You may have found yourself wondering, in the middle of clearing out an overladen wardrobe or cupboard, how so much junk could possibly have accumulated in your home. And while we all know that part of the answer lies in our natural tendency to hoard and have trouble getting rid of things, this tendency has probably only been made worse by a relatively recent change to lifestyles, namely, bigger houses. ...

Look around you and take note – how much stuff in your house do you actually use? These days we have more stuff than we could ever actually need – clothes we don’t wear, appliances we don’t use, and piles of things stored away that we can’t even see. Everywhere we go we’re confronted with consumerism. You need a new wardrobe. You need a new blender. The onslaught is relentless and it’s hard to abstain from spending money when we’re told that … ...

Shows like Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive have delved into the personal lives of diagnosed hoarders to highlight the impact Hoarding Disorder can have on one’s personal and family life. Whilst compulsive hoarding is quite rare, lesser variations of the behaviour are commonplace, with many of us claiming ‘sentimental value’ or ‘a collection’ as the reason for our excessive clutter. ...