Melissa Hladek, Expert on Hoarding Disorders Talks About Addressing Hazards In the Home & Aging In Place

Melissa Hladek, a hoarding remediation expert, shares her career journey and insights into hoarding disorder.

She explains that hoarding is a result of one decision at a time and a lack of follow-through.

Hoarding disorder is a specific medical diagnosis characterized by a lack of insight. Melissa emphasizes the importance of addressing safety hazards in hoarded homes, such as fall risks and poor air quality.

She discusses the initial steps she takes when working with a client, which include listening, assessing the structure, contents, and person, and focusing on short-term safety and long-term quality of life.

Melissa also highlights the emotional and psychological aspects of decluttering and the importance of empathy and collaboration among professionals in healthcare and mental health support.

She advocates for the creation of a licensed professional organizer designation to address hoarding behaviors effectively.

Melissa encourages professionals to report hoarding cases and work together to provide comprehensive support.

She also mentions a petition she created to establish a licensed professional organizer designation.

Takeaways

Hoarding disorder is characterized by a lack of insight and a result of one decision at a time and a lack of follow-through.

Safety hazards in hoarded homes include fall risks and poor air quality.
The initial steps in working with a hoarding client involve listening, assessing the structure, contents, and person, and focusing on short-term safety and long-term quality of life.

Addressing the emotional and psychological aspects of decluttering requires empathy and collaboration among professionals in healthcare and mental health support.

Creating a licensed professional organizer designation can provide comprehensive support for individuals with hoarding disorder.

Professionals should report hoarding cases and work together to address hoarding behaviors effectively.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Career Journey
05:53 Understanding Hoarding Disorder and Its Manifestation
12:08 Addressing Safety Hazards in Hoarded Homes
15:05 The Initial Steps in Working with Hoarding Clients
23:13 The Importance of Collaboration among Professionals
28:53 Advocating for a Licensed Professional Organizer Designation

Website: America's Most Organized

Sign Her Petition: Petition · Establish Licensed Professional Organizer (LPO) as a Recognized Allied Health Profession - United States · Change.org

Transcript

Janet Engel (00:01.026)
Hello everyone, and today we have Melissa Ladek. I'm very excited to have her on the show today. She is a hoarding remediation expert and she is the owner of America's Most Organized. Melissa, thank you for being with us.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (00:19.131)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Janet Engel (00:22.562)
Yes, Melissa, tell us a little bit about your career and what brought you here today.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (00:31.771)
So I started my business when I was 18 years old. And I guess was really, really creative figuring out what I could do to earn some extra cash. And I was working for a temp service. And I ended up working for an

Janet Engel (00:52.866)
Okay.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (00:59.451)
for an executive at a aerospace company in San Antonio, Texas, my hometown. And when I walked in for the assignment, you couldn't see the guy that I was supposed to be working for, because there's just piles and piles and piles of papers everywhere, right? But I had been around aviation my entire life. San Antonio is known as a military city. And to get started, even though I'd been around aircraft my whole life, I didn't know what one document was from another. And I...

Janet Engel (01:05.058)
Okay.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (01:28.571)
started asking the question, where do you want to find this? So when I said, where do you want to find this? He said, I need that meeting for at 3 o 'clock today. I was like, that needs to be right by his desk. He needs to find that soon. Where do you want to find this? that's a patent. I just was referring to that. I'm not going to need that for a while. OK, that can go far away. And so just from that question, within a matter of weeks, and I was a temp.

Janet Engel (01:49.73)
And then...

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (01:54.907)
something magical started to happen that I didn't realize because I just wanted to not be stupid at my job. But what was happening is the piles were getting smaller and some of the other executives, he was the senior vice president of the company, was starting to notice a difference. What also started to change was his productivity. And what also started to change is now instead of making a reservation for, you know, can we have the conference room with him, they were coming to his office.

Janet Engel (02:16.226)
Mm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (02:24.027)
And then before you know it, the HR director and some other people were really like, saw what a difference it was. And some of the executives with the FAA that were there temporarily said, hey, we're setting up a new office. Can you come help us out? So I was like, well, what do I charge? So I knew what the temp service was charging. I'm like, that's what I'll charge. From there, this is where the real beginnings started. One of those gentlemen.

