42 Remsen: Lightning Strikes Twice
File under: Gigantic Bummer. It’s been a rough six months over at 42 Remsen Street. First there was a fire over Thanksgiving weekend forced residents to move out. The cause: Apparently, according to comments on Brooklyn Heights Blog, there’s an older woman who lives on the top floor of the co-op who hoards piles of…
File under: Gigantic Bummer. It’s been a rough six months over at 42 Remsen Street. First there was a fire over Thanksgiving weekend forced residents to move out. The cause: Apparently, according to comments on Brooklyn Heights Blog, there’s an older woman who lives on the top floor of the co-op who hoards piles of cardboard and paper in her apartment which was the source of the fire. Fast forward to late March: The top-floor resident was the first to move back into her apartment but before anyone else could return, she started another fire, this one even more damaging than the first. “The family that lives on the ground and parlor floors, who financed the rebuilding of the outside staircase which won them building a Heights Assn award a few years back and had a very, very nice apartment were understandably beside themselves,” according to a commenter named Jo Ann. Any other details about this tragic story? Is there anything co-op members can do to remove a problem resident? GMAP P*Shark
My very good friends have a building in Brooklyn Heights for 30 years and for all that time they have had a very colorful old dame with a rent controlled apartment, very smart and imperious, who lived in the house since the late 1940s. She is now 95, still colorful, smart and imperious and a world class hoarder. Her hoarding has gotten worse and her age and increasing forgetfulness terrify my friends. The owner is a very level headed individual, also very kind who keeps a close eye on her and trys to convince her to throw this or that out and is regularly engaged with her. His battle extends to the hallway where things occasionally show up. She now has volunteers from several organizations who visit her and help her by the endless and emotional (for her) process of sorting out her magazines, family heirlooms, clothes and try to straighten enough for her to move around. She was hospitalized for a while and a relative came and started tossing out stuff but she is back to her apartment and her old ways. A previous poster mentioned Adult Protective services which is a good thing to know.
Between 18% to 42% of OCD patients have hoarding and saving compulsions; and about 10-20% of all OCD patients are thought to have compulsive hoarding as their most prominent and distressing type of OCD. This means there are between of 600,000 to 1.2 million people who hoard in the United States alone. Dr. Randy Frost and colleagues argue persuasively that hoarding and saving symptoms are part of a discrete clinical syndrome that also includes indecisiveness, perfectionism, procrastination, difficulty organizing tasks, and avoidance. OCD patients who have hoarding and saving as their most prominent and distressing type of OCD and show these other associated symptoms are considered to have the compulsive hoarding syndrome.
Compulsive hoarding is most commonly driven by obsessional fears of losing important items that the patient believes will be needed later, distorted beliefs about the importance of possessions, and excessive emotional attachments to possessions. Hoarders usually fear making “wrong decisions” about what to discard and what to keep, so they acquire and save items to prepare for every imaginable contingency. Two types of saving have been identified: instrumental saving, where possessions fulfill a specific desire or purpose, and sentimental saving, where possessions represent extensions of the self. Compulsive hoarding is further conceptualized as an avoidance behavior tied to indecisiveness and perfectionism. By saving possessions, the compulsive hoarder postpones making the decision to discard something and therefore, avoids experiencing anxiety about making a mistake or being less than perfectly prepared. The most commonly saved items include newspapers, magazines, old clothing, bags, books, mail, notes, and lists. Living spaces become so cluttered that they cannot be used for the activities for which they were designed, causing significant impairment in social and/or occupational functioning.
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Loved ones often think that part of their job should be to throw items away. We tend to minimize this aspect of their role, because we believe that people with hoarding problems can best overcome the problem by doing it themselves. Obviously, some items may be large or heavy, and the person will require some physical help carrying them out. But if the loved one finds that they are discarding items while the person with the hoarding problem sits and watches, it is likely that the clutter will begin to grow again as quickly as it was removed.
http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/index.php
I do not think they will have legal trouble evicting the lady on Remsen Street. She is not a renter, she is a shareholder. And she was occupying the apartment illegally when she started the second fire. The apartment had not yet been made habitable following the first fire.
In my opinion, she should have been arrested.
A friend of mine lived in a building in Manhattan that had a rent-controlled/rent-stabilized tenant (not sure which) who started a fire that destroyed a number of apartments in the building. The guy was smoking in bed, woke up in time to realize he started a fire, and ran out of the building without alerting anyone or calling 911. He did have the presence of mind to take his dog out of the apartment, which he tied to the iron gate in front of the building and abandoned. (Nice guy.) Luckily, no one was hurt but the building sustained major damage to a number of apartments. They had no trouble at all evicting him so I’m not sure why it would be difficult to oust this firebug, even though she’s rent-controlled. Do they need to wait until she kills someone?
We had an elderly woman that was also a hoarder. She died in our building two years ago come July, and they still have not fixed the place up. The fire brigade had to break in her door due to the six feet high walls of stuff. When they were able to get inside it was amazing that the floor did not collapse, and the smell from her rotting body was vile. The oddest part was that even her bathroom was packed solid with books and other items to the point where it was impossible to get inside the room. She had a gas-powered refrigerator (!) and was very paranoid of anyone.
Hoarders are a threat to themselves and others but given the low-priority of mental health services these incidents are doomed to repeat themselves.
Couldn’t someone charge with her with criminal negligence? I don’t think anyone would want her to actually be convicted, but it could be enough of a scare to force a compromise and get her out.
http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/
Before the early 1990’s, there was virtually no research on compulsive hoarding. Since then, interest in this topic has increased dramatically among research scientists and clinicians. As a result of recent media coverage of hoarding, interest among sufferers and family members has increased as well.
http://www.gothamist.com/2003/10/28/collyer_bros_pack_rats_to_end_all_pack_rats.php
Although it takes a long time, you could try Adult Protective Services. There are also mental health outreach teams (mobile crisis unit) that could more quickly go into the home to do an assessment. If she is really confused or they deem her to be a danger due to hoarding and risk of fire, they could potentially have her hospitalized, which could lead to placement in a supervised facility (doubtful). Kings County might have a mobile crisis team.
where’s Peter Braunstein when you need him?