Packrats keep things, but hoarders have a severe version of OCD and keep everything. Hoarders’ homes can become health and fire hazards, and treatment involves therapy, medication, and sometimes, cleaning the home.
The main difference between a packrat and a hoarder is that packrats suffer from a relatively mild compulsion to keep things, whereas hoarders have a crippling version of OCD. A pack rat may feel a strong urge to pick up items and may even have trouble throwing things away, but a hoarder may have his entire life controlled by the overwhelming compulsion to save everything. In general, being a pack rat is seen as a minor eccentricity, while hoarding is considered by many psychologists to be a serious mental disorder requiring treatment.
One thing that separates hoarders from pack rats is the motivation for their behavior. Packrats generally have quite logical reasons for the things they keep, while hoarders are often motivated by irrational ideas or compulsions they can’t explain. For hoarders, it can be nearly impossible to throw anything away, and many of the things they keep serve no purpose.
Hoarders’ homes often fill up with old newspapers and piles of junk. Eventually, it may be very difficult for them to move from room to room. Sometimes, they can waste a great deal of money by renting out extra storage space so they don’t throw things away.
A rat’s house is sometimes messy, but it’s generally less extreme. They might have a lot of old items scattered around, and they might pick up some unusual things that most people wouldn’t consider keepsakes. In general, it’s not difficult to find your way around a home with a herd of animals, and things can be relatively tidy.
The buildup, on the other hand, can actually become dangerous after a while. Depending on the type of items they are hoarding, hoarders’ homes can become a health hazard and there are cases where hoarders have been killed when piles of trash have collapsed on top of them. Accumulation can also create a fire hazard, which can endanger the accumulator along with its neighbors.
Different psychologists have different ideas about the treatment of obsessive hoarding. One approach is to encourage more social interaction, which can help hoarders value things more in the outside world. Some psychologists focus on trying to teach hoarders about self-motivation and help them see how their behavior is affecting their lives in negative ways. Drugs are often used in combination with these therapies to make it easier for the hoarder to accept the change in her life. It’s not unusual for some therapists to actually enter a hoarder’s home and help put the clutter into proper perspective.
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