In cleaning up hoarder homes, volunteers spend years battling clutter, mental hurdles and stigma
It takes a long time to help hoarders declutter their homes and address underlying mental health issues. Despite intervention, many cases remain unresolved.

Volunteers from Habitat for Humanity helping to clear piles of clutter in a three-room flat in Ang Mo Kio on Jan 24, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Ooi Boon Keong)
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Keeping an eye on volunteers from a community group who were picking away at towering piles of clutter in her home last Friday (Jan 24), one elderly woman watched as they sorted out usable items from the mess of expired food, broken appliances and old magazines.
Barely an hour after they began cleaning up her three-room flat in Ang Mo Kio, the volunteers and staff members from Habitat for Humanity Singapore nearly filled up a green trash bin that the estate's town council placed along the common corridor.Â
However, the woman started sifting through the bin's contents as the volunteers took out more clutter to be junked. She pulled out a magazine wrapped in a plastic pouch and showed it to this reporter.
"It's still fine, I can still use the pouch ... What if I need it? It still looks new," she said. The magazine was dated December 2002.
She then emptied the contents of the pouch into the bin, including the magazine and what appeared to be cockroach droppings. She allowed CNA TODAY into her home on condition of anonymity.Â
When a social worker was referred to her last year, the main door to her home could barely be opened as her ceiling-high possessions obstructed the entrance.
In order for her to move around her flat, she needed to climb over the items. Her items took up most of her bed, relegating her to a small spot on the queen-size bed.
Often misconstrued as being stubborn or lazy, hoarders like her have various reasons for their behaviour. This can range from emotional trauma to underlying mental health problems to social isolation, and it differs from person to person.Â
This is why helping them overcome the hoarding disorder, which is a mental health condition, is not as simple as entering a home and throwing away items. This was what volunteers, social workers, mental health professionals and community groups told CNA TODAY.
Instead, it is a long-drawn process that can take years of befriending and convincing hoarders to open their homes and hearts.
Mr Low Mun Heng, a principal social worker at social service agency Allkin Singapore's care and integration division, said: "Some cases may take three to six years of consistent intervention before they show substantial improvement. Others might never reach what we conventionally consider 'resolved'."Â
Just last month, three people died after a hoarder’s home in Hougang was engulfed in flames. Due to the clutter, firefighters had difficulty entering the residential unit, the Singapore Civil Defence Force said on Facebook.
With Singapore's ageing population and shifting demographics, the number of hoarding cases is expected to rise, the Ministry of National Development (MND) and Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) said in a press release on Jan 22.
To date, there are 627 hoarding cases being monitored by the Hoarding Management Core Group (HMCG), an inter-agency group to address hoarding in Singapore. Of these, 270 cases have shown improvement and 357 are unresolved because the hoarders are unwilling to cooperate with decluttering efforts.Â
To better coordinate hoarding management efforts across Singapore, MND and MSF launched the New Environment Action Team (NEAT) on Jan 22, which brings together government agencies, community groups and private organisations to tackle the phenomenon together.
In the meantime, volunteers and social workers told CNA TODAY that it remains an uphill fight to attend to each hoarding case, because every case has different underlying causes that need to be addressed, and social isolation and shame make it difficult for hoarders to accept help.Â
MONTHS AND YEARS OF PERSUASION
One of the biggest challenges that social workers and community groups face happens at the beginning. It is not easy to convince hoarders that they have to clean up their homes and that help is available for them to start decluttering.
It is also difficult to persuade them to accept help for the underlying reasons of their hoarding tendencies, because these are often tied to social or psychological factors.
Social workers and staff members also said that it is difficult to define if a home is just messy or can be considered a case of hoarding, especially if they lack access to the home and can attend to the situation only from the flat's front gate. Sometimes, hoarders will insist that their homes are simply messy.
To this, Singapore uses the Clutter Image Rating Scale, an international standard that determines the severity of the hoarding situation.
The scale ranks a series of nine pictures of a cluttered home. Most countries consider that any clutter above four on the scale would affect the resident's quality of life.
Mr Koh Chee Wai, assistant director at the Singapore Association for Mental Health, said: "Many hoarders are socially isolated and may resist help due to feelings of shame or fear of being judged."
Mr Koh is part of the association's Mobile Support Team that provides mental health support through home visits, among other assistance.
He added that hoarders also struggle to seek help because they might be in denial, are stigmatised for their behaviours or are overwhelmed by the task of removing years of clutter.
Government agencies can issue orders or take enforcement action against hoarders if their homes' clutter breaches any established rules and laws. For example, the National Environment Agency can order hoarders to remove items that contribute to pest infestations.