Janet Engel (02:51.746)
and.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (02:52.315)
said, anyway you can come to my house because my wife has all of this crap in the garage and I would really like to see my new Lexus in the garage. Is there any way I can get you to come to the house? And I was like, okay. So I go to the house and I come from a really large family. So diplomatic relations was something I was learning at the time. And I realized like, this is gonna either go well or not go well. So I'm there and she's, you know.

I don't look old enough to even have a lease for an apartment. And here I am, and we go into this beautiful house, this gated community, and tell this person what to do with their stuff. So I go in, and there is stuff everywhere. And I'm introduced, and she says, I don't know what he thinks that you're going to do to help me. And I'm just so sick and tired of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I said, listen, here's the thing. I think I can help you with your stuff.

Janet Engel (03:30.498)
All right.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (03:51.067)
but I can only answer to you. Like I can only answer to you because this is your stuff. I cannot answer to both of you, I can only answer to you. Next thing you know, a sense of calm and then tears. my God, can you really help me? I'm so sick of hearing you. So it was a moment, a aha moment and we were able to help her and that led to other.

to other clients, didn't have a business card, didn't have it, but I started with what I'll say the country club community. So I was a secret, not like an interior designer or somebody bright, I was a secret. And that's how my career launched. And shortly after that, I found an association, the National Association of Productivity and Professional Organizers, which I have been very active in, and another association, the Institute of

Janet Engel (04:26.274)
Okay.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (04:48.731)
challenging disorganization. And there are other associations that I'm very, very active in, but that is really the trajectory and how things have changed. And now, you know, here we are mainstream from the show hoarders to professional organizers. It's a, you know, a household, a household name. But my career specifically, even though over 35 years is a very narrow focus of

Janet Engel (05:02.05)
Thank you.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (05:17.403)
I specifically work with hoarding disorder and life transitions in that regard. The whole transition of what happens. So I'll meet people with extreme clutter and then from the three different aspects, structure, the house, the apartment, whatever, structure, contents, and the person.

Janet Engel (05:31.586)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (05:42.402)
-huh.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (05:47.451)
So every one of my cases covers those three areas.

Janet Engel (05:52.834)
So tell me Melissa, what is a hoarding disorder and how does it manifest in someone's living environment?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (06:03.003)
That's a great question. So the real, the sassy answer is how does it happen? It's one decision at a time. So when you say yes to this, you're saying no to that. So for example, you're having a bowl of cereal at midnight because you can't sleep. Maybe you're like, whatever, have a bowl of cereal and you're done with it. And maybe it makes it to the kitchen sink, but then you go right back to what you're doing.

Janet Engel (06:12.866)
Okay.

Janet Engel (06:24.194)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (06:31.579)
So you said yes to the cereal, yes to putting it in the sink, but you didn't say yes to washing it and putting it away or putting it in the dishwasher, right? So one decision at a time, but also lack of follow through. And that's the micro, micro, micro answer as to how does it accumulate. Now what is hoarding disorder, that's a very specific medical diagnosis that was inducted in the...

Janet Engel (06:46.754)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (06:59.835)
Diagnostical Statistical Manual in 2013, which is something we're very, very, very grateful to have. But there are very specific criteria to get that diagnosis. So one of the things I want to say to the listeners is that if you really want to understand what that diagnosis is, you should log on to the International OCD Foundation. And you should explore that.

that website because that is actually where hoarding disorder that is its home and it originated they thought with OCD but they know now that it can have a lot of co -existing behaviors. So when you say hoarding disorder or hoarding or the term hoarder which is now something that that the medical community would like to come away from the best term I think that

Janet Engel (07:35.97)
Okay.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (07:58.043)
that one should use as hoarding behaviors. So instead of saying, you know, it's a hoarder, as you say, that person is, you know, displaying hoarding behavior. So when you're in a client's home, you know, as an occupational therapist, I would be very careful to just toss around hoarding, hoarder, you know, but the behaviors, I think, is a more accurate thing. And the hallmark characteristic of hoarding disorder,

Janet Engel (08:18.914)
Okay.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (08:26.651)
is lack of insight. So if somebody has a lot of insight and a lot of clutter, that's a big chance it's not actually HD. It could be undiagnosed ADHD or autism spectrum disorder.

