I'd like to second the first response and recommend www.flylady.net - flylady has been there and she has helped countless people with her "babysteps" approach.

Take responsibility yourself and DON'T call Child Services. I wonder if this is a middle class tic of people who have never had any reason to have any contact with a government agency except on their terms suggest calling them in. As though they're coming out to you as some sort of service provider. No. That aint the way it works. Once you call in child services it won't be on your terms any longer and you'll be living with the judgements they make and the decisions they make based on those judgements for the rest of your life. They may take your child away from you. they may award custody of the child to the mother. You just don't know. Organisations like Child Services are operating on a shoe string budget in the middle of a firestorm of problems raining down on them. This means they don't have the time or the resources to make great decisions or follow through on them in the optimal way. Once you get child services involved you are giving up power and control to an agency that may well make everything worse.

The people who have written other letters here mean well, and they offer good ideas for the family to get along better. But we are not dealing with an "addiction" here; an addiction gives pleasure when doing the compulsive behaviors. Hoarding things like this is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and she does NOT get any pleasure from doing it; she collects because she is feels extreme anxiety when she discards something, so she FEELS she HAS to save things. She really DOESN'T want to be doing this, as anyone with OCD will immediately tell you.

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suffer intensely from recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and rituals (compulsions), which they feel they cannot control. Rituals such as hand washing, counting, worrying, reviewing past events or lists, ruminating, checking, thinking or saying magical words or prayers, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them (and the anxiety they bring about) go away. Performing these rituals, however, provides only temporary relief, and the person feels compelled to think, say or do the ritual again and again, many times, until the person is exhausted, scolded, embarrassed or crying from extreme frustration. Not performing them markedly increases anxiety. Left untreated, obsessions and the need to perform rituals can take over a person's life. OCD is often a chronic, relapsing illness. Fortunately, through research supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and by industry, effective treatments have been developed to help people with OCD.

OCD may well be genetic (family members of the person with OCD often have anxiety disorders or substance abuse problems.)There is also some evidence that some people developed OCD from a Strep infection that was not properly addressed.

Treatments, which combine medications and behavioral therapy (a specific type of psychotherapy), are often effective. Several medications have been proven effective in helping people with OCD: clomipramine (Anafranil), and the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) antidepressants: fluoxetine (Prozac), fluvoxamine (Luvox), sertraline, and paroxetine (Paxil). (OCD is not a lack of serotonin; it is a result of a processing malfunction in the brain. Consuming things that produce serotonin will not help.) These medications do not change the person’s personality. They simply correct the chemical processing mechanism in the brain that is causing the OCD. If one drug is not effective, others should be tried, and combinations of these drugs are often helpful. There is also a vitamin, Inositol, available at health food stores and some supermarkets, which may be used by people who are reluctant to take “drugs”, and which works just as well as the SSRI’s, and may be combined with them (ask your MD). A number of other medications are currently being studied.

A type of behavioral therapy known as "exposure and response prevention" is very useful for treating OCD, and is currently the only effective technique. In this approach, a person deliberately and voluntarily exposes themselves to whatever triggers the obsessive thoughts, and then is taught techniques to avoid performing the compulsive rituals and to deal with the anxiety. Eventually, the person feels less and less anxiety, to the point where they no longer feel the “need” to do the rituals. You can learn this technique by working with a provider, or participating in a group-learning situation, or even on your own with a book on the technique (if you have the self-discipline to stick with it and do what the book suggests.) Some providers will come to the home, and accompany you to places where your OCD causes problems, so you can practice in the actual situation. If you are working once a week with a good provider, you should get daily “homework” practice assignments to do on your own between therapy sessions. This process is practiced several times a day, every day, with no ‘days off’, to achieve success. (Often, if a person complains that “therapy is not working”, it is because they are not doing their daily practice.) Ask your therapy provider specifically for this. (You may have to insist on it. Do not let providers intimidate you into accepting other forms of therapy. These will fail and you will waste a lot of time and money. Hypnosis, talk therapy, relaxation, exposure without response prevention, “thought stopping”, “just say no”, and analysis are all ineffective with OCD.) Shop around and find a provider who has had years of success doing this specific therapy with people who have OCD. Proper therapy, along with medication, can result in almost total symptom control after only 6 months to a year. (If you are in therapy longer than two years, you should begin to question the provider’s skills.)

There is no "cure" for OCD yet. Researchers are working towards that end. The goal of treatment is “recovery”, which becomes a lifelong ’maintenance’ effort, similar to the long-term recovery status of a person with alcoholism. You can learn to “live with” OCD. A good provider will also teach “relapse-prevention” techniques for on-going aftercare. Support groups can help greatly in encouragement and recovery, and it is very helpful to educate the person’s family and friends about the condition. You can find support groups through your local Mental Health Association, as well as in newspaper community event listings. For more information, contact this writer who is an OCD behavior therapy specialist, at (516) 681-7861 or email me at ocdtherapist@hotmail.com and see my website: ocd.isfriendly.com on the web.