Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing
Volume 1, Issue 6 , Pages 415-419, November 2005

Syllogomania

Article Outline

 

“We shall nobly save or meanly lose. …”

—Abraham Lincoln1

The Anasazi people, who originally inhabited the desert Southwest where I live, routinely hoarded food in anticipation of hard times. Their caches can still be seen if you know how to look for them. This requires a sharp eye because they are concealed in caves and on rock ledges and are walled up tightly so that rodents and other animals cannot penetrate them. For the Anasazi, as for many tribal people, hoarding food was a hedge against drought, famine, and starvation. It was a simple activity that could make the difference between life and death.

Because hoarding had survival value, we might expect that it became a part of their genetic endowment and was passed down to succeeding generations. Although a gene for hoarding has not been identified, researchers have nonetheless discovered a physiology of hoarding. Steven Anderson and his colleagues at the University of Iowa have examined brain function in animals such as pack rats that have a highly developed hoarding instinct. No matter how much they have stored, these animals continue collecting. Anderson and his associates have found that primitive, subcortical brain areas are involved in the hoarding drive, specifically a tiny area called the right mesial prefrontal cortex.2, 3

Saving things, however, can become a pathological obsession. Compulsive hoarding in humans is often linked with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which is estimated to affect between 2% and 3% of the population. Approximately 15% to 30% of OCD sufferers experience hoarding as their primary symptom. In one study of children with OCD, from 20% to 70% of their first-degree relatives also demonstrated OCD signs, reinforcing a possible genetic component.4

As we shall see, some hoarding cases are so bizarre you might suspect that the brain of the individual isn’t working properly. That’s precisely what Anderson and his colleagues found when they studied a group of pathological collectors. The damage involved the frontal lobe, specifically the right mesial prefrontal cortex, which, as mentioned, is the area implicated in pack rats. Anderson suggests that a healthy right mesial prefrontal cortex keeps the hoarding instinct in check in humans. When this brain area malfunctions, the primitive drive to collect, hoard, and save can get out of hand. Indeed, a case of pathological hoarding behavior was reported in 2001 in a previously normal 46-year-old Korean man following the rupture of an aneurysm of the brain’s anterior communicating artery, which supplies blood to the area in question.5

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Keepers and releasers 

Hoarding reflected wise planning when the Anasazi engaged in it. Today, however, it has taken on a negative connotation. Hoarding is often considered a habit of scrooges—rich, selfish, ungenerous people who hate spending money, who often live as though they are poor.

There are many ways of classifying human beings. Gender, age, race, religion, nationality, and political beliefs are some of the most common slots we plug one another into. One of the most fascinating and overlooked categories, however, is whether someone hangs on to things or not—whether they are keepers or releasers.

All my life, I have found it difficult to part with certain things. I am an incorrigible saver. The trash icon on my computer is seldom used, and, even when I move items to trash I find it difficult to empty the trash. I make hard copies of nearly everything, just to be sure, and store them neatly in file cabinets in my garage. If you have ever written to me, your letter is squirreled away in one of them.

Barbara, my wife, says I am a pack rat, and she’s right. Yet I consider my heroic resistance to throwing things out as evidence of frugality and caution, and I view it with a certain pride. Still, I am worried, because hoarding goes by a fancy name that reeks of pathology—syllogomania—whose literal meaning is, roughly, out-of-control collecting. This suggests that I may have some sort of “condition,” so you can see why I’m concerned.