Janet Engel (08:47.394)
So what do you mean exactly when you say it's a lack of insight? What do you mean by that?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (08:56.155)
So if, lack of insight meaning that they recognize there's a problem. Okay, so if they don't recognize there's, if there's, if there's no insight, then what are you doing here? What's the problem? This is how I, this is the, you know, there's no problem with this. This is how I live. Or there's no acknowledgement whatsoever. So if you have someone with a, you know, an older adult with characteristics of dementia, I say,

Janet Engel (09:02.53)
Okay. Okay.

Janet Engel (09:15.49)
Thank you.

Thanks for watching.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (09:25.787)
you know, they may not have insight or awareness to the condition. But if you have someone that says, my gosh, I can't have you over my place is a mess and I've got things everywhere and I just, you know, I'm never at home. I hate cleaning. I just, you know, and they, they know it, they're recognizing it. They're apologizing for it. It could be another, what I, what I call clinical clutter. It could be another like lifespan.

Janet Engel (09:32.546)
Okay.

Janet Engel (09:49.218)
Okay.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (09:51.995)
condition like ADHD is probably one of the most common things we find out in the field. So before we say HD or hoarding, we'll probably want to take a step back before we just throw that out there.

Janet Engel (10:07.586)
Okay, well thank you for explaining that because I had never thought about it as in those terms, you know, someone that acknowledges that they have too much stuff has insight and then that would put them on a different area of mental health disorder versus someone who doesn't have that insight.

doesn't see a problem or recognize that you know you can't come into a room because it's full of boxes right.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (10:38.619)
Right. And it may not even be a mental health disorder. It could be a physical. It could be a physical health. So let's just say a sudden traumatic injury, right? A car accident or something like that. Imagine having a car accident during COVID. I'm sure there's probably a few listeners out there that can say, yeah, that happened to me. Perfectly healthy. Exercise takes really good care of themselves. COVID came along. They had a car accident. There was very limited care that you could get in the home.

Right? And maybe PT or OT wasn't even available. And so now your injury gets prolonged and now other physical problems start to exist. And that Amazon stuff just kept coming in. And you're depressed now because you can't get to the gym. And now, you know, Amazon stuff keeps coming in. Amazon stuff. And you're shopping a lot. And it's shop and drop. And it's maybe depression. Right?

Janet Engel (11:12.034)
Alright.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (11:37.339)
or maybe physically you can't even get up to go to the door anymore. So it may not actually be a mental health condition. There are physical conditions that can prevent someone from actually tidying up or following through and that kind of thing. And one other thing, you can inherit things that you weren't asking for. And the next thing you know, stuff just arrives that out of nowhere that you didn't know that the whole family estate was gonna end up in your driveway.

You know, so there's things that are situational, so that really have nothing to do with a mental health. It could be a very temporary situation.

Janet Engel (12:07.586)
Right.

Janet Engel (12:20.002)
Can you describe how hoarding can specifically affect safety in the home, especially for older adults?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (12:28.891)
Yeah, so the very first thing is, and to me it's common sense, is the fall risk. So, and there's two parts of that that I recognize in our casework is you have muscle memory, right, when you're walking around your house. And the longer you live where you live, you don't even, you're subconsciously aware where the walkways are.

Janet Engel (12:36.546)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (12:48.898)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (12:56.411)
When there's an accumulation of contents, and let's just say it's like three feet off the floor, right? And you have an older adult, well, it doesn't really matter what age, your body can get used to climbing over things. And if you ever see the dark walls, that's the oil from the hands of leaning, right? So you can have leaners. So over a period of time,

Janet Engel (12:56.482)
Right.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (13:24.891)
there's muscle memory, right? So you would think, wow, that's such a serious fall risk. However, I've seen situations where we've come in and done just a miracle job and the fall risk happens after we've done our work because of that muscle memory where they're used to climbing in, which is really fascinating. And so, you know, if I see a walker on a job site, I'm quick to pull that.

