. They didn't seem to take the caring part to heart. I felt ...more

flag 26 likes · Like · see review

Dec 30, 2010 mstan rated it really liked it

Shelves: src-winter-2011-12, american, non-fiction

The fourth star is for a few things:

- The engaging way in which the two authors present the cases they have encountered (which, frankly, would appeal to the voyeuristic in most) - young hoarders, animal hoarders, belligerent 'blind' hoarders vs. intelligent hoarders, hoarders with OCD...

- The authors' compassion for their subjects

- Their admission that it is indeed difficult to help hoarders (and there's no miracle therapy that would solve their issues)

I was highly uncomfortable reading some of The fourth star is for a few things:

- The engaging way in which the two authors present the cases they have encountered (which, frankly, would appeal to the voyeuristic in most) - young hoarders, animal hoarders, belligerent 'blind' hoarders vs. intelligent hoarders, hoarders with OCD...

- The authors' compassion for their subjects

- Their admission that it is indeed difficult to help hoarders (and there's no miracle therapy that would solve their issues)

I was highly uncomfortable reading some of the book, because I do still have some school papers and my teaching school material (I have already been in teaching for nearly a decade... and have almost never looked at those materials)... not to mention a ton of old manga from when I was a teenager, which are surely silverfish-ridden by now, and which I have not opened in more than a decade. I think my problem is procrastination/laziness when it comes to cleaning, though, not so much hoarding (though I feel really awful about the idea of throwing out school papers... perhaps this just goes to show how my identity has been constructed around this concept of academic success???). Some of the people mentioned in this book are truly pitiful because they realise they have a problem - a problem that has damaged many of their relationships with their loved ones - but cannot bear to take apart the cocoon of stuff they've constructed to protect themselves from loss. Many of them have become public health hazards because of the number of cockroaches and mice their stuff has generated, and because their stuff may actually increase the likelihood of fire, or even trigger the collapse of the building.

One quibble: I wish the authors had organised (irony?) some of the information a little better. Sometimes the focus of each chapter wasn't particularly clear, as previous observations are reiterated a few times, and different case studies are juxtaposed against each other across various chapters. Other than that, I thought this was an illuminating look into what is becoming a pervasive but much-misunderstood problem. Reading it has certainly made me much more uncomfortable about how hoarders' distress at having their houses cleaned out is so widely publicised (making the hoarders almost into targets of ridicule) in the show 'Hoarders'. ...more

flag 17 likes · Like · see review

Oct 22, 2019 Jill Hutchinson rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

The authors of this fascinating study of compulsive hoarding are psychologists who have spent several years studying why people hoard. And we all know or know of someone whose house is a nightmare of piles of garbage bags, boxes, stacks of papers/magazines reaching to the ceiling and little trails among the clutter which are barely large enough for one to pass through. Unfortunately, a television show was created (not by these authors) which shows houses being cleaned out and the occupants suffe ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Dec 10, 2012 Ashley rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, psychology, non-fiction, mental-health, science-and-stuff

This book was completely fascinating.

I know I say this a lot, but I really should have reviewed this book right after reading, because details don't always stick around long enough for me to remember to write about them. This book in particular was chock full of so many interesting details I know it would be impossible for me to convey most of them even if I'd written this review ten seconds after finishing. And it's been a month and a half.

Randy O. Frost was a professor at Smith college when an This book was completely fascinating.

I know I say this a lot, but I really should have reviewed this book right after reading, because details don't always stick around long enough for me to remember to write about them. This book in particular was chock full of so many interesting details I know it would be impossible for me to convey most of them even if I'd written this review ten seconds after finishing. And it's been a month and a half.

Randy O. Frost was a professor at Smith college when an undergraduate's project on hoarding, which was believed to be a subset of obsessive compulsive disorder at the time, prompted him to pioneer the research field into hoarding as its own separate thing, with different causes and symptoms (and treatments). He and his co-author Gail Steketee (who he explains in the intro mostly helped him with research and compiling data, while he did the writing) are still the leading researchers in the field.