Just last November, parliament passed a Bill allowing officers from the government's Community Relations Unit to address noise and hoarding complaints that create severe "disamenities" and forcibly declutter the home.
UNITED EFFORT TO HELP HOARDERS
The disamenities and safety risks that hoarding brings "warrant state intervention for the well-being of both the hoarder and the community", the Ministry of National Development (MND) said in response to a parliamentary question in 2022.
For example, hoarding could pose a fire risk when occupants cannot find space to move in an emergency. The ministry added that clutter in shared corridors can also obstruct evacuation routes for neighbours.
Although government agencies can issue orders or take enforcement action against a hoarder or homeowner when the hoarding violates established rules, there are still "real tensions on the ground in balancing between the hoarder’s individual right to choose how they want to upkeep their own home and their neighbours’ enjoyment of their own residences".
This is especially in cases where the clutter falls short of outright legal violations or do not meet the threshold for public health and safety risks as determined by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and National Environment Agency (NEA).
In a bid to "concentrate society's efforts" in identifying and helping hoarders, the government launched the New Environment Action Team on Jan 22.
This team aims to “better coordinate hoarding management efforts and build capabilities across the public, people and private sectors to address hoarding issues in a more holistic and sustainable manner”, MND and the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) said.
There are 28 members in the team – comprising of 16 social services and community groups with extensive experience in helping hoarders – nine government agencies, as well as three trade and industry associations.Â
It is supported by the government's Hoarding Management Core Group, which was established in 2014 by the Municipal Services Office for public agencies to resolve severe hoarding cases.
The Hoarding Management Core Group consists of:
- MSF
- SCDF
- NEA
- The Housing Development Board
- The Animal and Veterinary Service under the National Parks Board
- The Agency for Integrated Care
- The People’s Association
As of June 2024, the core group has reduced the severity of 270 hoarding cases and is working on another 357 active cases, up from 253 in December 2021.
The Municipal Services Office and MSF have been working with the New Environment Action Team in the decluttering efforts for homes in Boon Lay, Buona Vista and Pasir Ris since January 2024.
Despite the resistance, social workers and community groups try their best to gain rapport and consent from hoarders in order to help tackle the root of the problem.
When they get wind of a potential hoarding case, social workers and volunteers often spend months engaging the hoarder such as through occasional home visits. This is to build trust with the hoarders so that volunteers and social workers can inspect the clutter.
After that comes another hurdle: Trying to convince the hoarder to let go of their items.
There are various reasons for their hesitance. For some of the hoarders, the items may hold sentimental value. Others might believe that the item may be of some value to them in the future, or the hoarders have underlying mental health conditions.
Mr Low said that a hoarder's hesitation to dispose of items could represent "their anxiety about change or a loss of control".
"Hence, in such instances where the client who has consented to the decluttering process, we do make it a practice to be with the person as much as possible, in order to provide emotional support and psychological safety as they navigate what can be an overwhelming experience of parting with possessions," he added.
ADDRESSING ANXIETIES, HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES
Mr Jason Tan, a programme executive from Habitat for Humanity Singapore, said that it may take four to eight sessions to clean up a hoarder's home, with each session spanning about four hours.
Volunteers and staff members will dispose of items that are broken or expired and they will ask the hoarder if they would like to throw other belongings. Mr Tan said that such an approach gives the hoarders a sense of control, alleviating their anxieties.
"If we were to just throw everything away, (the hoarders) might feel their homes are empty ... or (we might) hurt them unintentionally because they are emotionally attached to the items," he explained, adding that hoarders could potentially re-clutter their homes as a result.

However, ensuring that the clean-up process is smooth reduces the chances of hoarders repeating their behaviour, volunteers and social workers said.
Even after cleaning up the home, volunteers and social workers told CNA TODAY that more time and effort is needed to ensure that hoarders do not re-clutter their homes. This is done through befriending and follow-up sessions, which can go on for years.
Welfare organisation Blossom World Society said:Â "Regular revisits not only reinforce this shift in focus (away from hoarding)Â but also provide an opportunity to check if new items have been added, offer assistance with maintenance and ensure they feel accompanied and supported.
"Over time, these visits can empower them to take an active role in the upkeep of their space, fostering independence and confidence."
Repeated hoarding might also be caused by underlying mental health conditions. Mr Eugene Koh, 34, a volunteer from Covenant Evangelical Free Church, said that one hoarder's home was stacked with paper and cardboard material when he visited the place a few months after clearing the clutter.
