A gross story. Please don't read unless you're ready to be grossed out.

[Orrex]

6. I've had a few of those over the years

Some common themes seem to set off the hoarding urge: medical catastrophe, death of a spouse/partner, death of a child, bitter divorce, etc.

One case involved an 85 year old woman who'd broken her back three years before. She could move, but not well. Her partner of 50+ years died suddenly, and the woman had no other surviving friends or family to help her.

The house was a series of trenches in vast heaps of old newspapers, discarded clothes, assorted boxes, cast off food, and the like. I could hear things moving within the mounds, and I saw a plastic rack of bread loaves that had converted en masse to penicillin. But by this point she was physically incapable of addressing the problem.

I don't fault her, but I don't even know how to begin to help someone with whom I have no real connection or contact.