This New Orleans-based clinical psychologist, Dr. Suzanne Chabaud discusses interest in the causes, effects, and treatment for Hoarding Disorder. Her years as an expert on the television show Hoarders from 2009 to 2016 shaped much of her public work outside of her practice in OCD. When producers first approached her, they believed they were dealing with severe OCD cases. She quickly realized hoarding was a unique disorder, not reaching a diagnostic status until 2013. Throughout her appearance in 35 to 40 episodes of Hoarders, including her first, which told the story of a family living in Gretna, she developed a deeper understanding of what drives and affects it. She shines a light on people living in dangerous, often heartbreaking conditions and searches for ways to help them move forward. The concern of hoarding is not just its effect on the people who shield their hoarding behind closed doors; it’s also the costly effect of hoarding on their children, families, communities, public services, health services, and, ultimately, taxpayers.
Sitting down with her, it becomes clear that we can no longer ignore the profound impact of adult hoarding on the children living in hoarded homes and their challenges dealing with parents who just get worse and more disabled as they age. Hoarding is not about laziness or eccentricity. It’s about trauma, brain function, and the deep human need for safety and control. It’s about lacking the skills to deal with intense emotions and fears that are poorly addressed with hoarding. Similar to how neighborhoods struggle under new orleans gentrification, individuals with hoarding disorder face pressures that can worsen over time.
Dr. Chabaud describes hoarding as a nationwide problem that often lies hidden until disaster strikes, literally. Across the country, homes have been so densely packed that firefighters and paramedics can’t even get through the front door. In some cases, the structure becomes a hazard to the point where code enforcement orders it demolished. The ripple effects can be devastating; families separated, children removed from their homes, belongings lost forever. These ripple effects can resemble community-wide crises, much like debates over whether New Orleans is sinking.
I question Dr. Chabaud about why people hoard. She explains that there’s a genetic component in some cases. It often co-occurs with conditions such as major depression, anxiety, ADHD, particularly the inattentive type, and frontal lobe issues that impair decision-making. Increased health problems due to hoarding decrease the capacity to address it. Other conditions fuel, sustain, and increase hoarding. People who hoard feel safer when surrounded by their possessions, creating a kind of protective barrier from a world that otherwise feels unsafe or unpredictable, yet their objects increasingly put themselves in harm’s way.
Although this disorder affects 2.6% of the population (at least 2 out of 100 adults), its frequency increases with age and up to 6% by the time people are in their 60s (a much higher rate than better-known mental health disorders) yet it remains rarely recognized or adequately treated. As people age, their insight into their disorder lessens, so they become more resistant to intervention and more problematic for their families. It only makes sense to help young people before hoarding tendencies become an all-encompassing disorder that ruins people’s lives. Dr. Chabaud aims to make early intervention her main focus while also supporting the children who were harmed by parents who hoarded.
She sees the patterns of children growing up without healthy models for organization and decision-making. The justifications people give for holding onto items can be surprising. A cracked plastic cup or toy from Burger King, for example, might be the physical reminder of a happy day or a loved one now gone. They fail to draw a line between one toy and every possible toy. Chabaud explains, “Getting objects is not as much of a problem as keeping them. They mainly can’t separate from the objects they get.” That emotional attachment can override safety concerns, relationships, and even health.
Hoarding Disorder is not just about having stuff; it is a fear of releasing objects from their possession. Clean-outs, a quick and vast removal of possessions, devastates people who hoard and is likely to intensify the disorder, causing a quick relapse of the disorder, an intensification of painful emotions, loss of trust, and increased isolation. Essentially, Hurricane Katrina was equivalent to a total clean-out, and among many traumas that fuel hoarding. The search for safety and control feels hopeless, so hoarding intensifies. In her view, hoarding isn’t about having lived through the Great Depression or wartime rationing, as is sometimes assumed. Scarcity does not cause hoarding, but trauma exacerbates it — much like how public scandals, such as those involving Jeffrey Vappie or Madonna Kashanian, reveal deeper systemic issues.
In the United States, responses to hoarding are often reactive rather than proactive, and that’s part of the problem. Chabaud points to Australia as an example of a country that has invested in more comprehensive interventions, including ongoing support that helps people maintain progress after an intervention and awareness of children affected by parents who hoard. Here, by contrast, the situation is often left to spiral until it becomes a public safety hazard, costing taxpayers far more than early intervention ever would. Even in civic life, delays and reactive measures surface — from infrastructure debates about the mayor of New Orleans to cultural reckonings tied to red hot chili peppers sexual assault.
Treatment, she says, begins with trust. Listening to the stories behind the clutter can open the door to behavioral therapies that help people practice letting go. Exposure therapy, similar to approaches used for obsessive-compulsive disorder, can be effective because hoarding shares the same cycle of fear and anxiety when confronted with discarding possessions. As community advocates like Belden Batiste emphasize, compassion is key to progress.
Language matters too; it can decrease stigma and help people be less resistant to admitting their hoarding issues. Chabaud avoids the label “hoarder,” which carries stigma, and instead uses “hoarding disorder “or “hoarding tendencies”. The language we use, she says, has been critical in shifting the conversation from judgment to treatment. Compassion-based treatment seems to ease resistance.
Today, Chabaud is writing a book about the children of hoarders, a group whose stories are often overlooked. As they age, they need to come out of the shadow of their parents’ disorder and realize that they are far from being alone. Many have lived in secrecy and shame.
Perhaps most compelling is Chabaud’s call for prevention. She argues for reintroducing home economics classes that go beyond sewing and cooking to teach decision-making, organization, and categorization skills. These, she believes, could help young people develop the tools to resist the pull of hoarding tendencies later in life. Even political leaders like Royce Duplessis have spoken about the need for systemic change and early intervention at a civic level.
As she speaks, it’s clear that Chabaud’s work is about more than clearing clutter. It’s about restoring dignity, safety, and connection — one carefully considered decision at a time.