Syllogomania is often associated in the elderly with Diogenes syndrome,6 which is also known as senile breakdown, social breakdown, and senile squalor syndrome. Compulsive hoarding is commonly seen in the geriatric mentally ill. In one study, 5% of 100 consecutive elderly patients in an inpatient psychiatric facility were found to be compulsive hoarders.7

Syllogomania is sometimes referred to as “the bowerbird symptom.” The bowerbird is the avian counterpart of the pack rat.8 Bowerbirds have been known to collect a great variety of objects with which they adorn their nests—shiny coins, pieces of aluminum foil, spoons, even a glass eye, as well as natural things such as colorful feathers, shells, berries, and flowers. Bowerbirds are native to the rainforests of eastern Australia, so it was perhaps appropriate that a 22-year-old Australian man was reported in 1998 as suffering from a severe case of the bowerbird symptom. Since childhood, he had persisted in collecting valueless objects that he could not bring himself to give up.9

It’s not easy being a syllogomaniac. In our disposable society, holding on to things is swimming upstream. You never know where criticism is going to come from. A Buddhist friend of mine once suggested, with admirable delicacy, that I might try more diligently to give up attachments. A psychiatrist colleague once wondered aloud whether or not I am anal retentive and might do with a bit of therapy. He was a spendthrift who filed for bankruptcy a year later, which gave me the opportunity to suggest that he might have benefited from a little hoarding, particularly in the area of personal savings.

Why does the hoarding trait irritate people so? Why are they so eager to “fix” this habit in others? There is a double standard toward hoarders. Some forms of hoarding are considered culturally acceptable and are dignified with names such as stamp, coin, butterfly, or gun “collecting.” Why let these hoarders off the hook? True, one can save things blindly, which results in little more than a rising mountain of trash. Whether syllogomania serves or swamps you depends on what you keep and why you keep it.

For example, I have demonstrated to my wife that, if you hang on to your household trash for a day or two, this permits you to retrieve the check that you discarded accidentally, which has happened in our household more than once. Barbara, however, is completely unmoved by empirical proof of this sort. In fact, she is capable of discarding almost anything without a flicker of concern, the mere thought of which makes me wince.

In an attempt to outflank my wife’s objections, I have adopted a scientific defense. Hoarding makes sense where food is concerned, as with the Anasazi. Squirrels and other animals store food for the winter. Bears overeat during summer to store fat for hibernation. Animals that are good hoarders are good survivors. As mentioned, if a trait contributes to the survival of an animal, it tends to be genetically propagated. Therefore, my hoarding tendency is quite possibly genetic, which means I can’t help it. Barbara points out that there is help for any illness, even genetic ones. So I reclassified my habit by calling it a ritual. Barbara likes that—she adores rituals—but she reminds me that ritualistic behavior is also a key feature of OCD.10

Why do psychiatrists single out syllogomaniacs instead of people who have an exaggerated urge to toss things out? Has our throwaway culture blinded mental-health professionals to the flip side of this coin?

Some of the scientific papers on syllogomania I’ve reviewed make me feel like a case study. Truth be told, some researchers’ comments are a dagger in my heart, like this one from a leading expert in the field: “Hoarders tended to buy extra things in order not to be caught without a needed item, and they carried more ‘just-in-case’ items in purses, pockets, and cars. … Saving allows the hoarder to avoid the decision required to throw something away, and the worry which accompanies that decision (worry that a mistake has been made). Also, it allows hoarders to avoid emotional reactions which accompany parting with cherished possessions, and results in increased perception of control.”11 That jab about “just-in-case” items is unnecessary. To someone like me, who owns six compasses, that’s hitting below the belt.

I have also learned from the experts that syllogomania is treatable. Cognitive and behavioral therapies work, although psychotropic drugs have a dismal record. I am ambivalent about having something that’s considered “treatable.” Acknowledging that you have a treatable condition implies that you have crossed a threshold: You can never see yourself as normal again. But after exploring the collecting-and-hoarding literature, I realize that, even if I am treatable, I am not a far advanced case. My symptoms are so mild compared with extreme examples; I may not be a case at all.

