Mr. Flood’s Last Resort by Jess Kidd

Mr. Flood’s Last Resort by Jess Kidd – 340 p.

Caregiver Maud Drennan is assigned to look after Cathal Flood, the non-bathing, crotchety hoarder who inhabits a crumbling mansion in West London. Maud uses good sense and snarky humor to cover up her tragic past, and ends up uncovering Cathal’s family’s unsavory history. Lovely language, a fully realized cast of sympathetic misfits and a cracking plot make this novel a winner. I look forward to reading the author’s novel Himself.

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee, 290 pages

Stuff is a fascinating book about compulsive hoarding.  The book contains specific cases that go into great detail about each individual and what event in his or her life may have triggered the hoarding.   Hoarding not only affects women, but also many men too.  The book starts out by asking "What would be the first item you grab in a fire?" Hoarders might really struggle with this question.  Not only that, but hoarders often live in homes where there is no escape route, among the "goat trails", and sometimes die among their treasures.  Although this book was written in 2010, hoarding will always be an "illness" people have to learn to cope with in their lives.  This book touches on "What happens when our stuff starts to own us?" and is a book every hoarder should read.

The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories Of Tackling Extreme Clutter by Matt Paxton with Phaedra Hise

The Secret Lives Of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter by Matt Paxton with Phaedra Hise, 238 pages

If you like the Hoarders television show on A&E, you will enjoy this book. Matt Paxton is an extreme cleaner and organizing expert who appears on the television show regularly.  Written in 2011, I found this book fascinating. Matt details how he became an extreme cleaner when he found himself with a huge gambling debt.  In this book, he writes about some of the most ugly, disgusting, and shocking hoards he has encountered.   What I like about this book is that not only does he describe the hoards, but also what brought these people to become hoarders.  One of the most fascinating cases described in the book was one where he found $13,000 in cash while cleaning up a rat's nest.