Janet Engel (13:47.874)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (13:53.243)
out when we're clear to get them training on a walker. And I'll say to, you know, we need to get, call the doctor and get OT and PT prescribed right away, you know, if we can get that and then start retraining them. So follow risk, but not always in the way that you think. And the second biggest hazard for anyone is the air quality. And again, it's...

Janet Engel (14:05.25)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (14:09.89)
Right.

Janet Engel (14:18.082)
yes, yes.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (14:19.035)
And we never talk about it, but the Indoor Air Quality Association is a great resource to learn a lot about that. And when you're starting to declutter, the air quality becomes more poor because you're displacing what was molecules at rest, right? So even more so, it's during the process that one can get...

Janet Engel (14:37.795)
moving things around, right?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (14:46.011)
you know, respiratory illness and things like that. So air quality and fall risk are the biggest hazards, I think.

Janet Engel (14:51.394)
Mmm.

Janet Engel (14:56.226)
What are the initial steps that you take when you first acquire a client?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (15:04.383)
So the very first is listening. Listening is the very, very first thing. So who the client is is identified. So if it's an adult child, is this a case from a probate case, an attorney? Is it a municipality that's concerned about somebody in the community? Or is it the individual themselves because they're facing a foreclosure? Right? So.

Janet Engel (15:10.658)
listening.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (15:33.051)
If you go back to lack of insight, those calls don't happen every day that the individual is saying, I want to change my life. They may call and say, I've got a 10 day notice to cure or I have a blight notice, right? But regardless of who the client is, I'll say the beneficiary of our services is the same. You have to listen and you have to listen to, it's not so.

It's not necessarily important about how did this happen. That kind of unfolds as you get to work in the case, how it happened. But listening and then doing the assessment about what the contents, remember I said structure contents in the person, is where you meet the person where they are. So is this an individual that needs to be relocated?

Or is this an individual that needs to age, it's even possible to age in place. So going back to structure, is the house, is there such deferred maintenance that this is really a tear down? Or is this something that there's just enough deferred maintenance, it's gonna cost some money, but this is worth an aging in place consideration.

Or is it something where we need memory care or you need to move across the country to be with family? So it really depends on what the individual needs. And so listening and then the assessment itself, and then going forward with the whole transition of what does that person need in the short term, which is obviously safety, right?

Janet Engel (17:26.114)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (17:26.491)
and in the long term, which is quality of life, which everyone is entitled to. Everyone is entitled to that.

Janet Engel (17:30.05)
Mm -hmm. Right on. Right.

I can imagine that it must be very anxiety producing and stressful for you to be taking away someone's things, especially when they attribute a lot of importance to having things. So how do you deal with the emotional and the psychological aspect of decluttering for people who have a disorder?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (17:59.899)
It's a, it's, it's the, it's the, it's an art. It's really an art and it's an art in communication. And, and also the reason I say it's an art is because you have to have a vision for this individual's life. You have to be really creative and empathetic.

Janet Engel (18:07.33)
It's a...

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (18:30.331)
And you cannot or you can if you impose your own belief system or if you impose what you think this person should be doing, then you probably are going to fail. And it's not going to be an easy journey as a practitioner to do that. You're going to have some resistance. You're not going to buy in. So it's an art in the sense that you want the person to be whole. You want the best for this person.

you've got to think about all of the conditions of how they think what their belief system is. Does that make sense? And I think one of the most difficult ones is not necessarily lack of insight. You would think, that's just a fight. You see that on the show, those fights. For me and for our crews,

Janet Engel (19:03.874)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (19:25.371)
It's the ones that lose their loved ones. It's the bereavement cases where, you know, maybe they weren't even the person with the clutter. Maybe it was their husband that did all that, you know, and they're left with it. Or if it's the adult children that now have lost their parent and they're dealing with the whole family house and they have to go through it and there's four or five siblings and they're all fighting and, you know, and it's just that connection like...

How do you deal with coaching someone through their possessions in the moment of grief? And so grief has a timeline. And so it's really a delicate art form to know when is, go for the low hanging fruit, go for the obvious stuff, you know, first.

in those situations. But it is very, very, very complicated. But man, when you get it right, it's amazing when you get it right. So beautiful.

