Washoe County Library System

With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder, Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder while illuminating the pull that possessions exert on all of us.

"From the moment she first learned to read, literary genius Darcy Wells has spent most of her time living in the worlds of her books. There, she can avoid the crushing reality of her mother's hoarding and pretend her life is simply ordinary. But when a new property manager becomes more active in the upkeep of their apartment complex, the only home Darcy has ever known outside of her books suddenly hangs in the balance. While Darcy is struggling to...

After a video of her organizing her sock drawer goes viral, Emily Harlow uses her moment in the spotlight to start Freeze-Frame Clutter Kickers and launch her career as a professional organizer. The catch: she's married to a man who can't drive past a yard sale without stopping. Like other professionals who make a living decluttering people's lives, Emily has devised a set of ironclad rules. When working with couples, for example, she makes it clear...

A memoir about growing up in a cluttered and rat-infested home--the result of her father's struggle with compulsive hoarding--describes how the burden led to the author's suicide attempt and her against-all-odds bond with her parents.

Although twelve-year-old Cassidy Bean keeps a book of bad things, she did not expect her summer with the Tremont family in rural New Jersey to be one of them--but this year Ursula, a local hoarder, has died under mysterious circumstances, and Cassidy finds that there a great many bad and dangerous things hidden in her house, including, perhaps, her vengeful ghost.

Twelve-year-old Shayne Whittaker has always spent summers on the Maine coast, visiting her grandmother Bea and playing with her BFF Poppy. Both Shayne and Bea are collectors, in their own ways: Shayne revels in golden memories of searching for sea glass and weaving friendship bracelets with Poppy, while Bea scours flea markets for valuable finds, much of which she adds to a growing pile in her house that Shayne jokingly calls Junk Mountain. This summer,...

Seventh-grader Annabelle's mother is a hoarder, and their whole house is full of canned goods, broken toys, fabric, and old newspapers--but when a pile of newspapers (organized by weather reports) falls on Annabelle's younger sister Leslie and their mother is more concerned about the newspapers, it sets off a chain of events that brings their fix-it-all grandmother in and Annabelle realizes that if there is any hope for change she can not isolate...