Stuff: Oliver-Sacks-like account of pathological hoarders
Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee’s Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things is a series of case-histories of people who suffer from a compulsion that causes them to fill up their living spaces with all manner of junk. The cases are very wide ranging, from people who literally hoard garbage and live in places that are carpeted with vermin and roaches to millionaires who fill a series of posh hotel suites with mountains of fine art and jewels that accumulate layers of dust.
Peppered through the histories is a compassionate and insightful look at the underlying psychology of hoarding. Frost and Steketee also discuss the effects of hoarding on families, the history of the treatment of hoarding, and the rarely reported child-hoarders, providing an in-the-round view into the problem that makes this more than just a spectacle of peering into revolting garbage houses.