This book is part explanation of the causes of hoarding, its linkage to OCD, and parsing out of why hoarders do what they do, psychologically and biologically; and it is also part case history. One of the reasons the book is so interesting is that he uses specific cases histories for patients with varying types of hoarding to illustrate the points he is making. He weaves the story of their hoarding in with explanations of their behavior, and of hoarding itself. It is never jargony, but still maintains scientific credibility. In my opinion, it's a book that scholars and pleasure readers alike will find worthwhile.

There was just so much I didn't know about hoarding before I read this, like the previously mentioned connections with OCD (as of the writing of this book in 2010, there were theories about why so many people with OCD are also hoarders, but not all hoarders have OCD, and not all people with OCD are hoarders), and connections with ADHD as well. Even the story the book opens with, of the most famous hoarding case in New York history, is one I hadn't heard before. And it's all grounded in human stories. You really feel for each person he profiles, as he details just exactly how their hoarding has affected their lives.

My only "complaint" here would be that since this is a growing research field, new and exciting discoveries are presumably being made about hoarding as we speak, and the book was published waaaaay back in 2010, it's probably already out of date. I hope they do an updated version sometime in the future, and that some of the lingering questions brought up in this book have some answers.

Note: Do not read or listen to the chapter on garbage hoarders if you are eating now, plan to eat soon, or have recently eaten. It is stomach churning stuff. ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Oct 12, 2012 Donna rated it really liked it

Shelves: there-but-for-the-grace-of

The hoarding shows cruise along on shock value, and geez, if you've seen one house filled to the brim with newspapers, unused storage bins, cat turds, and raccoon corpses, you've seen them all. Wasn't it Tolstoy who noticed that clean houses are all the same, but the messy ones...
This book is much more interesting than the TV shows. Sure, all the classics are here, the Collier brothers, the people who keep their pee in jars (don't look to closely at those Oh Henry bars...) but without the smack The hoarding shows cruise along on shock value, and geez, if you've seen one house filled to the brim with newspapers, unused storage bins, cat turds, and raccoon corpses, you've seen them all. Wasn't it Tolstoy who noticed that clean houses are all the same, but the messy ones...
This book is much more interesting than the TV shows. Sure, all the classics are here, the Collier brothers, the people who keep their pee in jars (don't look to closely at those Oh Henry bars...) but without the smack smack smack of jump cut b-roll, this book can really get into what situations (isolation) and individual characteristics can lead a mild mannered matchbook collector down the goat path to death by newspaper; so heavy and smothery once they're piled over 10 feet.
Am I a cleaning lady away from death by book? I am lucky enough to have one of the great ones. She knows how to keep me in line without making my house feel strange to me. There is not an empty shoebox or old piece of useless crap that doesn't leave this house within 2 weeks of official POS-dom. She has a lovely understanding of my relationship to my stuff including the pile of books in the corner of my bedroom that will soon go onto a bookshelf. (revolution!) AND my back porch is empty. EMPTY! Just thrown into a small trailer and taken to the dump, except for one old roller skate. When I pick it up, I can feel the vibration of steel wheels on asphalt shaking my 9 year old knees as I tear-assed down Avondale hill on summer afternoons.
She is a gem, and while reading this book, I thought a lot about Cynthia and wondered if some of these people entering their houses through the strait gate (stuff piled against the front door) might not have gone so far if they had that extra voice of reason in the mix. But that extra voice costs money.
We all let ourselves go a bit at a certain age. A certain amount of this letting go is liberating, but for some it's a quick slide into the oubliette of non-youth to lie in the ash heap with the other discarded toys.
Anyway, this book really gets beyond the usual shock images and is well worth reading to get to know these people above and beyond their designation as 'hoarders'. They also get into what it's like for the children of hoarders, and the authors tie in societal changes in our relationship to possessions through the rapidly metastasizing presence of storage places.
Worth reading. ...more

