A Person I Care About Hoards

Over the last few weeks I have received many calls from people looking for help for a relative or friend who hoards. In addition to help cleaning out their loved one’s home, the callers are often looking for some way to process what is happening in their loved ones’ lives.  I thought it would useful to write a bit about these calls to help others who find themselves in this situation.

 From the perspective of the callers, the clutter is worthless and the piles are fire hazards. They wonder how their loved ones can live this way. They think that throwing out the clutter is the answer – but why don’t their loved ones see that?

The loved ones who are hoarding have a different perspective. Their collections are useful, interesting and valuable. The problem is not the stuff. The problem is other people feel they have the right to tell them what to do with their stuff.  

The situations are painful, frustrating, and scary – for both the callers and their loved ones. However, I can only address the needs of the person who calls me; it would be unethical and deleterious for me to work in a home without the homeowner’s prior knowledge and consent.  It is news that rarely surprises the caller, but typically is met with resignation.  There is hope if the caller is willing to do some work on his own.

1)   Acknowledge what you are feeling and get support for you.  Isolation often accompanies hoarding, not only for the person who is hoarding, but also for his relatives and friends. Hoarding is not a “water cooler” topic. But there are other people in similar situations who understand what you are going through, and that can be comforting.  The website Children of Hoarders is a very good resource. If you are in the St. Louis area, the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute provides support for family and friends.

2)   Maintain your cool and be respectful of the person who is hoarding. Each of you has different perspectives. Suspend the temptation to declare a “right” and a “wrong” in this situation because it will lead you to a dead end. The likelihood of progress is far greater if you can act with empathy.  Understandably, this may be hard to do.  What you feel is legitimate and that is why I start with getting support for what you are going through.

3)   Educate yourself.  The International OCD Foundation’ s website contains a wealth of information and it has an excellent infographic that you can download. The Institute for Challenging Disorganization has a variety of informational downloads.  The books Digging Out by Michael A. Tompkins Ph.D and Tamara L. Hartl, Ph.D. and Buried in Treasures by David F. Tolin, Ph.D., Randy O. Frost, Ph.D. and Gail Steketee, Ph.D. are excellent resources.

4)   Prepare for the long-term. Hoarding behaviors do not go away in a week, a month or a year. This may be a life-long struggle.

5)   Turn the conversation from throwing things away to making the environment safer and more comfortable your loved one.  If you focus on throwing things away, then you are discounting your loved one’s perspective that his things are valuable. Can you agree not to block the door or to keep items off of the stove?  Agree upon a goal together. You might consider these small steps. But it can be a big step for your loved one to agree to partner with you to take action.

Your loved one may not be ready to work with you. You cannot rush the process.  There may be some emotional groundwork that needs to be worked on first, which is why it’s important to get support for what you are experiencing.

The temptation may be go into the loved one’s home and clean it out. Not only will your loved one continue to acquire items to fill his home, but in all likelihood you will seriously damage your relationship with him.  Please take a step back, take a deep breath and proceed with care and respect for both of you. You are not alone.

Get Organized St. Louis

The early-bird registration deadline is fast approaching  for St. Louis' inaugural organizing expo event: Get Organized St. Louis. I am excited to be part of the five-speaker lineup. The topics range from managing your home and financial papers, decluttering and organizing your basement and garage, productivity and time management, and productivity with ADD. After the presentations come to the question and answer session where you can ask a professional organizer your burning organizing questions. Additionally, we are very happy to have vendors' row featuring the companies that provide the goods and services that complement your organizing projects. Get Organized St. Louis is sponsored by the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers and will be at St. Charles Community College from 8 AM to 12:30 on March 23.  You can get more information at http://www.napostl.com/about/2013-napo-st-louis-expo. Aloha! Be there!

Shred Day

It's tax season.  A lot of people combine file cabinet clean-out with tax preparation. If you are one of those people, or if you need an excuse to clean out your files, I have good news: the days of free shred events are upon us.

Before we jump to where you can get your papers shredded for free, let's talk about what to shred. There are three guiding principles that I follow for shredding:

• If the information can be used to steal from me or it can be used to steal my identity, then shredding is a must.
• If the information is confidential, then shredding is a must.
• When in doubt, shred.

Examples of information that is covered by the first principle include: anything with your social security number, anything that contains investment, credit card, and bank account numbers, copies of your old passports or driver's license, old credit reports, credit card and loan offers, and anything with passwords.

Examples of information that is covered by the second principle are old medical records, old phone lists, old legal papers, transcripts, resumes, and anything that would embarrass me if someone else found it.

Typically, I don't feel the need to shred anything that can be easily obtained by the public. For instance, I don't shred the address labels on my magazines or non-financial junk mail (I do shred the credit card offers).

I collect items to shred in cardboard boxes. Printer paper and banker's boxes are the right size for easy handling and I can just leave them with the shredder.

Grab your calendar and record the upcoming free shred days. Usually shredding is limited to one box, but sometimes you can shred up to three boxes.