Janet Engel (20:36.77)
So a leading question to that is can you tell us about a success story that you had with someone or with specifically an older adult that after you transformed their space, how it improved their quality of life?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (20:52.055)
I will and I can tell you that Auggie wants to participate too so I apologize if he's gonna pitch in here. One of my favorite stories is about Auggie is...

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (21:13.307)
One of my favorite stories is this gal that was in Queens, New York and her only son was in, he was a interfaith minister in California. Hadn't seen his mom in a long time. And the notice from the landlord came in and we went in there and bless our heart, it was, it was over the top. Not just with contents. It was just the roach infestation was beyond belief.

Janet Engel (21:42.882)
Yeah.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (21:43.035)
This gal was as nice as she could be and completely isolated, even though she's in a building. And she said, and what was clear was she had lost her sense of smell and she had cataracts. So everything she sees is yellow. I love this story because you learn a lot through this case. So if everything she sees is yellow and she loses her sense of smell, did she smell the roaches? Did she see the, maybe the contents, but she didn't see the filth.

Janet Engel (22:01.346)
Yeah.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (22:12.507)
She didn't smell the filth. Anyway, so we're working with her and she was just so happy to have company, right? So happy to have help. So one of the questions we ask is, have you ever thought to live anywhere else? And she's like, no, but you know, I go see my, all my friends are dead except for this one. And I love going to lunch with her. She's at the, you know, at the, what you call it, not the nursing home, but at the old folks home of the street.

So you ever think about living there? And she's like, I would love to live there. And so would you really? Like if we could get you a bed, like we can get you a room, you would really move there. She's like, yeah, I would do that. I mean, she has fun all the time. I love the food there. And it was like, well, let me give it a try. So I call and sure enough, they had a room. They had, I said, later in lunch, I said, you want to take a little trip? And it's like within a few miles we go.

Janet Engel (23:11.266)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (23:12.091)
We take a tour. She signed up right away. The son was like, you've got to be kidding. I never even thought she would ever move. I never thought she would move. Next thing we know, six months later, we get this letter. And he's like, and it's really emotional just how, how much we can help people. He's like, my mother does yoga. You know, she does yoga. She's playing bridge. She's like 10 years younger.

Like I don't worry about her like I used to and I never would have thought she would ever move. And so it just, you never know, right? I love that story because it shows the possibility. We didn't say what she should do. We asked her, would you consider something like this? And I think that was a great experience. So yeah, exactly. Meet them where they are.

Janet Engel (23:56.61)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (24:01.026)
Yeah, you made her part of the solution.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (24:07.547)
Listen to what their needs are and follow that. Follow that. Let them drive.

Janet Engel (24:14.37)
Yeah. So what role do family members play and caregivers in addressing these hoarding behaviors in their loved ones?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (24:26.363)
So that was a really, really happy and obviously rare situation because what really happens more every day is that the caregivers and the family members are helpless. You know, they don't, I'm sorry, they're helpless and they don't have support and they can't.

do it, they can't force themselves, they can't force, you know, and their hands are dry. You know, that's, it's really, really unfortunate that they don't have more support. And not just adult, not just the spouses and the family members, but the adult children. So there are children that are actually living in these conditions and more and more there's a support and, you know, children of

Janet Engel (25:19.714)
Mm -hmm, yeah.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (25:24.291)
Children of adult children of hoarders. That's another support group. And so they they really don't have the voice that they need and deserve. It's distrable.

Janet Engel (25:31.618)
Bye.

