Collector, Clutterer, or Hoarder? Understanding the Difference — and What to Do About It in South Africa

By Marylou Bawden, founder of Clear Path Senior Move Managers

In my work helping seniors downsize and relocate across Johannesburg and Gauteng, one word comes up more than almost any other: hoarder. Family members use it, retirement village staff use it, and frankly, most of the time, it isn’t accurate. Hoarding is a specific psychological condition — and confusing it with collecting or cluttering leads to the wrong approach, the wrong conversations, and sometimes real damage to a family relationship.

So let’s clear this up properly. Collector, clutterer, hoarder — here is what each actually means, how to tell them apart, and what each situation calls for.

What is a collector – is collecting a problem?

When I hear that someone is labelled a hoarder I immediately want to find out and understand exactly what we are dealing with.  People use the terms hoarding, collecting and cluttering interchangeably and loosely but they are very different things, that come from very different mindsets and the outcome is a very different result.  

It is important to start off by clarifying that having a collection of toy cars or having some cluttered shelves does not make you a hoarder.  When there are hundreds of used plastic packets or piles and piles of old newspapers; when an entrance is blocked or there is excess cat litter in the home – this is hoarding. 

Here is a breakdown of what each term means and how each can be dealt with.  We hope that this will help you to better understand them and to give both the term and the person affected by it the respect or attention that it requires.  

What is a clutterer — and how do you help one?

A Collector is a positive term.  It is done with intent and can give great pleasure and purpose to the person.  A collector collects something very specific… Silver snuff boxes, limited edition baseball cards or perhaps vintage cars.  For the collector, the joy comes in the treasure hunt of searching.  Collecting can be a wonderful hobby and can give you a great opportunity to socialise with like-minded people.

For families helping an elderly parent downsize in South Africa, clutter is actually the most common scenario — and the most manageable. The challenge isn’t the person’s attachment to things; it’s the sheer volume of what’s accumulated over decades, and the physical and emotional energy required to work through it. This is where a professional organiser can make an enormous difference — not by forcing decisions, but by providing structure, pace, and a calm, non-judgmental presence.

What is hoarding — and why is it different from clutter?

A Clutterer is someone who is untidy, disorganised and generally messy. They keep things that they may or may not need.  They often aren’t fully aware of what exactly is in their cluttered garage or storeroom but at the same time, they don’t have an emotional attachment to what is in there and so if there is a real need or purpose they don’t usually have too many issues getting rid of it in one way or another.  They may need some assistance to physically do the work, or to action, the steps of removing it but the process of letting go of these items is generally on a manageable stress level.

Hoarder

Hoarding, on the other hand, is considerably different. Hoarding means to keep, collect and store large amounts of items that either have absolutely no value or are, in fact, trash.  Hoarding is not a conscious decision of ‘Oh, that’s nice, let me keep it’ or ‘that might come in handy one day, let me find a place to store it’.  Hoarding is when someone is compelled to keep, or has a compulsive need to store items.  

Hoarding is the outward result of a psychological condition and should not be tackled lightly.

Hoarding is the outward result of a psychological condition and should not be tackled lightly.  Clearing out a hoarder’s home successfully is a process that may have to begin with getting psychological help for the person.  Hoarding is classified into five levels and can range from Level 1 where there are some areas with excess clutter and some areas of the home that are not able to be fully utilised through to Level 5 where the home is structurally unsound, the utilities may not be in working order, entrances or whole rooms are blocked.   

So the next time that you look at your mom’s collection of china elephants that are displayed on her mantelpiece acknowledge the joy that they have given her over the years and the stories she can tell about where she came across each one.  But if your parent has a room in her home that they don’t want you to see or get enormously stressed when you try and throw an empty milk bottle out then it may well be time to start looking a little deeper. Collector, clutterer, hoarder! Which one are you?

I’ll talk more about the levels of hoarding in my next article.

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