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Four stages of squalor 

To help you decide whether you might be a syllogomaniac, here are four levels of squalor and compulsive hoarding that are described on the Squalor Survivors Web site12 at http://www.squalorsurvivors.com/squalor/index.shtml:

First-Degree Squalor 

“You are getting behind in tasks that you would normally manage, like laundry and dishes. You are not the tidy person you once were. Little piles are starting to emerge and your disorganization is starting to affect your life and inconvenience you. Things are just starting to get out of hand and become unmanageable. A sign of first-degree squalor might be that you are embarrassed for other people to see your mess … but you would still let them in the house. ”

Second-Degree Squalor 

“Now things are really starting to get out of hand. Signs that you have reached second degree would include losing the use of normal household items like your bed, table, television, or telephone because the piles have expanded to cover the items up. You start to develop new methods of moving around your house because normal movement is impeded by your piles of stuff. You might start making excuses to discourage people from entering your house.”

Third-Degree Squalor 

“At this stage, you have all the above, plus you have rotting food and animal feces and/or urine in the house. … You cannot cope with the growing mess. Essential household repairs may not be done because you are too afraid to let a tradesperson see your house. Just the thought of someone seeing your mess causes you great stress.”

Fourth-Degree Squalor 

“At fourth degree squalor, you have all of the above, plus you have human feces and/or urine in your house that is not in the toilet.”

Reviewing these stages was therapeutic for me. I’m perhaps a stage 0.1 or 0.25 at most—pre-syllogomania, before first-degree squalor really kicks in. In fact, most of my retentive traits add to my efficiency instead of detracting from it. Or is that what all serious syllogomaniacs say?

Anyone who is concerned with eliminating hoarding and squalor in their life can take heart. Help is easy to find. The Squalor Survivor Web site, mentioned above, is an excellent resource, with practical steps, guidelines, and stories of people who have overcome these habits.

For a photographic tour through a home of a genuine syllogomaniac, go to: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=e9744d33e932f0de0ec1d35d23523a44&threadid=830487&perpage=40&pagenumber=1. This amazing series of photographs was taken by the son of a woman who became addicted to ordering junk from eBay, with which she stuffed her entire house. If you consider yourself a hoarder, this Web visit may prove therapeutic by putting your habit in perspective. But consider this site X rated; it abounds with raunchy language.

If you have friends who are mired in squalor and need help, be careful how you approach them. The hoarding literature contains many cases in which the well-meaning interventions of friends backfired. A judgmental, confrontational approach is guaranteed to make matters worse. As usual, nurses are out front on how to approach these situations with sensitivity and understanding. Nursing scholars Gayle Johnson Bohrer and Linda Haynes offer specific ways of helping compulsive hoarders that are anchored in compassionate care and respect for the individual and his or her possessions. There are no quick cures. They say, “Behavior change will be slow, and the person may be expected to relapse.”13

Why would anyone give in to second-, third-, and fourth-degree squalor? For many people, the reasons have to do with fond memories that are triggered by their stuff, as in this poignant confessional from a young woman in Antwerp, Belgium14:

“Once in a while I try to get rid of things. But memories are brought back with most objects. Yes, that dress definitely is at least four sizes too small, but it was a present from my mother, that day we visited Bruges together. It was a sunny day, our feet were hurting because we walked for miles and miles, we visited that interesting exhibition, then decided to grab a cup of coffee. Just around the corner, there was this little boutique, and I was drooling over a dress in the window. My mom told me to go in and try it on, which I did, and ooh, did it look lovely on me. It was quite expensive, but she insisted on buying it for me. I remember just about each time I wore that dress afterwards, and the compliments that were made. Of course, I end up with putting the dress back, even though it’s way too small.”

“And yes, I can’t possibly wear those shoes anymore, but they were a birthday present from a friend whose address I lost and with whom I haven’t talked in years. I remember how he spent all day with me, looking for the perfect pair of shoes. I remember how he strongly disliked shopping, and I remember the discussion we had about male and female shopping habits. I think about all the times we spent together, and I decide to keep the shoes.”

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Britain’s heroic hoarder 

Some cases of syllogomania have been truly Olympian, such as that of London resident Edmund Trebus. He was the subject of “A Life of Grime,” a BBC television documentary aired in 1999, three years before his death at age 83. Born in Poland in 1918, Trebus fought the Nazis during World War II before resettling in London after the war, where he married and had five children.