Mr Koh, who works in the IT industry, added: "(This was because) the resident kept 'hearing an echo' and wanted to reduce the noise. So it's natural for the person to try to fill the house again to stop hearing the echoes."
Hoarding disorder is a diagnosable mental health condition, experts said.
Associate Professor Mythily Subramaniam, the assistant chairman of the medical board (research) at the Institute of Mental Health, said that some hoarders might need mental health treatment if the person's hoarding behaviour is secondary to a mental health condition such as dementia.
"Severe hoarding will require treatment as it poses safety risks and also affects the functioning of the person," she added.
"Not all with hoarding behaviour needs mental health intervention ... when mild, hoarding behaviour can be overcome or regulated by family and community level interventions."
The overall process can be exhausting and, if the hoarders "relapse" and start cluttering up their homes again, volunteers and social workers said that it adds to their frustrations.
However, it is important to "acknowledge and celebrate incremental improvements", Mr Low of Allkin Singapore said.
"Sometimes, success can mean a client simply opening their door to engage with workers consistently or agreeing to regular wellness checks. These small steps, while perhaps not visually dramatic, represent significant therapeutic progress in building trust and acceptance of help."Â
NEIGHBOURS, FAMILIES CAN HINDER RECOVERY
Another mounting challenge faced by volunteers comes from the hoarders' immediate community – the neighbours who often see themselves as victims of the hoarders' behaviour.
Having cleared numerous hoarder homes since his church started helping social agencies declutter hoarder homes, Mr Vincent Chia has heard firsthand of neighbours chiding their work.
"Comments like 'no use, one, it will come back again' and 'don’t waste your time helping, this is not the first time people helping' are some examples," the ministry staff member at Covenant Evangelical Free Church told CNA TODAY.
Volunteers from the church, which is one of the groups involved in NEAT, have cleaned up around 25 hoarder homes yearly.
Mr Chia said that such unkind words may further stigmatise hoarders, making it more likely for them to repeat their behaviour.
Such remarks may also come from family members, who sometimes tell social workers and volunteers a hoarder is a "lost cause".
Associate Professor Andree Hartanto from the Singapore Management University's School of Social Sciences, said that there is a tendency to label hoarders as stubborn because their behaviour seems irrational to outsiders.
Hoarders struggle with feelings of shame or embarrassment and strained relationships due to their living conditions and social isolation, he added.
"Over time, these issues can further increase their anxiety and worsen hoarding behaviours."Â

BE MORE UNDERSTANDING, SEEK HELP
There are limits to what the authorities can do.
MND and MSF said in their press release last month: "Frontline officers face real tensions on the ground in balancing between how hoarders choose to upkeep their own home and their neighbours’ enjoyment of their own residences, especially in cases where the clutter does not meet the threshold for public health and safety risks as determined by SCDF and NEA."Â
Social service agencies, community groups and organisations said that NEAT is a step in the right direction to ensure hoarders receive the right support in the long term, but the time-intensive workload can be difficult to manage.
Community groups across the board said that finding more volunteers to help clean up and befriend hoarders is one way to support their efforts.
Beyond that, neighbours and family can play a bigger role.
Blossom World Society said: "We encourage neighbours of hoarders to approach their situation with empathy and understanding, to be non-judgmental and recognise the complex emotional and psychological factors that contribute to this challenging condition."Â
The organisation added that people may also reach out to their town council and welfare organisations or use the OneService mobile application to report a neighbour who may be hoarding. This will allow agencies to provide timely support since hoarders often spend years collecting their items.
"A supportive relationship (can be) built with them and necessary assistance can be explored and provided."
Ms Anthea Quoid, 20, a volunteer who leads Blossom World Society's Blossom Home Refresh committee and is a National University of Singapore undergraduate, recalled the appreciation she received after cleaning up a home.
The residence belonged to an elderly man, who had nobody to turn to and thus found it hard to seek help at first.
With the pests that bred in his home and clutter that accumulated for more than a decade, he was bullied and marginalised by his neighbours.
The social isolation worsened his hoarding behaviour, he told Ms Quoid.
The man also said that a volunteer group had cleared his home before, but he had no say in what was thrown out. He began hoarding again after that clean-up.
Ms Quoid said: "As we cleaned and asked if we could throw items, he told us stories about the items and about himself ... a few days (after the clean-up), he texted a volunteer to say that he appreciated our efforts."Â
She does not know if the man might go back to his old ways of living with clutter, but the continued work of volunteer groups and social workers lets him know that he is not alone in overcoming his hoarding disorder.
Such moments of gratitude and appreciation are why Ms Quoid continues helping hoarders, despite the challenges.