Clutter can be really paralizing for many people and unfortunately, it can be deadly in some instances. Today's headlines covered two stories involving clutter, fire and death. One in Nebraska and one in New York. Unfortunately, it is so common that many fire departments even have a term for it. They call a home that is dangerously cluttered by the code name "Collyers mansion."
So what is a Collyer mansion?
I first heard of the Collyer brothers when one of my colleagues Ellen Hankes shared a presentation she did for her Toastmasters group. The Collyer brothers lived together in a rather large home in Harlem back in the 1940s. They were collectors and somewhat reclusive. A fire broke out in their home in 1947 and because of all of the clutter, the fire fighters could not get to them and the house went up in flames very quickly. After this blaze, firefighters coined the term "Collyer mansion" to warn other firefighters over their radios of what the situation entailed.
Here are the 2 stories I referenced above:
Three People Die in Fremont House Fire FireFighting News.com - USA
Nebraska - Clothing and other items inside a house hindered rescue efforts this morning as Fremont firefighters battled a house fire that killed a mother ...2 Firefighters Injured In Cluttered NYC House Fire WCBS-TV New York - NY,USA
Ginty was referring to a famous fire in 1947 where the Collyer brothers died in their Harlem brownstone because it was so chock-a-block full of clutter. ...
My personal Collyer mansion experience
Excessive clutter happens for a number of reasons. Sometimes it is situational and sometimes it is something medical that stimulates the accumulation of things. Growing up, I watched as my grandma's house started to pile up. My mom describes the house she grew up in as pristine and very clean. Her mom made sure that you could eat off of the floors.
However, that is not the same description that I would have given the house as I grew up. As grandma aged, she collected more things. She was a child of the depression and a lot of the things that she was taught then really came out as she got older. "Waste not, want not." I also think that as she lost family and friends it made her want to hold onto more. She experienced loss as many of us do - first when her children moved out of the house and then later when siblings, spouse and friends began to pass away.
Things became memories. Things became things that she wanted to finish before she passed away. Things became much more important than they once were. Empty aerosol containers, items left behind by former tenants of her apartments, newspapers she had not gotten around to reading, clothing that once fit, and so on.
It had an effect on the family that was counter to what grandma would have liked too. She loved family and people and wanted them to be around as much as possible. However, the more her house got cluttered, the less her family could be or wanted to be there. There just was no longer room for everyone to sit or even stand in the home. It was jam packed.
There was even one summer (I think somewhere between 5th and 7th grades) that my cousin Karen and I spent an entire week with her and our whole goal was to clear out a room filled with newspapers. We did not get far. . . Most of them were old and grandma felt that they may be worth something and she wanted to read them one last time. One of the reasons that I started studying chronic disorganization with the nsgcd was because I wanted to better understand how my grandma could go from someone that described as a perfectionist, to the woman that I knew and loved.
Do you know of a Collyer mansion?
What are your experiences with spaces that are Collyer mansion like? Is it yours? Is it from someone you know and love? Share your experiences by commenting on my blog.
