"It is not just the decluttering journey that is important, but decluttering my mind and finding out who I am".

The words of Pat, 77 who, after decades of hoarding, has been getting help from a specialist therapeutic project called Recovering Homes, run by Reaching CIC.

It includes a hoarding clinic and fortnightly peer support, along with help in the home from a psychotherapist, and has directly assisted around 150 people in north Staffordshire with what CEO Georgina Salt describes as a "hidden" but growing issue.

"We're really busy, we have multiple referrals a week," said Salt, adding that this involves people who only reach out when they get to crisis point.

As a post-war baby, Pat said the need to keep things started as a child, when she did not have many toys, so "I hung onto things and looked after them".

When Pat trained as a teacher, they were also taught to hang on to items.

She got to a point where she found it "difficult" to get rid of things, and having kept them "just in case," her house got "quite full".

Her late husband also liked to collect things and put them in boxes, meaning that when they invited people round, they had to move things from "room to room, so we would not be embarrassed".

On retiring, Pat said she found excuses not to tackle the issue, but also became a carer for four people, including her husband and an elderly friend, who was "a prolific hoarder".

She said she went to her first hoarding support meeting in January 2025 to help her friend, but was not ready at that stage to face up to her own hoarding.

It was following the death of her husband, that the 77-year-old made the decision to seek support, describing her thought process, as: "I need to be happy in my last few years, and not be surrounded with this mess, I want to be in a happy, safe, peaceful environment."

Speaking to Reaching CIC's psychotherapist had made her question the reasons for her hoarding.

"She made me think, she made me explore parts of my brain that were hidden under cobwebs and dust and all sorts to try and work out why I was behaving like this," Pat explained.

Around 3% of the population are thought to have a hoarding disorder, said Salt, and it is isolating by its nature, as it can leave people embarrassed and anxious about others visiting their home.

Referrals come via concerned family members, individuals themselves, as well as social workers and housing providers.

The service is partially funded by the National Lottery, with the in-home support element paid for, often by a third party.

The Reaching CIC founder said they do not put pressure on people to clear their homes, as that does not work and can remove a person's coping strategy.

"Hoarding just meets a need that somebody has, and what we to have to try and do is unpick what that need is," she explained.

The programme focuses on the person rather than their possessions, as often hoarding is closely linked to loneliness and mental health issues.

Salt said one of the biggest things they hear in their peer support meetings is that people do not feel alone anymore, as well as the realisation that others think like they do.

"And that's the connection that you need," she said, adding that the goal is to get someone feeling happy with a functional space they can live in.

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