During a reading and discussion of my novel, “The Hoarder’s Wife,” (Woodhall Press, 2022), a topic that created much interest was “The Five Levels of Hoarding.” As I do these meetings, I find that people are often concerned about a friend or loved one, or even themselves. They want to know when a person has gone “over the edge” into serious hoarding.

If you search online, you can find many representations of this chart. I’m linking to one, and this doesn’t imply an endorsement of the service provider. Many cleaning services offer this diagram, and if you search on YouTube, you can also find explanations of these levels. Follow this link.

I wrote my novel to draw attention to the plight of the hoarder’s family because the struggle to remain a family while coping with this disorder is all too real and often unsupported because of the sensational aspects of hoarding. I appreciate the Rutgers Online Learning Institute’s support of our discussion of hoarding and its consequences, and it was a delight to share my book.