The Hoarder

Hastings Old Town East Sussex, February 2012

Dear Noel

In the immortal words of Simon Van Winkle, ‘All good things must come to an end’ and so I must tell you that your stay with us will be winding to a close.

With these words Noel James Caterwood, then 83, was asked to leave his lodgings on 63 High Street in the Hastings Old Town, East Sussex in 2007. He was a hoarder of some renown already then and evidently his stay had become intolerable. It is from there that Noel came into my life—he moved into my own house further up the hill in the Hastings old town at 43 Croft Road.

I never met Noel. My house was managed by a letting agency who took him on as my tenant. I heard little of him for the next 3 years and he became progressively harder to reach as letters went unanswered and the telephone never picked up. It is a familiar picture of the journey of age, of fading memory, confusion and declining ability. But independence is a prized possession for the old and, ultimately, among the last worth having. Noel still took care of himself.

Among the effects and personal papers left behind are a glimmer of the former self. Noel receiving letters from his parents; the young man who loved sailing and sailing regattas and collected the memorabilia associated with them. He was born in 1925 and turned 18 in the late stages of the Second World War where he served in the naval reserve. Afterword he attended university, became a civil engineer and worked abroad. There is no record of a wife, marriage or children. Ultimately he lived alone. And it is alone that he walked the dark corridor of age, captive to a life time of habit.

He had become a hoarder, something which, like much habit that moves from indulgence or eccentricity to serious problem, crept up with age. The Hastings Old Town has an uncommonly large number of antique and junk shops, a tableau to indulge a hoarder’s passion as good as anywhere on the south coast of England. Old crockery, books, souvenirs, silverware, a faded print of Queen Elizabeth as a young woman, personal papers, letters and newspapers. Yes, stacks and stacks of newspapers, piles that grew and had to be negotiated around and through, coming to have their own weight and entitlement in his household and his mind, a constant reminder of something that should be taken care of. One of these days, yes; when I can. These are the commitments and tasks unfulfilled that torment the old and haunt the hoarder. I will take care of all this, it is not a problem. No, not yet.

Hoarding is typically a compulsion to gather items and refuse to discard them despite their lack of value. Like all psychological behaviour, it is a problem to the degree it interferes with the ability to function normally. Even with self-recognition action is inhibited by a sense of hopelessness and futility in relation to the scale of what is around them. Noel, I suspect, slowly slipped toward that point. Ultimately, however, it was the infirmity of age, not hoarding, that robbed him of the ability to manage his own affairs. Like many of the aged he had also became vulnerable.

One day his rent stopped being paid. Shortly later I was contacted by a man claiming to be his guardian, a Mr Haji Bengali, acting on his behalf. Being far away from England, in the depths of the Congo, I offered my good will and the hope that Noel would be housed elsewhere with the care he needed. Many months later I was still waiting when the Sussex County social services department contacted me to say that the locks on my house had been changed to prevent Mr Haji Bengali further access, that a criminal case would be opened and that Noel had been moved to a home where he could be cared for.

It is certainly true that All good things must come to an end although the other half of that phrase is worth repeating: but all bad things can continue forever.