FIREFIGHTERS have been confronted by hoarding or squalor at one Melbourne home every four days in one six month period.

And the Metropolitan Fire Bridge is receiving up to five referrals a week for properties to be placed on its Hoarding Notification System.

MFB’s Julie Harris said the more people learnt about the issue, the more widely it had been reported.

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A recent study, covering the two years to April this year, says the MFB is seeing a significant increase in reported hoarding or squalor-related incidents.

In the first six months of the study, firefighters attended an incident every nine days in the metropolitan area where hoarding or squalor was identified. In the last six months of the study, the rate was one incident every four days.

On average there was one incident every seven days — twice the frequency identified in a similar study completed in 2012.

There were 102 incidents across 66 Melbourne suburbs over the two years, of which 58 were fires.

The remainder included false alarms, emergency medical calls, as well as incidents such as lock-ins, lockouts or work assisting Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria.

Seven of the incidents involved a dead person, only one of which was a fire-related death.

The study says that hoarding and squalor have emerged as significant fire and health risks in recent years.

“If you live in a property affected by these sorts of things it’s going to be harder to escape on your own and for firefighters to find you,” Ms Harris said.

Ms Harris said research showed the fires were also harder to contain to one room.

Husband and wife team Lorinda and Steve Penn have been cleaning hoarding and squalor-affected homes for the past 3.5 years through their business TACT Bio-recovery.

They said it was a growing part of their cleaning business, making up about 80 per cent of their work.

Some of the properties the Penns have been called to include:

A TWO-bedroom unit which had rubbish spilling out the front door. The front door could not be closed and the occupant, in his mid-50s, was sleeping on a bed covered with things. Ms Penn had to climb onto a mountain of rubbish that went three-quarters of the way up the wall to get inside the unit. “I took photos on top of the mountain inside. I didn’t go any further — I was scared it was going to collapse on me.” It would have cost an estimated $20,000 to clean up;

A WOMAN who was living with 15 indoor cats for four years. Cat faeces was piled all over the floors;

A WOMAN who was constantly calling an electrician to replace rat-chewed wiring. Eventually the electrician told her that he couldn’t do anything without access to all the power-points. “She didn’t want us to do anything in the house, we were not able to throw anything out,” Mr Penn said. “We had to just make a pathway to the power-points and light switches so the electrician could get in and test the wiring. In that property there were dog faeces, dog bones on the floor, there was general squalor and mess throughout the house.”

A PROPERTY where no-one, apart from the occupant, had gone inside for 12 years. It was rat and mouse infested. “The vermin had moved in and taken over,” Mr Penn said;

A HOUSE where the occupants could no longer get into the kitchen cupboards. They contained cans of food that had rusted away and slabs of soft drink that had evaporated;

A RAT infested home where 70 cubic metres of rubbish was carted away. This would equate to about 140 6x4 trailer loads; and,

A HOUSE that took four people two weeks to clean out.

Mr Penn said they saw hoarding of all different sorts of property — from kitchen appliances, to newspapers, letters or animals.

Mr Penn said some homes had to be bulldozed, while others had everything removed back to the wall studs due to staining and smell.

In some homes people had dirty plates piled up then went and bought new ones or used paper plates. In others people slept with goods all over their beds.

The Herald Sun visited Mr Penn at a clean-up job in Melbourne last week where every centimetre of the house was covered in paper. The former occupant suffered a phobia of toxins.

Expert in hoarding Professor Michael Kyrios said he suspected that as people became less connected in society, people would rely more and more on “stuff” to give them that sense of pleasure.

“This is an area of high community visibility. It does not surprise me that more and more reports are being seen,” Prof Kyrios said.

There had been some great results in supporting hoarders, but treatment had to be a priority. Commonly the treatment lasted 18 to 26 weeks, he said.

Prof Kyrios, the president of the Australian Psychological Society and research director at Australian National University’s School of Psychology, developed a program at Swinburne University for hoarders.

It works with people to educate them about hoarding, modify their thinking about possessions, show them how to organise their home, expose them to shopping trips without buying things and teach them emotion management techniques.

Relapse prevention is a critical part of the program.

Most people attend 14-16 sessions and an online follow-up program is being trialled.

Hoarding Disorder was official recognised last year, but Prof Kyrios said hoarding could also be a symptom of a range of other mental health problems.

Hoarding could be caused by mood problems or because of biological, personality or developmental factors, he said.

Prof Kyrios said for some compulsive acquisition of goods was a way to cope with their mood problems or to provide a sense of security. Some hoarders reported a lack of warmth in their families growing up. Others had parents who were hoarders or were prone to throw things away.

“A great proportion of people with hoarding problems are just not organised,” Prof Kyrios said.

“Because people with hoarding problems have such emotional attachment to the objects and can’t categorise them and can’t organise them, it becomes clutter.”

He said the number one rule when dealing with a hoarder was “don’t touch it without permission”.

The MFB takes referrals from agencies for its Hoarding Notification System so that firefighters are alerted to the risks if they are ever called to the property.

Firefighters who attend houses where hoarding and squalor are present also make referrals to other agencies to try to support the resident.

The MFB study, conducted by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, found that the majority of people identified in hoarding or squalor incidents were over 65 years.

Out of the 58 fires, the most common causes were electrical, heat/open flame and cooking.

The 2014 study included 17 false alarms and multiple incidents at the same address, which were not done in the 2012 study.

shelley.hadfield@news.com.au

Twitter: @shelleyhadfield