04/06/13  9 AM - noon  Scott Credit Union at 1100 Beltline Road in Collinsville, IL

04/06/13  8:30 AM - 1 PM  Eagle Bank at 1052 Kirkwood Road in Kirkwood, MO

04/13/13  9 AM - noon  First Community Credit Union at 4566 Lemay Ferry in St. Louis, MO

04/13/13  9 AM - noon  First Community Credit Union at 2651 Old Muegge Road in St. Charles, MO

04/13/13  9 AM - noon  First Community Credit Union at 801 Lincoln in Fairview Heights, IL

04/13/13  9 AM - noon  First Community Credit Union at 17151 Chesterfield Airport Road in Chesterfield, MO

04/20/13  9 AM - noon  Ameriprise Financial at 825 Maryville Center Dr in Creve Coeur, MO

04/20/13  9 AM - noon  Coldwell Banker Gundaker at 6235 Mid-Rivers Mall Drive in St. Peters, MO

04/20/13  9 AM - noon  St. Vincent Community Center at 7335 St. Charles Rock Road in St. Louis, MO

04/20/13 8 AM - noon  Galleria parking lot (BBB event) in Richmond Heights, MO

04/27/13  9 AM - noon  Vantage Credit Union at 4020 Fee Fee Road in Bridgeton, MO

04/27/13  10 AM - 1 PM  Neighbors Credit Union at 6300 Lindbergh Blvd. in St. Louis, MO

04/27/13  9 AM - noon  West Community Credit Union at 2345 S. Brentwood Blvd. in Brentwood,  MO

05/04/13  9 AM - noon  American Eagle Credit Union at 1075 N. US Highway 67 in Florissant, MO

05/04/13  9 AM - noon  American Eagle Credit Union at 3805 Union in St. Louis, MO

05/04/13  9 AM - noon  American Eagle Credit Union at 2175 Barrett Station Road in Des Peres, MO

05/04/13  9 AM - noon  American Eagle Credit Union at 1334 Jeffco Blvd. in Arnold, MO

05/04/13  9 AM - noon  Eagle Credit Union at  3944 Vogel Rd in Arnold, MO

Getting Unstuck

There are points in our lives when we feel stuck - when the obstacle before us seemingly defies traversing. How to get unstuck? Linda Samuels, CPO-CD® posted this question on her blog "The Other Side Of Organized" and received answers from seven colleagues. Their answers are enlightening and inspiring. Although each person answered differently, it was the honesty in their answers that tugged at my heart - especially Linda's. Sometimes time is what is needed.

For myself, I rely on the patience and wisdom of my trusted advisers who provide me the space to talk about the issue. They support me by listening and asking questions but never telling me what to do, which would be disenfranchising. Getting things out of my head provides me with the opportunity to see things from a new perspective. In that new perspective is a new direction which provides a way of traversing the obstacle. Sometimes it takes a bit of  time to develop a new perspective. Occasionally it takes a long time - then my advisers assure that things will work out.

Please take a moment to read Linda's post Stuck? 7 "Now What" Tips. We all get stuck. Thankfully we have each other to help us get unstuck.

A Greener GO Month

January is GO Month! Getting organized does not have to cost a lot of money. It’s not only possible to get organized on a budget, but it can be environmentally sound as well. Use “reduce, reuse and recycle” as your guiding phrase.

Reduce what you own to items that really make a difference in your life.  Keep items that are actually being used and are things that you truly love. Everyone has at least a few things in his home that aren’t as useful as he had hoped they would be. You know - the things that were purchased with the idea that they might come in handy someday, the items that seemed like they were a good idea at the time, the disliked gifts, and the impulsive purchases.

Unfortunately, holding on to these things will not bring back your money.  Nor will holding on to a disliked gift help your relationship with the person who gave you the gift. These items are “squatters” – they sit in your home without being useful and they require your time and attention to store and maintain them. Even worse, they hit you with a wave of guilt every time you see them. You can do with a little less guilt and clutter in your life. Send those “squatters” to the thrift shop – it’s an easy way to recycle them. Send broken and outdated electronics to an electronic recycler (a quick internet or phone book search will locate them). Reducing your inventory to things that make your life productive and pleasurable will reduce the time and money you spend on keeping things organized.

Reuse items by giving them a new purpose.  A little out-of-the-box thinking and that old dresser becomes a gift-wrapping center or a place to store linens, a small cabinet becomes a nightstand, and checkbook and gift boxes become drawer organizers. I’ve seen old serving trays turned into mail in boxes, cereal boxes turned into magazine organizers, ice cube trays turned into jewelry organizers, and small jars used to organize the necessary small stuff of life – from paper clips to cotton swabs. A little paint, fabric remnants or decorative paper help repurposed items conform to a color scheme. By the way, a uniform color scheme reduces the amount of visual clutter. It’s an amazing trick – try it!

Recycle things. Look for sturdy shelves and file cabinets at thrift and second-hand stores. You want file cabinets with fully extending drawers – drawers that only open to the ¾ point are irritating every time you need to pull something from the rear of the drawer. Add a hanging file frame to each drawer if there isn’t already one. Hanging file frames are about $20 from any office supply store. Hanging files are so much easier to use than folders for keeping your paperwork organized and easily accessible. A little paint and these used finds look new.