flag 12 likes · Like · see review

Jul 13, 2012 Lobstergirl rated it really liked it

Recommended to Lobstergirl by: Thom Dunn

This is a book that goes way beyond the voyeuristic TV shows to explain why people hoard. There are many reasons, and a variety of types of hoarders. Some hoarding is strongly related to OCD, other hoarding not so much. One woman in the book collected magazines; her house was filled with them and she had expanded into several storage units. At first she bought only one copy of each magazine, but then she began to be disturbed by the thought that a magazine might be a little damaged, might have f This is a book that goes way beyond the voyeuristic TV shows to explain why people hoard. There are many reasons, and a variety of types of hoarders. Some hoarding is strongly related to OCD, other hoarding not so much. One woman in the book collected magazines; her house was filled with them and she had expanded into several storage units. At first she bought only one copy of each magazine, but then she began to be disturbed by the thought that a magazine might be a little damaged, might have fingerprints on it (her own or someone else's), that the "O" on the cover of Oprah magazine might not be positioned perfectly. This would cause her to buy a new copy with the "O" properly aligned. Soon she was buying two copies of each magazine, one to read and one to preserve (but keeping both). At the store, she would pick up a stack of three copies of a magazine in order not to touch the middle copy, which she would buy. Eventually she persuaded the store personnel to let her ring up her magazine purchases herself, so that no store employee would touch them.

Another woman, Irene, had distinct categories of what in her house was "clean" and "dirty," but the authors noted that everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Irene was a perfect exemplar of the person who hoards because they see possibility and potential in every single item they come across, and the thought of losing that possibility by throwing the item away is debilitating. She had one piece of paper with the phone number of a young girl who she thought her daughter might be interested in meeting. Her daughter wasn't interested, but Irene had held onto the phone number because "Julia might change her mind." Irene held on to the instructions for a toy that her son owned; when her son threw them away because he already knew how to use the toy, Irene seemed utterly bewildered. She did spend several hours a day attempting to sort through her things, but because every object had a meaning, and Irene had an intention for it, it was incredibly difficult to throw it out, and it went back onto the pile (this is called "churning"). Items got shuffled within the piles as Irene examined them, but they almost never got discarded.

"Most hoarders are capable of discarding things if they can convince themselves that the object will not be wasted, that it will go to a good home...or that the opportunity it presented is no longer available," write the authors. "But the amount of time and effort involved in attaining this certainty makes it impossible to keep up with the volume of stuff entering the home."

The psychological trait linking all these hoarders is their sentimental or emotional attachment to objects. Many see their personal history inscribed in their possessions, so their home is like an enormous biography in which every item, no matter how insignificant, has its own story. If this is how you see your things, then throwing them away feels like a kind of death. Some hoarders anthropomorphize things, so that they would imagine even a yogurt container suffering as it lay in the garbage. When I first learned about hoarding it seemed as though hoarders merely had a clutter problem which had gotten way out of control; they were overwhelmed, and what they needed was someone to come in and help them get rid of the clutter. This is actually the opposite of what true hoarding is, and it's why hoarders become so defensive and resistant when people offer decluttering help. The clutter is protective and comforting; hoarding often begins after a personal trauma, whether a parent dying, a rape, or a divorce. Hoarders often had one very emotionally distant or unloving parent, and the clutter can be an emotional solution to lack of affection. When a municipality or public health department comes in to clear a severe hoarder's residence, the hoarder very often lapses into a deep depression, and some even commit suicide after the cleaning. If they survive it, they begin hoarding again immediately, because merely clearing stuff out doesn't address the underlying psychological issues.

Perhaps most insightful was the authors' focus on hoarders' problems with decision-making and information processing. Many hoarders crave information; they want to know everything. They want to read every newspaper and magazine article, but because time constraints make this impossible, the unread publications stack up. Every bit of information seems equally important to them; a five-year old ad for tires is as significant as a newspaper clipping on drug use, or their homeowners insurance policy. Irene had kept a cap to a pen because she thought it could be used as a piece in a board game. Only after the authors discussed with her whether this was "a reasonable and important purpose" for it was she able to throw it away. She was also unable to decide what to do with a piece of junk mail from a mortgage company until a similar conversation had happened. Hoarders' problems making decisions and processing information, the way hoarding tends to run in families, and studies of brain scans all suggest that hoarding most likely has a brain disorder component.

