Business & Tech

Part Three: True Treasure is Aiding Hoarders

With 2 million in U.S. suffering from disorder, helping hands can't discriminate.

Skokie Patch has been taking a look at American Hoarders' cleanup efforts of a hoader's house. This is the final of three pieces. You can read Part One and Part Two here.

Craig Strauss has just finished talking about how much he enjoys finding rare items such as Civil War guns and old coins in cleaning up a hoarder's house. The owner of American Hoarders says he rewards his hardest working employees with valuable items that the family doesn't want.

While finding hidden "treasures" may sound like fun, the job has its downsides.

"We just finished clearing out a hoarder's home in Algonquin and the lady wouldn't throw away her urine," said Dan Dugan, site supervisor for the Skokie company. "She had about 20,000 bottles of urine throughout her whole house."

Diane Slezak, chief operating officer with AgeOptions in Oak Park, has seen the effects of hoarding for 35 years. Her agency provides services to senior citizens in 130 communities in suburban Cook County, and she served as co-chairwoman of the Elder Self-Neglect Steering Committee, with the Illinois Department of Aging.

Slezak says it takes a skilled physician to diagnose how an individual becomes a hoarder. She notes that a number of things can trigger someone to collect unnecessary items – from brain injury to stroke to even loneliness.

The Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center in Durham, N.C., reports that more than 2 million hoarders exist in the United States.

Hoarding is a psychological disorder that is characterized as an inability to throw away items, experts say. The collection can include the person's urine, animals and even something as obscure as toasters.

According to a 1993 study, a hoarder's rationale for his or her compulsive behavior usually falls under four justifications: future need for an item;  lack of wear or damage to an object; sentimental attachment; and potential value.

Strauss estimates that the average hoarder spends between $100,000 and $150,000 in their lifetime on needless items.

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In most cases, hoarders are embarrassed and will often try to hide their problem by covering their shades and meeting people on the porch instead of inside their home, Slezak said.

In the end, Strauss said he wants to help such people overcome their "sickness." He said he has done "hundreds" of hoarding cleanouts in the North Shore area alone.

"More and more of these [hoarding] businesses are cropping up," Slezak said.

Asked about the number of hoarders in the North Shore area, Slezak replied: "Am I surprised there are hundreds of hoarders in the North Shore area? No, I'm not."

She added, "It doesn't matter if they're in the upper class or lower class, they'll find something to hoard."

For Strauss, treasures from his jobs also come in intangible forms. He says it doesn't matter what's the  economic status of his clients because the work isn't over when the last huge trash bin is hauled off the property.

He does regular checkups on some of his clients and even hires maids – out of his own pocket – to clean their homes regularly.

"The family won't check up on them and if I don't they're going to die," Strauss said of some occupants. "I can't have that on my shoulders.

"We have gotten more hugs from people then you'd be able to imagine. When they see the job we've done, they can't believe what they see," said Strauss, who started American Hoarders seven years ago in part because his father had a hoarding problem.

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