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Welcome to \u201cApartment Department,\u201d Curbed\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Got a problem? Email\u00a0clio.chang@nymag.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want to see her lose her home.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s good for everyone to keep a clean building, but if she is indeed hoarding\u00a0then it\u2019s hard to imagine she\u2019s able to give you what she can\u2019t even give herself. This is a pickle.<\/p>\n Housing in the city is a fragile commodity, so it\u2019s understandable why you\u2019d 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\u2019s 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<\/a> that works with people with hoarding disorders in the city, suggests starting with a simple conversation. But how you do it is crucial: \u201cIf I go up to them and am like, \u2018I notice your apartment is hoarded, can I clear it out?,\u2019 they\u2019re gonna be like, \u2018I ain\u2019t talking to you ever,\u2019\u201d 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: \u201cI\u2019m having issues with mice in my place. Are you? Want me to leave any traps at your door?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the language of \u2018I would like to support you,\u2019 not \u2018I wanna change you,\u2019\u201d BadiaEspinal says.<\/p>\n This also might be a good time to note that \u201choarder\u201d 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\u2019s not like there\u2019s an easy, one-time fix here. <\/strong>BadiaEspinal said she dealt with a case where a daughter was concerned with her mother\u2019s safety because of her hoarding. The daughter had to be extremely patient \u2014 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.<\/p>\n It\u2019s understandable, of course, that you might not want to get too involved with your neighbor\u2019s 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\u2019re 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\u2019re really concerned, and speaking to your neighbor hasn\u2019t helped, another route you might consider is seeing what community groups your neighbor is a part of \u2014 a church, a senior center \u2014 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 \u2014 another agency that might have guidance or advice.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014\u00a0so make sure you\u2019ve 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\u2019t ideal, but it\u2019s also just one example on a long list of building issues anyone might have to deal with. It\u2019s 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\u2019t get to pick who you live near. \u201cIt\u2019s a reality of New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s say you\u2019ve tried all of the above and it\u2019s gotten you nowhere. The problem with reporting her \u2014 either to your landlord or the Department of Health \u2014 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.<\/p>\n But if you feel there are actual hazardous conditions that need to be addressed and report the issue to your landlord, you\u2019ll 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 \u201creasonable accommodations\u201d 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: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to look pristine \u2014 they\u2019re not gonna invite Martha Stewart over for tea,\u201d Pagano said. \u201cIt can look jumbled, it just has to be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Have a question for the Apartment Department? You can send it to clio.chang@nymag.com.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n