Four years ago I was one of those people they threatened to call the health department on...literally, junk was piled to the ceiling. And I was like that guy on the news last week who moved out and they found over 10,000 aluminum cans in his house: I had hundreds of Diet Coke cans everywhere. I can see why it's difficult to understand. Why couldn't I throw the cans away? There is no straight answer. All I know is that everytime I attempted to I was overcome by total panic. And if I did manage to throw them all out, within a few weeks I'd be back where I started.

I was lucky enough to be able to find a great therapist to treat me for OCD. Then I called Julie Morganstern's agency and hired someone to come to my home and help me sort through everything. It was a terribly difficult decision. Unless you suffer from this problem you can't possibly understand the anxiety of throwing stuff away. And the idea that someone else could make those decisions was unbearable. It was important that we work together and find what I couldn't be without and what I could. Four years later, I'm now pretty much "cured". I still am not a neatnik and I have a few closets that are crammed with stuff, but nothing is out of control.

Your wife can find good help. It's out there. I recommend this online support group that really helped me:

http://www.squalorsurvivors.com/

I also recommend Julie Morgenstern: http://www.juliemorgenstern.com

And for all of you who have said that LW should chill and the son is not in danger, please look at some of the pictures on the first site. You can't understand why it's such a problem until you see with your own eyes what LW may be dealing with.

Also, LW. If you go and throw all her stuff away when she's out, as some have advised, she may never forgive you. I'm not saying it would be wrong or right to do it, just be warned that it's a very big decision.

This is definitely a great place for your wife to check out. It's non-judgemental and full of support and understanding. I've found it incredibly helpful. Depending on what's really going on with your wife, of course, it might need to be combined with professional therapy, but it's still a great place to start.

I was struck by how the LW says that the wife needs to do something about the clutter and hoarding, as if the house is hers and he's a guest who doesn't have the power to move the furniture, box up and store what he doesn't like, and make the place the way he wants it. He doesn't have to throw away her treasures, but they don't have to be all over the house either.

We've dealt with my husband's (genetic?) predisposition for hoarding and clutter since we got married. It breaks down like this: he has an office, where he can let things get as out of hand and piled to the ceiling as he wants. The rest of the house is common space and needs to be tidy and pleasant for everyone, guests included. We share responsibility for keeping it that way.

It's a struggle sometimes. No one ever taught him that old adage about "a place for everything and everything in its place." I ask him to put something away where it belongs and he stares at me like I've started speaking Swahili. It just doesn't compute. So I show him where the thing belongs and after a few times, he'll remember where to put that specific thing. We start over from scratch with the next displaced object. Maybe this behavior could be compared to a learning disability. Hoarders haven't internalized any processes for dealing with objects. It doesn't do any good to be hostile about it. You just teach them, over and over, and try to focus on their other fine qualities.

My father was/is a monumental hoarder, though there were so many more serious issues in my family the hoarding thing seemed almost quaint when I was a kid. But neither I nor any of my siblings will visit my father anymore, because we just can't deal with the state of his house. I, unfortunately, inherited my father's hoarding tendencies. When I was younger I didn't really see it as such, oddly enough. I remember being overwhelmed by a need to preserve, by a feeling that if I didn't hang on to things, they would disappear forever and be lost. I don't know if that's a common sense among hoarders, but it was definitely a motivation for me. I haven't really conquered my hoarding tendencies, but I've dealt with them by setting some limits. First, there must always be an area of my dwelling that is in a state to receive visitors and clutter free. Second, I can only hoard certain classes of items and nothing else. Third, everything that doesn't fall into those categories *must* be thrown away. For example, I used to save every magazine I'd ever read. Though it was difficult at first, I started throwing every magazine out the day after I read it a few years ago, and I haven't regretted that decision at all. Now I find it positively cathartic. Lastly, I have to do a general purge every year, which I know do. These things help me keep it under control, though I do wonder if, as I get older, I'll be able to keep to this regime. Here's one last tip: if you're a hoarder, you should absolutely never, ever get a public storage space. Good luck everyone!

...was the best part. The background here is that LW's wife has been there for LW and endured his depression and paralysis for YEARS on end. She has stuck with him. And NOW that he is back on his feet, he is going to bail out on her?! I think it's crap that people are giving LW exit strategies, telling him to 'lawyer up' and deeming the situation hopeless. Especially given the fact that in all likelihood, LW's depression has a LOT to do with his wife's hoarding.

She needs you now. She didn't give up on you. Loyalty and compassion are woth it.