Not all of the case studies in the book were equally interesting; animal hoarders, for example, bore me. There were some chapters where the writing style changed, probably because there are two authors. What I liked was the way the authors were respectful and utterly nonjudgmental, treating their subjects with objectivity, compassion, and understanding. ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

Apr 23, 2010 Evan rated it really liked it

Shelves: materialism-schism, 2013-reads, _lfpl-library, pop-culture-misc

(*2019 note: False alarm; this was not my last review here. Realize this is an old review and proceed with that context).

*It's appropriate that this will be my last review on Goodreads because I realize that one of my main motivations for writing and posting reviews here is one of the primary rationales used by hoarders to justify their habit: to have a physical, tangible record of a memory, to quell the fear of memories forgotten. Even when hoarders do manage to purge, they often keep some part (*2019 note: False alarm; this was not my last review here. Realize this is an old review and proceed with that context).

*It's appropriate that this will be my last review on Goodreads because I realize that one of my main motivations for writing and posting reviews here is one of the primary rationales used by hoarders to justify their habit: to have a physical, tangible record of a memory, to quell the fear of memories forgotten. Even when hoarders do manage to purge, they often keep some part of the purged thing: to make a photocopy of an album cover, for instance, to be able to hold onto something that was the essence of the thing.

The researchers in this book astutely pick up on earlier work in which pioneering psychologists realized that objects continue to serve us much as they did in primitive times: as surrogates of sorts, as fetish idols, as receptacles of magic: magic and memory that rub off and stay, things that outlive their possessor, things that can be passed to family, friends, associates and keep memories alive. The authors cite the example from a class in which a student admitted to buying and owning a shirt once reputed to have been worn by Jerry Seinfeld. The shirt itself was just that: a shirt. Its association with Seinfeld lent it meaning; some kind of magic that somehow might rub off. Its meaning and significance are completely mental, emotional.

The point is, that I write reviews to have a detailed or semi-detailed record of a book that would otherwise become lost in time as details of it become quickly obliterated in the mists of memory. When I go back and read my own reviews, forgotten details and feelings of my reactions to the books are brought flooding back. In the process, I've logged hundreds of reviews and in a sense could said to be a "hoarder" of same. The upshot now is that I don't need to be spending my time on this anymore. Goodreads has become a censored Disneyfied corporate arm of Amazon, and its contents are now free fodder for marketers that earn me nothing. I refuse to contribute free material toward the enrichment of a taking class that pisses on the rest of us, so this is the end of the line.

As for the book: Frost and Steketee are legit professors of psychology and social work, respectively, and this book is a primary popular work delving into a phenomenon that is only now beginning to be sorted out and studied. The authors try to bring together the known research and compare it to their own studies, while presenting often heartbreaking case studies of people mired in their odd love-hate obsessions. The researcher-authors struggle mightily to reconcile many of the conflicts and overlapping aspects of the various psychological symptoms observed in hoarders, and they do very well in enlightening. This is a very good attempt and a fine place to start reading if you want to get your bearings in the complicated jungle of hoarding.

It's been fun. Enjoy the museum. Write if you want; I'll continue to check my email and comments here and will be perfectly fine using Amazon's platforms in which to freely socialize. I won't give them a thing more; I'll be the taker for once. Otherwise, my life goes elsewhere.

Evan (aka, Kevin) ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Jan 14, 2014 Amanda L rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, psych-or-mental-illness, gr-friends, 2014

Updated upon finishing--

Gearing up for a move out of state this month... I certainly need to dump a lot. Let's call it "borderline pathological" ;-]

A technical assessment of hoarding from a psychological-scientific perspective which, according to the authors, has been lacking until very recently. They advocate a set of hoarding-exclusive diagnostic criteria for the next edition of the DSM, as chronic hoarding is currently classified under OCD or addiction, since there is some overlap of symptoms Updated upon finishing--

Gearing up for a move out of state this month... I certainly need to dump a lot. Let's call it "borderline pathological" ;-]