In the 1960s, he became a serious collector. His obsession was at first a mild eccentricity but soon gathered steam as he filled the upstairs rooms of his four-story, five-bedroom Victorian house with the detritus of junk shops. He crammed one room with vacuum cleaners, another with cameras, and so on. He bought every recording by Elvis Presley he could find. After his children moved out, every room was soon packed to the ceiling. He began to gather discarded building materials, which he stacked in his yard—windows in one corner, doors in another. To these were added washing machines, motorcycles, old fridges, and music synthesizers. As rats began to infest his house and garden, his neighbors complained to the city council. Trebus’ wife was a captive to junk. She would sit in her deck chair on a patch of grass, surrounded on all sides by a rising mountain of stuff. It was too much for her, and, in 1981, she bailed out. Soon after she was gone, Trebus covered up her patch in the yard with more junk. Eventually, the garden was so full he needed ladders to enter and leave his house.

In 1997, Trebus went missing, and neighbors alerted the police. They discovered him trapped under an avalanche of collapsed junk. He had accidentally triggered one of the “litter traps” he had hung from trees and positioned in the house, which were meant to thwart intruders. By 1998, Trebus was confined to a small corner of his kitchen, which he shared with his Jack Russell terrier, his only companion except for the rats.

By this time, the house had no running water, working plumbing, or electricity, and there were rows of dead rats in the garden. After years of legal wrangling, the council declared his house unfit for human habitation and sent in a clearance team who erected scaffolding. Still spry at 80, Trebus, like Hillary assaulting Everest, scaled the scaffolding and tried to dismantle it. He stubbornly maintained his inalienable right as a British citizen to live in squalor. It was a David-and-Goliath struggle in which David lost. Trebus was arrested and jailed but was released a few hours later. The BBC sent a television crew, who documented these events and did a retrospective on his courageous pre-London years. He welcomed the cameras, believing that they would help his cause. In 2001, Trebus finally relented and moved to a residential care home where he spent his last days in agonizing neatness.15

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The Collyer legend 

Hoarding reached lethal levels with New York City’s famous Collyer brothers, Langley and Homer, the sons of an opera singer and a wealthy Manhattan gynecologist. They grew up in a luxurious, twelve-room, Fifth Avenue brownstone. Educated at Columbia University—Homer as a lawyer, Langley as an engineer and talented pianist—they became compulsive hermits. When their mother died in the 1920s, they boarded up the brownstone as their hoarding instinct seriously escalated. Over the years, they collected 14 grand pianos, stuffed rats, a Model T Ford chassis, dressmaking dummies, chandeliers, bicycles, clocks, and an impressive cache of weapons and ammunition. They maintained narrow paths through teetering mountains of stuff and devised an intricate system of ropes and tripwires that would topple the towers of rubbish on intruders or burglars. Homer eventually became blind and bedridden with arthritis and was cared for by Langley. In 1947, while carrying a meal to his brother, Langley accidentally sprang one of the booby traps and was crushed to death. A few days later, Homer, unable to function alone, died from a heart attack. By the time the police finally found them, they had been dead for weeks. The Collyer brothers, enshrined in history as martyrs to junk, occupy a high place in the hearts of many serious hoarders. Their saga is admirably told in Franz Lidz’s book Ghostly Men: The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers, New York’s Greatest Hoarders.16

The Collyer legend resonates in the childhood memories of individuals such as Ron Magnusson of Midlothian, Virginia. He grew up in the 1950s in New York City. Like many New Yorkers, Magnusson’s parents knew about the Collyer brothers’ grim fate, and they often threatened that, if he didn’t clean his room, he would be suffocated by an avalanche of old homework assignments and comic books and would be eaten by rats, “just like the Collyer brothers.”17

