Digging beneath the clutter to reveal the lives of East End hoarders

East End décor is notable for its polished touches and airy ambiance, even though reality might be a bit more cluttered for many who make their homes here. But for a certain type of person, interior design equates to an unlimited accumulation of objects, coupled with a painful inability to discard them.

In its most extreme cases, compulsive hoarding can render living spaces completely unusable as their occupants continually add to collections that they save for all sorts of potential future uses. A recent glimpse behind the privet and shingles into the homes of two self-described local hoarders revealed towers of boxes stuffed to the gills with yellowing papers, sentimental knickknacks and generations’ worth of memories topped with fine coats of dust.

Dinah Maxwell Smith is one of the people who opened up her home in Southampton Village recently to talk about her compulsion to hoard. She said that she found that material objects began filling the void left behind by the loss of her parents and her divorce.

“All I had left of my family were things,” Ms. Smith said on a recent afternoon as she sat at a table piled high with papers and photos, strands of cat fur wafting overhead. “It’s painful losing things,” said the self-professed owner of 100 T-shirts, more than 20 sets of towels, six comforters, “zillions” of sheets and so many starched linen napkins that they are “coming out of my ears.”

Ms. Smith has not entertained company in years, she said, in part because of the mess. No one sits on her living room couches except her four cats and two dogs, one of whom is a 165-pound Irish wolfhound.

Her love of shopping, she says, has only compounded the problem.

“You buy the promises,” she observed. “If I drop dead today, you’ll find an endless number of things in my closet with the price tags still on.”

This inability to toss away unused or unnecessary items is a common theme among hoarders, who often experience a paralysis when it comes to making a decision about what to get rid of, according to Dr. Paul Garson, a Southampton-based psychiatrist associated with Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook University Medical Center. He added that many hoarders, in lieu of throwing things out, often end up shifting their belongings from one pile to another.

Yet another local confessed hoarder and Westhampton Beach resident Patti Robinson, said that it is much easier to perpetually postpone sorting through boxes that might unleash a torrent of emotions associated with their contents than it is to clean up.

“To get rid of something is to get rid of part of yourself,” she said simply.

As an artist, Ms. Robinson said she treasures what most people would trash. Her small house is a veritable museum of oddities that she recycles into collages, robots and other art projects. Undergarment elastics and cardboard packaging for a pair of shoelaces from the now-defunct Woolworth’s store are among the more eclectic doodads found upon inspection.

Discussing her need to keep and use objects sometimes past their prime, Ms. Robinson, a former staff member of The Press, said that she began intentionally shooting blurry photos of swimmers at a local beach after her camera broke, instead of tossing it out.

Ms. Robinson’s home is not as cluttered as subjects on the A&E network reality series, “Hoarders,” for example, or the infamous Collyer brothers, who were found dead in their Harlem apartment in 1947, buried among tons of stockpiled possessions. But her upper floor and basement are brimming with her childhood toys as well as those of her 21-year-old son, Robinson Deckert.

A small art installation—a patchwork of drinking straws, clothing tags and everyday roadside rubbish—that Ms. Robinson created hangs in an upstairs window. As for the stockpiled clementine crates and random paper towel rolls, they all have potential uses to be determined, she said.

Interestingly, Ms. Smith is also an artist, although she said she has not been able to paint in her backyard studio since she moved into her home last year because it is so cluttered. The studio is full of paintings and unusual bric-a-brac useful for sketching, like a plastic ear. The adjoining bathroom has been re-purposed as a storage facility.

The abundance of so much stuff creates a sense of security for hoarders in one sense; they are comfortable among their prized possessions. But it also stirs anxiety, according to the women. Ms. Smith and Ms. Robinson both reported that they have been unable to locate belongings amid their caches of possessions. And Ms. Smith noted that it is often the neat people who suffer when they live with hoarders.

Meanwhile, other people’s clutter appeals in strange ways to Ms. Robinson. “When I come to someone’s house and it’s all perfectly neat, I think it’s the ugliest thing,” she said. “I think they must be so boring.”

Both women are similar in that they recognize their hoarding characteristics and have each gathered a massive pile of belongings in their homes for future yard sales—a significant step for a hoarder, Dr. Garson says. Additionally, each woman shares her home with multiple pets—both keep several dogs, Ms. Smith has many indoor cats and Ms. Robinson takes care of a rescued feral outdoor cat. Notably, both also said they know others who are even worse hoarders.

Most hoarders remain in isolation, reported Dr. Garson, noting that very few hoarders even reach out for therapy. A specialist in forensic psychiatry, he said that of the relatively few cases of hoarders he has come across, most have been elderly patients who were referred by adult protective services. In senior age groups, he said, hoarding may often be related to dementia.

Many mental health professionals place hoarding on the spectrum of obsessive-compulsive disorders, and it can become pathological when it impairs one’s everyday functioning, Dr. Garson said. Underlying issues related to hoarding often include depression, anxieties and social phobias, as well as procrastination and difficulty making decisions.

David Betts, the code enforcement investigator for the Town of Southampton, said he occasionally stumbles across properties that are overly cluttered. Such visits often involve situations in which items have spilled out of a home into the yard.

“In the last couple of years, I know of half a dozen,” he said. “But I’m sure there are more. It’s a question of when they are reported to us.”

Although a precise number is difficult to pinpoint, Andy Berg, the executive producer of the A&E television show “Hoarders,” estimated there may be approximately three million people in the United States who could be classified as such. He added that it is difficult to treat hoarding because many subjects do not recognize the negative impact their behaviors have on their lives or on others.

“Probably the worst thing you can do is throw everything away,” Mr. Berg said about people trying to help hoarders by just chucking all of their prized possessions. His show, now in its second season, features subjects who are on the verge of crises. “It’s not something you can cure overnight.”

Dr. Garson said that in addition to psychotherapy, mild antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may help with underlying anxiety issues.

Then again, a good starting point for hoarders to dig out of their clutter might be talking about it.

Ms. Robinson thanked this reporter for visiting her home.

“It’s like coming out of the closet,” she remarked. “This has been so therapeutic.”