A technical assessment of hoarding from a psychological-scientific perspective which, according to the authors, has been lacking until very recently. They advocate a set of hoarding-exclusive diagnostic criteria for the next edition of the DSM, as chronic hoarding is currently classified under OCD or addiction, since there is some overlap of symptoms and underlying causes. However, the authors' thorough evaluation of pathological hoarders proves that they often don't have the same motivations or afflictions as those with OCD/ addiction, so it appears to be a one-way association and ultimately a miscategorization of hoarding in that the current characterization lacks specificity. Let's be honest, with the rising incidence of hoarding of late, it very well does deserve its own set of assessment criteria so people can get the appropriate help they need. I also believe devoting a DSM diagnosis will raise awareness of the illness in both the professional world and among those unwittingly plagued by the behavior.

The authors examine a great number (perhaps too great) of case studies while maintaining the anonymity of those they've interviewed and engaged in treatment. The case studies are fairly extensive and detailed, beginning with the infamous Harlem Collyer brothers who died buried in their STUFF (floor-to-two-feet-from-the-ceiling stacks of YEARS of compressed/ decaying newspapers, 5 defunct grand pianos, rusty tin cans, etc., in their family mansion at the turn of the century. Turns out they were collecting trash with the belief that it was enabling them to be self-sufficient. Certainly a unique delusion in its own right.

Despite the anonymity of everyone aside from the Collyer bros, I felt like a lot of it enabled self-indulging a guilty pleasure of violating the pathological's right to privacy. Then I eventually felt like the case studies became redundant and there was less focus on their motivations, which I find more interesting and useful, and more focus on their symptoms and the details of how their hoarding manifests and the obvious hurdles it presents to carrying on a social life or establishing intimacy. Yawn. That much is self-evident.

Reading this certainly amassed the fruits of my own purging! Cathartic, indeed. I think this could prove to be inspiring for those of us who have a tendency to hold on to things by attaching unworthy deep sentiment to material objects or making space for things that have been out of use for years under the guise that "someday" they could be brought back into regular rotation. It is as good a time as any to gain control over our fleeting impulses and attachment to all that STUFF at the back of the closet [[occupying valuable and limited space]] that we haven't used/ worn in years. Admittedly, much of that is often simply out of laziness or even apathy.

Once we see the immense quantity of things that have gone into disuse over time, we may gain valuable lessons going forward that will reduce our own consumerism. Donating/ discarding all those items one by one will be a reminder to forego the buying and will invariably prove to be a strategy for future $$$ savings. Win-win. ERRR--- win-win-win.

Sadly this book will almost certainly be the last checkout from my current Alexandria, VA library, which I will miss dearly. Onward to Portland's amazing library! Maine, here we come! ...more

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2010 David Peters rated it really liked it

Why I Read It:

I love the shows Clean Sweep, Hoarders, Life Laundry, etc.

Review:

The authors come from an academic background so there is a slight text book feel to the work, but it is all punctuated with example after example. And the truth they find at the bottom of the piles is it’s not about the stuff. I think the common misconception people have when they see examples of hoarding on TV is just to throw it away. Getting rid of the stuff will not be a miracle cure. In fact on example from the ...more

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Feb 06, 2011 Chris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Not the sensationalized view that the TV show Hoarders gives, this book is great! It breaks down the many different reasons why people hoard stuff, and the various reasons why people become so attached to stuff. This explains a lot about the psychology of Hoarding and the mental state of people who compulsively pile stuff up around them. What I really liked about the way this is written is that it is clinical, yet accessible, and it doesn't feel like it is all "crazy". There is one chapter about ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Mar 14, 2015 Ocean rated it really liked it

i liked this book because it doesn't make value judgments about hoarders. it doesn't flinch from providing the gory details of these people's houses but it explains WHY they do these things. it unpacks the true force behind these actions (mainly a mix of OCD & trauma) and DOES NOT JUDGE THEM. so interesting and good.
most people wouldn't say i'm a hoarder (although i am messy) but i do have hoarder-ish qualities (also OCD-ish qualities & trauma), and two things in this book were recognizable in a ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 25, 2012 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-psychology

An enjoyable and well-read nine-hour audiobook available as a download from Audible.

