"Grief made me start hoarding"
BBC News has published a moving piece on Jayne, a 75 year old widow from Newport whose grief led her to hoard so severely she could only sleep on half her bed.
Jayne, a 75 year old widow from Newport who began hoarding after her husband died almost 30 years ago. She told the BBC that shopping and collecting became a way of finding pleasure again while she raised her two teenage children on her own, and that the items she brought home eventually piled her bedroom four feet high, forcing her to sleep on one half of her bed.
The article focuses on the work of Holistic Hoarding, a charity supporting people across south east Wales. Rather than the usual approach of clearing everything to landfill, the charity helps people repurpose and rehome their items, in Jayne’s case donating boxes to Hawthorn Primary School in Cardiff. Founder Kayley Hyman told the BBC that enforced clearances without therapeutic support carry a 97% relapse rate.