Avalanches of junk are a common hazard to stage-four syllogomaniacs. In December 2003, Patrice Moore, a 43-year-old man, was trapped naked and standing upright in his small apartment in New York City when a mountain of printed matter crashed down on him. He was discovered by his landlord, who heard him moaning. It took police and firefighters three hours to extricate Moore, who was buried up to his neck and had to be hospitalized for dehydration and leg injuries. The rescuers had to remove 50 garbage bags of paper just to reach him. Moore, a former mail-room clerk, adored paper of all sorts. He never threw away any book, magazine, newspaper, or advertisements but piled them up until only a narrow walkway through the paper canyons remained, leading to a tiny sleeping space.18

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Animal hoarding 

Some of the most spectacular cases of hoarding involve animals. In December 2002, an upscale home in Royal Oak, Michigan, was razed because it had become uninhabitable. It belonged to a man who had collected 440 guinea pigs and a few gerbils over 15 years. He gave them free run and, by the time he was discovered, urine had soaked through the floors of the house into the basement. The man fed the animals from plastic kiddie pools and laid sheets on the floor to collect their waste, which he deposited in his back yard. The rodents were found in every part of the house, including inside the walls, ductwork, and furnace. The demolition crew had to wear respirators to cope with the toxic mess. Social workers placed all the animals with pet stores and the local humane society.19

The biggest haul in the history of Britain’s Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was 244 dogs, 16 parrots, seven cats, a rabbit, and a chinchilla that were nabbed in a raid on a three-bedroom house owned by a middle-aged couple in Carnforth, Lancashire, in September 2003. Twenty-six staffers took two days to clear out the house, which they described as “absolutely and utterly disgusting.”20

Hoarders often hang on to animals even when they die. In May 2003, authorities raided a house in the Beacon Hill area of Boston and found 60 dead cats in the fridge and freezer, five live cats, and a poorly nourished Great Dane. The owner, Heidi K. Erickson, owned another house in Watertown in which were found 52 emaciated, sick cats and 12 dead ones in the kitchen freezer. Authorities believed they had found a smoking gun, but Erickson was unrepentant. “I have never mistreated my animals,” she protested. She claimed that the corpses had been planted and that the charges against her were “fabricated” and “trumped up.” The Boston papers had a field day, with headlines like “Fur Bawl” and “Deja Mew.”21

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Pack rat revisited 

Calling syllogomania a brain condition sounds scientific, yet I wonder whether we really understand the hoarding instinct. Last summer, Barbara and I began to notice that some small decorative stones were disappearing from our back porch. They were painted by local Santa Fe artists, with animal and bird motifs resembling ancient petroglyph designs. Barbara suspected I was playing a trick on her until she found all the missing stones in a nearby piece of pottery. It was obvious that we were being visited by a pack rat. Interestingly, the pack rat chose not only the most artistic stones for his collection but arranged them in a perfect design at the bottom of the pot. An art connoisseur could not have done a better job. For a moment, I had the odd feeling that I was witnessing the biological origins of art appreciation. Or was I merely observing a blind, unconscious instinct? Perhaps, but I have known humans who have less taste than our “primitive” pack rat.

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Saving syllogomania 

Syllogomania is the dark side of saving and collecting things. An understanding of this condition might yield insights into health problems such as morbid obesity, in which people hoard calories and store them as fat. Anorexia, the flip side of obesity, may represent an underdeveloped instinct for hoarding calories. As in most health behaviors, hoarding is neither good nor bad. It is balance that makes the difference.

If nothing in life were collected or retained, we would not have endured as a species. We have a built-in saving mechanism—our genes, which are storage devices for biological continuity. This natural savings plan seems to echo in our psyche as the urge to hang on to things.

Perhaps this perspective can make us more tolerant of those in whom hoarding gets out of hand. It can also make us more accepting of our own urge to collect and clutter, which crops up in everyone from time to time.