Bookcases are useful for so much more than books. To maximize your space, think “vertical.” With labeled baskets in a bookcase you can to corral small stuff.  Put a tall bookcase in a kitchen to store small appliances, serving dishes and trays, pantry items, and even cookbooks! Use inexpensive pegboard to store pots, pans and cooking utensils on the wall. Julia Child did.

When it comes to reusing items, be careful of “someday” thinking.  Acquiring or holding on to things for which you don’t have a designated purpose, adds to the clutter collection.  Also, if the new purpose will not be beneficial to your life, the transformation is not worth your time or resources. Have a plan for when and how things will be transformed into the useful times you envision. The last thing anyone needs is a collection of projects to do that is languishing in storage.

Focus on keeping things useful and relevant to your life. Then reduce, reuse and recycle. You’ll save some green by being green this GO month.

Prepare For The Scary Stuff

September is Disaster Preparation month and a month ago the buzz was on how to prepare for natural or man-made emergencies. It’s scary stuff, but preparation can your key to survival. Just as scary – if not scarier, because it’s more intimate – is the topic of attacks on one’s person.

There have been a number of attacks against women in the local St. Louis news lately. In September, our local National Association of Professional Organizers chapter was lucky to have Dan Asher present a program on personal safety. Needless to say, safety has been on my mind lately.

Dan provided our chapter with some excellent information about how to take proactive measurements in protecting ourselves.  Dan knows a lot about personal safety. He is a former police officer who is now an excellent real estate agent with Keller Williams Chesterfield (here is his website: http://dasher.yourkwagent.com/). There are two things I want to offer to you here: intuition and rehearsal.

Paying attention to one’s intuition is an extremely important safety measure. Those feelings that something just doesn’t seem right are red flags not to be dismissed by the logical brain. Don’t try to rationalize away your feelings. If something seems amiss leave the situation!

What if I think I can’t get away? Amazingly, the universe provided the answer in the guise of Patti Metcalf. Patti represents Damsel in Defense. She gives safety seminars and sells safety products. The products are cool: like a 120-decibel personal alarm/flashlight that attaches to your keychain or a pink stun gun. I stocked up for Christmas. Keeping my friends and family safe is important to me.

One thing Dan emphasized in his presentation is that each step that you take to protect yourself is a step in the right direction. I suppose safety is a little like organizing in that regard. Educate yourself. Have a plan and rehearse it. Dan said when you are in a threatening situation you will need to overcome the paralyzing effects of adrenaline and rehearsal is the key. Create a script for exiting a situation that your intuition says is not right. Practice that script. Practice using safety products so you won’t have to think about how to use them when you need them.

It is a scary world out there. But knowledge and preparation put you in a stronger position to protect yourself and the ones you love. Be strong, be prepared.           

Organize To Be Prepared

As a Scout Leader the whole idea of a National Preparedness Month resonates with me. Being prepared can mean the difference between life and death – which may seem so scary that it’s offsetting. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to worry about being perfectly prepared. You just need to start and use the momentum to carry you step-by-step forward.

There are a few easy steps that you can take that will get your preparations started.  Notice that I haven’t numbered these steps. Start with any of these steps and don’t worry about what to do first – just start.

•   Find a place to take shelter in your home that is away from windows and preferably in the basement. 
• Keep your shelter and the path to it clutter-free. When you’re rushing to safety you will not have time to clear or jump clutter-hurdles.
• Keep a flashlight in every room so you don’t have to go somewhere and look for one in the dark. Test the flashlights periodically to make sure they work. Look for a way to remember to test the flashlights such as setting up a reminder in your electronic calendar.
• Have a first aid kit with your prescription medicines handy. A lot of stores have pre-made kits on sale this month.  Keep the first aid kit in use and restock it as needed so its contents remain fresh.
• Build a binder with essential information page by page. Start with creating a plan for where to meet family in an emergency and who to contact out of town. Add information about each family member. Then add other important information like your insurance policies. Visit www.ready.gov/make-a-plan for a form you can download. Or consider getting the Securita PortaVault, which provides a system for indentifying, organizing and transporting the information you need during a disaster.
• Keep some bottled water and shelf-stable snacks in your shelter spot. FEMA and the Red Cross suggest setting up three days worth of supplies. But even if you start with one bottle of water, that’s one more than you had a day ago.
• Have a battery-operated weather band radio - preferably one that has an automatic dangerous weather alarm and an electric adapter so you don’t run your batteries down during good weather.  By the way, NOAA tests the signal every Wednesday about noon. During one such test, my neighbor heard my radio’s alarm but he didn’t know it was from the radio. Concerned that he was hearing the fire alarm he contacted my husband and then entered the house to investigate. The moral of this story is make friends with your neighbors.

Friendship is a lifeboat during a disaster. Friends help by pitching in what they have for the good of the group. You might have the bandage your neighbor needs and he might have the granola bar you need. Friends provide the camaraderie that is needed to get through a disaster emotionally. Because of friends, the burden of perfect preparation is lifted.

All you have to do is start your preparations, then do one small thing on a regular basis to bring you step-by step in the direction of safety and survival. For more information I encourage you to take a look at the www.ready.gov website.  And be safe out there!