Janet Engel (25:35.362)
Yeah, and I saw a situation like that. Melissa, you know I worked in home health many years. And one of the homes that I went to, it was, the patient was the older lady living there. Her adult daughter lived there. And then she had two very young children, a toddler and a baby. And the first time I went to the home,

No one answered the door and I looked through the window to see if I could see any movement and I just saw a bunch of trash on the floor and I thought well This can't be it. I Thought this must be an abandoned house well when I rescheduled my appointment turns out I was at the right address and when I went into the house I

there were just things everywhere on the floor. You couldn't see the floor. And you had a toddler that was walking around, you know, and you know, toddlers put everything in their mouth. And I thought, what a dangerous situation. And how unfortunate because like you said, that especially young children have no control over what their environment looks like.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (26:34.139)
Right.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (26:55.227)
Right.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (26:58.619)
Yeah, same with animals, you know, same with animals. And what's unfortunate about that in animal hoarding isn't that too isn't, there's not really a spotlight on that like there should be. However, if you have 20 cats, you know, or you have 40 dogs, or you have, you know, 50 birds, you get some attention, right? But if you have Augie and, you know, Maxine over here, you have these guys.

Janet Engel (27:00.642)
Same with animals.

Janet Engel (27:27.074)
Yeah.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (27:27.643)
one or two and they're living in squat and there's no, there's no help for them either. Right? So it's life, it's the children. I'll tell you another one that is not ever talked about is when you have these multi -generational homes and you have say mom is 90 and has some MCI mild cognitive impairment, but you have an adult child.

Janet Engel (27:34.274)
No.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (27:56.859)
that maybe when these lifespan conditions, schizophrenia or ASD, no one thinks about what does autism look like at 80, right? If you're eight, woo, lots of resources. So you have someone with special needs as an aging adult with the senior or the, you know, who is,

Janet Engel (28:02.562)
Mm -hmm. Okay.

Janet Engel (28:12.674)
Right, right.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (28:27.067)
really has HD hoarding disorder, who's showing up for that? You know, so unless they end up on the radar screen, you know, meaning the municipality, right? And maybe it's the blight, maybe it's the neighbors calling because of this mice infestation. Unless they get called, you know what happens? Fire. They die. Yeah, they will die there. They will die.

Janet Engel (28:48.77)
Right.

Janet Engel (28:52.578)
fire.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (28:56.699)
there. And this is one of the things that I feel so passionate about is how many, how there's a, we have a very big problem that we can't address it. There's not enough public awareness. There is, the show has been, the audience show has been great because a lot of people now, there's an awareness that this condition exists.

But from a public health standpoint, there isn't much that they can do to solve the problem. There isn't much you can do. If a municipality goes in and condemns the house, in that scenario I just mentioned, where do they go? Who pays for that? Even if they have resources, where do you go when you need to displace somebody? And that's one of the...

one of the many complications we have with hoarding behaviors, addressing hoarding behaviors, not just in the United States, but it's not really unique to just us. It's global.

Janet Engel (30:02.818)
huh.

Right, right. I mean, obviously anyone from any culture could develop or have those hoarding tendencies. So Melissa, what can we do in terms of professionals in healthcare and mental health support? How can we provide that support for individuals with a hoarding disorder in an effective manner?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (30:35.579)
So my, what I like to share with all professionals and people who come across these hoarding behaviors, one, as a required reporter, and not all of us are, professional organizers are not required reporters, report, report. And the reason you need to report is you're probably gonna save a life. You know, don't.

Janet Engel (30:51.778)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (31:03.938)
Mm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (31:05.563)
just absolutely report. On the other side, there's such an overload on, you know, in the municipality, social workers, caseload, it's just, it's overwhelming, but it's something that you need to do. The other thing is that what I think would really change the landscape for all of us out in the field is to work together, right? So occupational therapists, social workers, case workers,

Medical doctors, when you go in, they should be asking their patients, especially their older adults, they should be asking, what's it like at home? You know, are you sleeping in your bed? Are you sleeping on the couch? Are you, you know, do you have a maid's, is it tidy? Like you should inquire, like if they're, how their living conditions are. But working together, all medical professionals having an integrative collaborative approach.

Janet Engel (31:36.194)
Mm -mm.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (32:03.355)
I think is one of the best ways to help. And then as far as professional organizers go, find out who the professional organizers are in your area and focus on the credentials and partner up with a professional organizer. Because the professional organizer is going to have, there's a lot of overlap between the social worker and the occupational therapist and a professional organizer. But working.

Janet Engel (32:07.97)
huh.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (32:32.475)
in tandem, then it's more effective and you'll get better results.