So maybe that pile of papers on my desk is not evidence of a character flaw but represents an ancient drive to survive. Denying the periodic urge to clutter, to retain and save, means denying our genetic heritage. Perhaps we can be too neat, not cluttered enough. And if our syllogomaniacal impulse flares up from time to time, well, let’s not be too hard on ourselves. As Carol Bartz, CEO of AutoDesk, the giant software services company, says, ”You need not feel guilty about not being able to keep your life perfectly balanced. Juggling everything is too difficult. All you really need to do is catch it before it hits the floor.”22

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References 

  1. Lincoln A . Second annual message to Congress, December 1, 1862 . In:  Justin Kaplan editors. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations . 16th ed.. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company; 1992;p. 449; Quoted in: John Bartlett
  2. Why are some people hoarders? Available at: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/html/shows/2003.11.16.htm. November 16, 2003. Accessed June 3, 2004.
  3. Secret of compulsive hoarding revealed . New Scientist . 2003;180:17
  4. Steketee G , Frost R . Compulsive hoarding (current status of the research) . Clin Psychol Rev . 2003;23:905–927
  5. Hahm DS , Kang Y , Cheong SS , Na DL . A compulsive collecting behavior following A-com aneurismal rupture . Neurology . 2001;56:1118
  6. Cooney C. Diogenes syndrome. Findarticles.com. Available at: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2459/is_n5_v24/ai_17438718. Accessed July 23, 2005.
  7. Stein DJ , Laszlo B , Marais E , Seedat S , Potocnik F . Hoarding symptoms in patients on a geriatric psychiatry inpatient unit . S Afr Med J . 1997;87:1138–1140
  8. Bowerbird blues. PBS Nature. Available at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bowerbird/odd.html. Accessed July 23, 2005.
  9. Fitzgerald PB . The bowerbird symptom (a case of severe hoarding of possessions) . Aust N Z J Psychiatry . 1998;32:141
  10. Turbott J . The meaning and function of ritual in psychiatric disorder, religion and everyday behavior . Aust N Z J Psychiatry . 1997;31:835–843
  11. Frost RO , Gross RC . The hoarding of possessions . Behav Res Ther . 1993;31:367–381
  12. Degrees of squalor. Squalor survivors. Available at: http://www.squalorsurvivors.com/squalor/index.shtml. Accessed July 24, 2005.
  13. Bohrer GJ , Haynes L . Compulsive hoarding (sign of a deeper disorder) . Nurse Week . 2005;6:13–15 July 18
  14. Blog of Morgaine LeFaye. Scraps and scribbles from Antwerp, Belgium. Available at: http://www.blog.morgaine-lefaye.net/. Accessed July 12, 2004.
  15. Obituary. Edmund Trebus. The Guardian. October 5, 2002. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4515756-103684,00.html. Accessed July 12, 2004. Also: Edmund Trebus. Obituary. The Daily Telegraph. October 10, 2002. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=news/2002/10/04/db0403.xml. Accessed July 12, 2004.
  16. Lidz F . Ghosty Men (The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers, New York’s Greatest Hoarders, An Urban Historical) . New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA; 2003;
  17. Magnusson R . Pack rats in our midst. Letter to the Editor . New York Times . 2003; November 2. Section 14:11
  18. Bernstein N . So much clutter, so little room (looking inside the hoarder’s lair) . New York Times . 2003; December 31:B1
  19. White W. Pets take over; house razed. Available at: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6422419&BRD=989&PAG=461&dept_id=140309&rfi=6. December 17, 2002. Accessed June 3, 2004.
  20. Beard M. 244 Dogs in apartment. Available at: http://forums.pethobbyist.com/view.php?id=608,608. September 19, 2003. Accessed June 3, 2004.
  21. Simon C. Cat burglar. Available at: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02893062.htm. May 16, 2003. Accessed June 3, 2003.
  22. Bartz C. Daily celebrations. Available at: http://www.dailycelebrations.com/balance2.htm. Accessed July 24, 2005.

PII: S1550-8307(05)00371-X

doi:10.1016/j.explore.2005.08.002

Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing
Volume 1, Issue 6 , Pages 415-419, November 2005

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