Listening to (or reading) this book is to watching a TV show about hoarders is as volunteering at a hospital is to attending a circus freak show.

Listening to this book after reading various books about memory (specifically, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research An enjoyable and well-read nine-hour audiobook available as a download from Audible.

Listening to (or reading) this book is to watching a TV show about hoarders is as volunteering at a hospital is to attending a circus freak show.

Listening to this book after reading various books about memory (specifically, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research), I had the following thought:

Exceptional minds are capable of great feats of memory through the use of a “memory palace”, an imaginary building, constructed solely in the mind. By stuffing this mental building with bizarre mental images, the exceptional mind can recall long texts or the order of a pack of playing cards they have seen only once, skills that are useful, if only to win a contest.

A certain category of hoarders, described in this book, construct their memory palace in the real world. Their only problem is loving life too much. They want to remember everything, every conversation, every person they met, every contact they had, no matter how fleeting, because they wish to relive the happiness the original gave them. They hoard ticket stubs, old newspapers, matchbooks, etc. etc., because every one is connected with a happy, or at least interesting, memory.

Exceptional minds can make a well-ordered and useful mental house. The chaotic physical house of the hoarder actually resembles the chaotic interior life of the average person. (When I write “average person”, of course I can only be certain of what my own interior life is like, but I make the leap of faith that I am not actually a deluded brain in a jar, or in any other way exceptional.) We pile our memories everywhere, willy-nilly, valuables stuffed in with the meaningless, like the lady in this book who discovered an envelope full of money squirrelled away in the folds of the years-old newspaper that she just had made the agonizing decision to throw away.

What I'm saying is: Hoards are just extroverted memory palaces. At the time I thought it, it seemed profound.

If your default setting, like mine, is to have insufficient sympathy for the suffering of others, to believe that what ails most people can be solved by a good slap upside the head, then it's useful to listen to this book. You can hear an expert tell you that the situation is more complex than you think, and that sympathy and empathy is not only ethically correct, but often more effective practical approach to dealing with behaviors which, upon first examination, may appear inexplicable or inexcusable. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Aug 25, 2010 Margot rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, recovery

I'd like to think that we all can recognize a little bit of ourselves in these case studies of hoarding, but maybe it's just me. Fortunately for my boyfriend, my "collecting" hasn't made our living space unlivable, and reading this book actually made me think a few times, "Hey, I'm not so bad." Watching hoarding intervention shows puts me into a flurry of cleaning and discarding activity, while this book made me recognize certain similarities in behavior, bringing some self-awareness. The insigh I'd like to think that we all can recognize a little bit of ourselves in these case studies of hoarding, but maybe it's just me. Fortunately for my boyfriend, my "collecting" hasn't made our living space unlivable, and reading this book actually made me think a few times, "Hey, I'm not so bad." Watching hoarding intervention shows puts me into a flurry of cleaning and discarding activity, while this book made me recognize certain similarities in behavior, bringing some self-awareness. The insights of the authors, who have been at the forefront of compulsive hoarding research for about fifteen years, are just the beginning for this still largely unknown affliction. A PBS show and related book called Affluenza are mentioned, and I plan to read/watch those next.

I will say this as a caution: a couple of the case studies would have been hard for me to read while eating.

Some excerpts:
"The chronic savers we studied were highly perfectionistic and indecisive, having trouble processing information quickly enough to feel comfortable making decisions. They acquired things wherever they went, and every day they carried lots of things with them--"just in case" items they couldn't be without." (10)
"In the past decade, we've learned that hoarding seems to be such a marginal affliction in part because it's carried on largely in secret: we think of it as an "underground" psychopathology, occurring most often behind closed doors. Hoarders tend to be ashamed of their disorder and unwelcoming to those who would interfere with their activities." (11)
"One thing she avoided by not cleaning her apartment was a peculiar intrusive though. Sheepishly, she told me about it one day. 'I have a very childlike view of God. I believe he is all-benevolent and would never let me die in this kind of mess.' Whenever she began to clean, the thought occurred to her that now God would allow her to die, and the idea terrified her." (164)
"People who hoard often speak in overly elaborate ways, including far too many details and losing the main themes. It seems as though they are unable to filter out irrelevant details. Each detail seems as important as the next." (203)
"More tragic for this woman was the fact that after the animal control officers raided her home and removed most of her cats, her New Hampshire town held a town meeting (a tradition in New England) to discuss the threat she posed to public health. This socially anxious woman sat in the front row while her fellow citizens admonished her for her behavior. This public humiliation drove her deeper into isolation." (233)
"As one of our clients put it, 'Without these things, I am nothing.' This quote is similar to Fromm's comment on 'having': 'If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?'"(266) ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jan 24, 2011 Linda rated it really liked it

