An 80-year-old woman was left horrified after discovering the suburban home she had inherited from her cousin was a hoarder's house, filled with decades of rotting debris and filth.
The Shocking Discovery
Eileen Stukane only learned of her cousin Bob's death by chance, nine months after he had passed away in 2016. She and her sister were using a family history website when they stumbled upon a death notice for Bob Stukane, who was 67. When Eileen contacted the funeral home to ask how he died, she was told staff had been trying to find her, as she was the heir to his three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Upon entering the property, which had lain empty for those nine months, Eileen was met with a devastating scene. Every inch of the house was covered in rotting debris and filth, a testament to her cousin's long-standing and secret struggle with hoarding. The pair had not spoken for over a year before his death.
A Life of Trauma and Loneliness
In her new book, The House that Held Everything, Eileen, who was 71 at the time of the discovery, describes her gruelling mission to clear the home. She reveals that Bob's hoarding challenges began decades earlier, following a traumatic assault in a hotel during the 1980s and a serious car crash some years later.
Eileen initially felt anger towards her cousin "for pushing us away and in effect attempting to erase us" after his trauma. Bob, described as a "nomadic soul", was childless and unmarried. However, as she sifted through the overwhelming clutter, her perspective shifted. She found Christmas ornaments, small trees, nutcracker dolls, and craft materials he brought to his church thrift shop.
"To me, that was someone reaching out for happier times, and trying to lift his spirits," Eileen said. "He wanted the Christmas spirit all year long, all by himself. There's a real loneliness connected to hoarding. Someone who is hoarding does not want to live that way."
Restoring Order and Dignity
Despite her initial shock, the determined pensioner took charge. Although Bob had enough money in his accounts to hire one of the more than 20,000 hoarding clearance companies in the US, Eileen stepped in personally to transform the home.
She also arranged a proper burial for Bob at a church in Philadelphia several months after his death, laying the "nomadic soul" to rest beside his parents. "We just wanted to give him the respect that we thought he deserved," Eileen stated. "I felt like we'd done the best job we could... We gave him the dignity that he deserved."
Eileen's story sheds light on a widespread but often hidden mental health condition. Data shows more than 19 million people in the US alone are hoarders. In the UK, estimates suggest 2-5% of the population may have hoarding disorder, which the World Health Organisation classified as a distinct mental health condition in 2018.
The NHS describes hoarding disorder as a condition where someone acquires an excessive number of items and stores them in a chaotic manner, leading to unmanageable clutter, often of little or no monetary value. Eileen Stukane's experience is a powerful call for understanding and for those struggling to seek help.