And you'll learn from each other, like in certain cases, what works well, what type of methodologies or treatment would work well when there's a team approach. I think that's how we help each other help others. I think that's very effective.

Janet Engel (32:51.938)
Melissa, tell us about the petition that you have, that I have up on the screen right now.

Janet Engel (33:09.25)
Melissa, can you tell us about the petition I have up on the screen that you created?

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (33:16.251)
Yeah, so I finally got the courage to put this out in the universe. Obviously, I have a little passion behind my career, a little passion, high energy passion. And so I had this in my mind for over a decade. And that was in line with just the last question that I think there should be a designation of a licensed

Janet Engel (33:23.202)
Okay.

Janet Engel (33:29.41)
Yes.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (33:44.763)
professional organizer and a licensed professional organizer would be everything that you just heard me say, but able to navigate and pull all the resources together for an individual or a case. A licensed, an LPO would be able to be employed by a municipality.

Janet Engel (33:58.53)
Melissa, can you hear us?

Esther C Kane, CAPS, C.D.S. (34:02.182)
she froze.

Janet Engel (34:05.41)
Shefra.

Esther C Kane, CAPS, C.D.S. (34:07.142)
Technology is great when it works.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (34:14.683)
be able to be employed by so many other different areas that will help relieve the public health crisis that we're having. And then this was all a result of a request for information from the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging. And so that petition that you have in front of you, if your viewers wouldn't mind to look at that, read through that.

Janet Engel (34:14.818)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (34:37.058)
Yes.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (34:40.891)
read our response to the petition and you'll see in very specific detail how having a licensed professional organizer as an allied health profession will help take hoarding disorder from crisis to prevention.

Janet Engel (34:58.626)
huh. Okay. Well, great. Yes, there's a lot of information here. And I went to your link and I signed the petition a few weeks ago. And I would love to also share it on my LinkedIn profile. And we can even share it on our website.

And I will definitely post it on in the show notes for this podcast episode so people can go in there and read about it and if they want to sign the petition and support your LPO which I think is a great idea because Working in home health for so many years. I know that this is such a big problem

So many people have unsafe homes and these fall hazards that could be avoided if you would just remove clutter. And then like you said, it's not just the clutter, it's also having the air quality in your home is going to be affected and that's going to affect your health. And as we get older,

A lot of us have a condition that's called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And not being unhealthy, air quality is definitely going to keep you from being able to age in place and living with quality of life. So, so important.

Thank you, Melissa, for sharing all of your knowledge. And I know you mentioned the show Hoarders several times. I want our listeners to know that you have been a consultant for the show Hoarders and other shows for many, many years. So you just have tons of experience and have really seen extreme cases and helped these extreme cases that we've seen on TV.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (37:13.083)
Yeah, and thank you for having me. I feel so passionate that there is a solution that will be able to finally have the families out there, the consumers out there will have a choice in consumer protection as well as practitioner protection. And then back to the petition, this is through...

change .com and they ask for money. Do not even feel like you need to put a dollar through this. That's just, that's for them to promote just a signature. And then I had, you'll see a little video there, a professional organizer whom I have not even met before. She went ahead and posted a video. So if you don't, if you really feel strongly that after you read all this, that you're in this, not only, cause this is going to the United States,

Senate Special Committee on Aging. This is who the petition is going to. If you feel also that you have more to add, please add your video and add some comments to that because that's who our audience is on this so that we can legislate for an LPO that we can help alleviate some of these caseloads in public health areas.

So thank you so much for having me again. And if anyone has any questions or wants to talk or just needs a resource, you can always find me at americasmostorganized .com and we will respond right away.

Janet Engel (38:57.986)
Yes, and I will provide Melissa's email as well as the link to her website where you can get in contact with her. Well, thank you, Melissa, and I wish you lots of success with your LPO. I think it is really something that is needed and would just help not just the people who are living in these environments, but also their caregivers.

Melissa Hladek, Certified Senior Advisor, Certified Professional Organizer (39:26.747)
and each other and us. This is for us. This is a us thing. Thank you. Have a good weekend.

Janet Engel (39:28.566)
And that's it.

Thank you, Elissa. You too.