I worked for awhile in a non-profit guardianship agency in Washington state and we had many cases of hoarding. One fellow filled up his entire house, then one car, then the other but was sleeping on the back seat of the second. (He lost his false teeth in that mess!!!)

So I had to read this book. The author writes very well and uses people he has worked with to control or eliminate their hoarding. (Obviously, he disguises their real names.) It was fascinating to me to see how many hoarders can gi ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

May 30, 2010 Judith rated it liked it

Okay, I am officially crazy. I can't get enough of stories about hoarders. Am I becoming a hoarder myself? Hoarding stories about hoarders? I watch the A&E show, and this is the 2nd book I have read in the past 6 months about hoarding.

But I did learn a lot from this particular book. Like a lot of people, when I see those houses of hoarders, I think, just go in and take all the trash out with a dump truck and stop trying to persuade the hoarder to part with his possessions. What I learned from t ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

May 06, 2012 Sara rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, consumer-culture

As someone who grew up with a hoarder parent, this book was particularly interesting to read. The authors, a psychiatrist and a social worker, interviewed many hoarders, their long-suffering family and friends. They discuss some historical cases of hoarding, examine various styles and reasonings behind hoarding, such as collecting, foraging, and rescuing. Some of the interviewees are aware that they have a problem with their collections covering all the surfaces in their homes, while others prou ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 17, 2011 Melanie Baker rated it really liked it

Hoarding has become, weirdly, kinda fashionable, largely thanks to those TV shows. This book sheds a lot of light on the psychology of hoarders and some of the issues and histories that can bring it about.

It wasn't a big happy ending book -- it made clear that not all of the people in their case studies were "cured", and how common it is for a cleared out house to be completely filled back up again surprisingly quickly.

What I would have liked to have read more about would be how such people are ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jul 05, 2012 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, sociology-psychology

A fascinating and well-researched book about people who are compulsive hoarders. Several of the stories made me cringe they were so disturbing. My reaction was the same as when I watch those hoarding TV shows -- I had to stop for a few minutes to clean and declutter something.

During his research, Dr. Frost created his own Clutter Image Rating by photographing rooms in various stages of messiness and then asking clients to identify the level their home is at. What is interesting is how frequentl ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jul 26, 2020 LibraryCin rated it really liked it

Shelves: psychology, mental-illness, hoarding, hoarders

The authors are psychologists who were the first to really study hoarding behaviour. This tells of some of the psychology of hoarding and presents many case studies of people they worked with. Hoarding is usually associated with OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), but the authors feel that it should be its own category.

People who hoard show different symptoms of different mental health disorders, including OCD, perfectionism, anxiety, and more I’m forgetting. People have different reasons they ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Mar 08, 2019 Mehrsa rated it liked it

I wish there was more psychology and explanation and fewer stories. The stories are interesting, but the psychology of what drives people to hoard is much more interesting

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2011 Amy rated it really liked it

