HOARDING: WHAT CAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS DO?

It seems like in the past few years, hoarders and their stories are just about everywhere.  There have been popular reality TV shows, newspaper reports and TV broadcasts devoted to the psychological problems that manifest themselves as an impulsive collection and retention of items that have no discernable value.  The psychology behind hoarding is not the subject of this email – how local governments can deal with the problem is.

                Oftentimes, the hoarder’s shame and other issues prevent them from asking for help, and cause them to take great steps to hide the level of damage that they have caused.  The desire to hoard comes from problems that the hoarder has with human interaction and relationships, so true hoarders tend to shun personal contact.  This is often the reason why code enforcement officers do not learn of the problem until it has reached emergency levels.

                Families or neighbors can often help keep low-level hoarding from becoming dangerous.  But once a property has become a threat to its inhabitants and the neighborhood, the question is not whether to act, but how.  Often, cities believe that citations and inspections are their only tool to remedy hoarder properties.  But when a property is a threat to the health of its residents and to the community at large, citations are not enough and a more immediate and drastic response is needed.  These situations call for appointing a receiver to take over the property to do what the owner cannot.

Under California Health and Safety Code §17980.7(c), “the enforcement agency, tenant or tenant association” can petition for appointment of receiver after providing adequate notice (usually this is three days, but it depends on the severity of the situation).  Immediately after appointment, the receiver steps in and assesses each situation for what is needed.  Sometimes this is a one-time or a monthly clean out, but more severe conditions call for more extraordinary remedies.

                In the most hazardous situations, the first step is often temporary relocation.  This is often done both for the person’s safety, but also to make sure that the clean-up of the property can actually take place.

As one can imagine, cleaning up a hoarder property with the hoakidrder on-site is an exercise in futility.  After the initial safety issues are dealt with, the work of remedying the hoarding can begin.  At California Receivership Group we use a professional organizer we’ve affectionately nicknamed “The Hoarder Whisperer” to help with the plan to sort through the waste and allow the hoarder to preserve some items.  This ensures that they feel they have some control over the process, while still using a third party’s judgment on which items should be saved and which should not.

                But the job is not done after the trash is hauled away and the property becomes livable again.  Hoarder properties require continual site checks and an on-going plan for garbage removal.  For example, we have workers that check on a San Fernando Valley property once a month and have been doing so since 2005!  Or in another deal, we have structured it so a property management firm will operate an apartment building, but the owner will live off-site to ensure that the property does not become unlivable again and will start to provide rental income for her. Hoarder properties present all types of problems – financial, political and sociological – which often calls for the receivership remedy.

                As with all other §17980.7 health and safety receiverships, the cost of the receiver and the city/county’s fees are paid through super-priority receivership certificates that authorize liens against the property.  These ensure that the property pays its own cost of rehabilitation, rather than the city or county.  The super-priority aspect ensures that the remedy is available for properties that owe more than they are worth – a valuable tool in the current market.

The remedy is often the tool of last resort, but can be used to ensure that one property owner’s mental issues do not ruin a neighborhood.

Please feel free to email back any questions or requests.
Thank you

California Receivership Group