'I don't feel alone any more' - the project helping people overcome hoarding

"It is not just the decluttering journey that is important, but decluttering my mind and finding out who I am."

The words of 77-year-old Pat, who, after decades of hoarding, has been getting help from a specialist project called Recovering Homes, run by Reaching CIC.

It includes a hoarding clinic and fortnightly peer support, along with help in the home from a psychotherapist, and it has directly assisted about 150 people in north Staffordshire, with what CEO Georgina Salt described as a "hidden" but growing issue.

"We're really busy, we have multiple referrals a week," said Salt, adding that this involved people who only reached out when they got to crisis point.

As a post-war baby, Pat said the need to keep hold of things started as a child, when she did not have many toys, so she "hung on to things and looked after them".

Her father would find the likes of string and washers when the family were out on walks, and keep them, as they could come in useful at some stage.

When Pat trained as a teacher, they were also taught to hang on to items.

She got to a point where she found it "difficult" to get rid of things, and having kept them "just in case," her house got "quite full".

Her late husband also liked to collect things and put them in boxes, meaning that when they invited people round, they had to move things from "room to room, so we would not be embarrassed".

On retiring, Pat said she found excuses not to tackle the issue, but also became a carer for four people, including her husband and an elderly friend, who was "a prolific hoarder".

She said she went to her first hoarding support meeting in January 2025 to help her friend, but was not ready at that stage to face up to her own hoarding.

It was following the death of her husband, that the 77-year-old made the decision to seek support, describing her thought process, as: "I need to be happy in my last few years, and not be surrounded with this mess, I want to be in a happy, safe, peaceful environment."

Speaking to Reaching CIC's psychotherapist had made her question the reasons for her hoarding.

"She made me think, she made me explore parts of my brain that were hidden under cobwebs and dust and all sorts to try and work out why I was behaving like this," Pat explained.

About 3% of the population are thought to have a hoarding disorder, said Salt, adding that it was isolating by its nature, as it could leave people embarrassed and anxious about others visiting their home.

Referrals come via concerned family members, individuals themselves, as well as social workers and housing providers.

The service is partially funded by the National Lottery, with the in-home support element paid for, often by a third party.

The Reaching CIC founder said they did not put pressure on people to clear their homes, as that did not work and could remove a person's coping strategy.

"Hoarding just meets a need that somebody has, and what we to have to try and do is unpick what that need is," she explained.

The programme focuses on the person rather than their possessions, as often hoarding is closely linked to loneliness and mental health issues.

Salt said one of the biggest things they heard in their peer support meetings was that people did not feel alone any more, as well as the realisation that others thought like they did.

"And that's the connection that you need," she said, adding that the goal was to get someone feeling happy with a functional space they could live in.

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