Page 2438 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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Hoarding behaviour was recently included for the first time in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, the DSM-5, and that lists the diagnostic criteria associated with hoarding behaviour. It can include persistent difficulty in discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value. This difficulty is due to a perceived need to save the items and the distress associated with discarding them. The difficulty of discarding possessions results in the accumulation of possessions that congest and clutter active living areas and substantially compromise their intended use. If living areas are uncluttered, it is only because of the interventions of third parties such as other family members, cleaners or relevant authorities. The hoarding causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning, including maintaining a safe environment for self and others. The hoarding is not attributable to another medical condition—for example, brain injury, cerebrovascular disease or Prader-Willi syndrome—and the hoarding is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder such as obsessions in obsessive compulsive disorder, decreased energy and major depressive disorder, delusions in schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder, cognitive deficits in major neurocognitive disorder or restricted interest in autism spectrum disorder.
Recently, for the first time, we have seen hoarding behaviour included as a recognised mental condition. Hoarding behaviour and squalid domestic conditions can affect many aspects of a person’s life. It can also affect their neighbours and other people. It can require public health management to address the serious health risks that may arise—for example, fire risks and risks to public health. Hoarding and domestic squalor can occur in both private residential and public housing settings. It is not restricted to any one area of our community.
As my colleague Mrs Jones outlined, I am sure many of us in our role as a member of the Legislative Assembly have been contacted by people, often neighbours, who are concerned about activities of hoarding and squalor in a nearby property. Just as one example, to add to Mrs Jones’s example, back in early 2015 I was contacted by a concerned constituent about hoarding and squalor in a property located at the front of their battleaxe block. The constituent had been in contact with both ACT Health and the fire authorities about public health and fire risks. I quote from their email:
The party wall between my property and theirs has collapsed because of the sheer volume of ‘stuff’ that has been piled against it … My mother’s cat regularly brings rats in. They must be running riot in the yard ... and where there are vermin there are snakes. My biggest concern though, is the enormous fire risk that this accumulated rubbish presents to my mother’s granny flat. It is one huge tinderbox of filth that will go up in a heartbeat and take all buildings in proximity with it. This is a huge worry to me ...
I have heard from other constituents who have been trying to sell their own property. Real estate agents have told them that it is the hoarding and squalor of the property nearby, often next door, that is putting off prospective purchasers of their properties. Hopefully this bill may make it easier for health officials to deal with unsanitary conditions arising from domestic squalor and hoarding such as that situation that was brought to my attention. There have been other examples.
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