"Stuff" is organized with case studies serving as the basis for the broader categorization and analysis of various types of and motives for hoarding. It talks about hoarding based on personification of items, a strong sense of personal connection to items, a fear of loss of self if items are discarded, an aversion to waste, an inability to rate the importance of items, the mentality saving "just in case," and combination manifestations of hoarding. The subjects of the authors' research are exten "Stuff" is organized with case studies serving as the basis for the broader categorization and analysis of various types of and motives for hoarding. It talks about hoarding based on personification of items, a strong sense of personal connection to items, a fear of loss of self if items are discarded, an aversion to waste, an inability to rate the importance of items, the mentality saving "just in case," and combination manifestations of hoarding. The subjects of the authors' research are extensively quoted, particularly in their descriptions of how they see their possessions, how they perceive the world, how they feel about their possessions and about discarding them. The authors discuss the various pathologies that are often comorbid with hoarding (OCD, ADHD, anxiety disorders, PTSD, depression) and how these interact with and feed hoarding behavior. They also outline the process they have developed in helping people who hoard to declutter as well as their observation that, although their approach seems to result in more progress toward decluttering than many other approaches (particularly ineffective is forcing cleanouts), they address their observation that the long-term maintenance of even modest improvement is uncommon and that even those who retain a state of relative lack of clutter, the struggle with the urge to hoard seems to continue indefinitely.

As a hoarder whose mother, grandmothers, grandfather, grandmother-in-law, and spouse are also hoarders (despite that none of them are genetically related to me), I saw myself particularly in the "just in case" hoarding and carrying of excessive items and in the aversion to waste. One of my recent successes in getting rid of stuff has been the result of finding a group that accepts donations of any kind and then gives them away to those who need them, allowing me to feel that the things I've hoarded will not be wasted. My spouse and I tend to chorus, "But it's still good!" as we save and collect things, and delight in helping people furnish new apartments by "shopping" in our basement or garage. Unfortunately, this means that both of those are too full for us to USE as living or functional space. I see my spouse's inability to sort through things easily and tendency to have very important items mixed in with trash, as well as the tendency to "sort" in a way that moves things around but doesn't reduce overall clutter as the actual organization is stymieing. I hope to use the insights into questions to ask about the documents and things and studies of why things carry such value as a way of helping to reduce more of my clutter and to work with my spouse on further clutter

Even so, the outlook is fairly grim, it seems; the lifelong nature of the struggle against hoarding still seems quite oppressive and exhausting, as does any attempt to address the hoarded items. So while the book is insightful and informative, I find I have little more hope than before I read it. ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 21, 2011 Elliot Ratzman rated it really liked it

This rocked my world. I saw some of myself—or one of my friends or ex-housemates—in each one of these chapters. I have accumulated thousands of books, but also hundreds of magazines, papers, articles and mementos. By reading about the pathological collectors—most famously the NYC hermits, the Collyer brothers, who died under piles of accumulated junk in their mansion—I now think about my own habits on a continuum. There are a range of chronic hoarders and shopping addicts who collect animals, ne ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 11, 2012 Kerfe rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

We all have too much stuff. Frost and Steketee cover extreme examples of hoarding, but it's hard not to identify with the problem of over-accumulation.

The thought processes of the hoarders are not all that different from some of my own reasonings about my aquisitions and why I need to have and keep particular items. Especially the stuff I use (might use/plan to use/occasionally use/have used in the past) for the work I do. Do I still need it? Did I ever need it? Could I substitute something else ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Sep 30, 2012 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sociology, non-fiction, self-help

This is a nicely executed book by a couple of experts in the field. In spite of the fact that there are no car chases or explosions within these pages, I found the book to be totally engrossing, much more interesting than some of the modern fiction I've been struggling through lately (fifty shades of what?).

There were passages in this book that caused me some discomfort: I found many indicators that could easily be applied to me: stacks of books I won't live long enough to read, impulsive (compu ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Play Book Tag: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things / Randy Frost, Gail Steketee. 4 stars	1	5	Jul 26, 2020 03:41PM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Nonfiction

524 users

Psychology

262 users

Science

42 users

Health > Mental Health

31 users

Self Help

30 users

Sociology

28 users

Mental Health > Mental Illness

27 users

Health

20 users

Audiobook

16 users

Adult

12 users

See top shelves…

About Randy O. Frost

Randy O. Frost

60 followers

Dr. Randy O. Frost is the Harold and Elsa Siipola Israel Professor of Psychology at Smith College and author of "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things" (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2010), a book about hoarding for the general public. He is an expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder and compulsive hoarding and has published more than 100 scientific articles on these topics. He other ...more