Stuff

Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

By: Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee

Narrated by: Joe Caron

Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper thats 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 expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks.

With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder - piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders churn but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage - Frost and Steketee illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us.

Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, very few of us are in fact free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live. For all of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

©2010 Randy O. Frost & Gail Steketee (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This succinct, illuminating book will prove helpful to hoarders, their families, and mental health professionals who work with them." ( Publishers Weekly)

Some insights, but somewhat dull

With a very strong opening, "Stuff" has a lot of promise. The topic alone is a hot one. And when the author discusses the research and specifically how it frequently challenges conventional views, the book is good. Unfortunately, the book becomes something of a mess afterwards as research, impressions, case studies, and personal stories all show up, but with a lack of organization that hurts the overall enjoyment.

Living for Things, Not People

I have been fascinated by hoarding since 1994, when I read about a couple – somewhere in Orange County, I think – dying in the January 17, 1994 Northridge Earthquake, after being squished by their belongings. One of the neighbors mentioned sometimes seeing the husband, sitting in a car stuffed with junk, reading his morning paper. The article didn’t call them “hoarders” – that term wasn’t used at the time - but that is what they were.

I have always wondered what caused people to keep so much that it could kill them. From time to time, I’ve watched A&E’s “Hoarders”, which started in 2006. Watching “Hoarders” is like slowing down as you pass a car wreck – you look, take a deep breath, try not to think too much about what you see, and are very grateful it’s not you. The distress of the hoarders that ‘volunteer’ for help is real, but that show doesn’t explain where the compulsion comes from.

Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee’s 2010 “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” explains the why, and the why isn’t always the same. For some people, hoarding happens because they ‘store’ their memories in objects, and are afraid that if they throw those objects away, they will not keep those memories. For other people, hoarding happens because they are so afraid that they are being wasteful by throwing objects away. There are many other reasons, some of them neurological. Hoarding runs in families, and Frost and Steketee present a fascinating study of twin hoarders. There are animal hoarders, object hoarders, people who can’t pass up anything that’s free, and hoarders who start (and sometimes stop) hoarding when they are children.

The frustration the family members and friends on “Hoarders” is evident as they struggle to convince people to throw away what is to non-hoarders, junk. Frost and Steketee explain that to a hoarder, most people’s junk can be a hoarder’s dearest treasure. In many cases, taking a hoarder’s possessions can be psychologically devastating, even leading to suicide. Helping a hoarder isn’t for amateurs.

Frost and Steketee address the issue of whether hoarding is also Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and conclude that it is not. They are correct: the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) V will list “Hoarding Disorder” as a separate diagnosis.

This isn’t a “How To” on how not to recover from hoarding – Frost and Steketee provide self help for hoarders in a different (non-Audible) book, “Hoarding and Acquiring”. “Stuff” is a book for people who want to understand this fascinating disorder.

Joe Caron’s narration is lively and engaging, and the book was worth my drive time.

I had no idea...

My mother is what I would describe a Pre-Hoarder. She is not SEVERE like the people in this book, but she could tip and head this way at any moment. I feel like I have better insite into her emotional connection with stuff, and I feel better prepared to lovingly steer her towards a path to recovery. Potentially a huge help.

great insight

As the surviving sibling of a hoarder, this book gave me insight into the real problem.

Interesting insight into the psychology of hoardin

The author provides case histories of different hoarders which is something I always enjoy in a nonfiction pschological type book. It is well written and yo care about these people as they struggle with the odd form of obsessive/compulsive disorder.

I'm a churner

I read this book and saw myself in so many ways , all I do is move one pile to another after reading this I now have 5 bags of garbage and many more to come also many donation bags . Thank you for your story's

I really enjoyed reading this book

loved it and was able to clean a few drawers while listening. overall very usefull and fun

Accursed share

If the author had pushed the issue one step further into the theoretical realm, this could have been really amazing. Yes, for 99.9% listeners, this book is 5 stars. But what does all this stuff about stuff mean philosophically about the human condition and/or western industrial modernity? The author brushes up against the deeper question of our proliferation of atomized private hoards and the accompanying discontents but he never presses the inquiry. Admittedly this might not be the right kind of book to interweave Marxism and Bataille with Psychotherapy but darn it would have been awesome if he had. Still quite an important book and quite well written.

Utterly fascinating

OK, I admit I was a big reluctant to start this book but couldn't stop listening once I started. The authors go through case studies of many adults and some children with various problems with hoarding and accumulation. The authors discuss the individual struggles, family struggles and public health issues with hoarding. They talk about how they got into the area of treating this disorder which had previously not been discussed much. They do talk primarily about how the disease arises from psychological factors, as opposed to neurotransmitters (for example), but do talk some about the biology and genetic factors around hoarding. This is not a "how-to" book with chapter by chapter approach to the illness but they also give advice on how they treat people with these issues and how to approach the issue on a community basis. They also give families and individuals advice on where to go for help. The main thing that fascinated me was how they could so eloquently describe the struggles that these people have with discarding their things which I never could have understood from watching a show like "Hoarders", for example. If you are at all interested in this topic, don't hesitate to get this book

Real science, leading to self-examination

No, I don't live in a house where goat-paths thread among stacks of newspapers, magazines, and assorted junk. But even as I listened to Caron's excellent reading of this well-written book, I couldn't help but notice how many of the traits of the sufferers of extreme cases of hoarding I had, or could recognize in friends and family members - though never so out-of-control. The authors never overclaim - they are genuine scientists who remain cautious and skeptical of their own tentative conclusions. The result is a book that is both fascinating and reliable. It's a happy coincidence when first rate science is done by first rate writers.