Illustration: Emma Erickson

Welcome to “Apartment Department,” Curbed’s advice column by Clio Chang. Join us every other Wednesday for questions about making peace with noisy-sex neighbors, the nuances of roommate fridge etiquette, and whatever else you might need to know about renting, buying, or crying in the New York City housing market.

Got a problem? Email clio.chang@nymag.com.

Do I report the very kind hoarder who lives next door to me? I worry about her apartment attracting mice to our floor (there are mice in the building), but I like her a lot and obviously don’t want to see her lose her home. 

Living in New York City requires a constant negotiation between what we owe our neighbors and what our neighbors owe us. In an ideal world, you and your neighbor would have a mutual understanding about why it’s good for everyone to keep a clean building, but if she is indeed hoarding then it’s hard to imagine she’s able to give you what she can’t even give herself. This is a pickle.

Housing in the city is a fragile commodity, so it’s understandable why you’d want to be cautious about reporting her. I am sensing from your question that your goal is not to get your neighbor kicked out of her apartment but to get her place in order enough that it’s not causing problems for you (or her, really). Have you talked to her at all? An obvious question but one worth asking before we move on to approaches that escalate the problem beyond a neighbor-to-neighbor thing. Sujenie BadiaEspinal, a social worker and director of Project ORE, an organization that works with people with hoarding disorders in the city, suggests starting with a simple conversation. But how you do it is crucial: “If I go up to them and am like, ‘I notice your apartment is hoarded, can I clear it out?,’ they’re gonna be like, ‘I ain’t talking to you ever,’” she tells me. Start with something casual, she says. The idea is to establish a good relationship with your neighbor so that they might let you into their life a little more to help. It might sound like: “I’m having issues with mice in my place. Are you? Want me to leave any traps at your door?” “It’s the language of ‘I would like to support you,’ not ‘I wanna change you,’” BadiaEspinal says.

This also might be a good time to note that “hoarder” is considered a derogatory term among professionals in the field. And hoarding is a DSM-recognized mental-health disorder, not just a bad habit, so it’s not like there’s an easy, one-time fix here. BadiaEspinal said she dealt with a case where a daughter was concerned with her mother’s safety because of her hoarding. The daughter had to be extremely patient — working first to have her mother let her into the apartment, and then asking to help clear up small sections over time. The slower she went, the more her mother trusted her to let her help.

It’s understandable, of course, that you might not want to get too involved with your neighbor’s affairs. Consider the extent of the issue. Do you know if there are stacks of newspapers inside their apartment causing a fire hazard? Are there horrible smells wafting around? Has there been a notable uptick in mice activity? If you’re able to identify some of what might be going on in there, ask yourself: Is it something you can live with or is it an imminent safety issue? If you’re really concerned, and speaking to your neighbor hasn’t helped, another route you might consider is seeing what community groups your neighbor is a part of — a church, a senior center — and speaking with people there to get advice and support. You could also call the Department of Health to see if they have any resources available, or Adult Protective Services — another agency that might have guidance or advice.

This also might be an opportunity to think about the building more holistically. Even if your neighbor is hoarding, is the issue with mice building-wide? Is your landlord doing enough to take care of the building as a whole? Talking to your neighbor and untangling whatever is going on over there is a big lift — so make sure you’ve also taken the first step of pushing your landlord meet their obligations when it comes to exterminators and dealing with pests in the building in general. BadiaEspinal pointed out that living next to someone who hoards isn’t ideal, but it’s also just one example on a long list of building issues anyone might have to deal with. It’s equally possible that you have another neighbor who, say, never does his dishes and never lets the exterminator in who could be just as much a part of the issue here. You don’t get to pick who you live near. “It’s a reality of New York City.”

Now let’s say you’ve tried all of the above and it’s gotten you nowhere. The problem with reporting her — either to your landlord or the Department of Health — is that it might make your neighbor distrust you and it might not resolve the issue of her hoarding. Even if someone were able to go in and forcibly clean out her apartment, it could just get hoarded again.

But if you feel there are actual hazardous conditions that need to be addressed and report the issue to your landlord, you’ll have to accept that this may lead to an eviction. But if your landlord goes that route, your neighbor has certain protections under the Fair Housing Act (where hoarding is considered a disability), like the right to request “reasonable accommodations” to resolve the situation. Anne Pagano, a social worker and executive director of the Hoarding Disorder Resource and Training Group, said that this means they can get assistance and extra time to get their apartment in order. But manage expectations here, too: “It doesn’t have to look pristine — they’re not gonna invite Martha Stewart over for tea,” Pagano said. “It can look jumbled, it just has to be safe.”

Have a question for the Apartment Department? You can send it to clio.chang@nymag.com.

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