Time to read: 13 minutes(s)

"I don't give a damn about these neighbors!"

Garbage collectors have been making life miserable for years, but authorities don't see a problem.

One of my childhood memories: Grandpa Prosha, wearing an oversized coat belted with string, felt boots, and a dirty earflaps hat, rummaging through a trash bin. He dug up a few "treasures," put them in a bag, and moved on to the next one. He lived in the neighboring Stalin-era building, in a three-room apartment with high ceilings. The apartment was crammed full of trash from the dumpster. When people chided him, "Why do you need all this junk?!" he'd reply, "You're young and stupid. When a nuclear war comes, you'll need it all!" When Grandpa Prosha died, housing and communal services workers scooped out seven truckloads of trash through the window and hauled it away. The neighbors couldn't contain their joy.

These "Plyushkins" are hell for their neighbors. This hell is created by their illness. They are lonely, sick people who need treatment. But this usually doesn't happen. Why all the authorities try to "disown" them, we explain in this NeMoskva article.

46 cats and tons of rot

A typical two-room apartment in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Police officer rises In a construction cradle, he climbs to the top floor to speak through the window with his grandfather, who has filled the apartment to the ceiling with trash. The old man doesn't open the door—he's guarding his "riches." There's so much of it that the owner has to navigate a huge pile that ends somewhere near the ceiling. A gas stove and sink, a sofa and toilet, have long been buried beneath the pile. Hundreds of cockroaches, mice, and rats live in the pile.

For years, neighbors complained about the "collector" to the management company, the police, and the municipality, but received no support. After a local TV report aired, they responded. Representatives of the housing department and law enforcement gathered on the scene, and paramedics arrived. The apartment was cleared and promised to be disinfected, and the grandfather was taken away for treatment. The apartment turned out to be municipal property, so the authorities planned to relocate the old man to a two-family house, which is completely vacant. If he resumes his "garbage" activities after treatment, he won't bother anyone.

This kind of "happy ending" is the exception rather than the rule. Agencies bounce weary neighbors back and forth. The municipality and the police point the finger at each other when it comes to responsibility, while the psychiatric team explains: the citizen isn't a danger to others, and he must sign the consent form for hospitalization himself. "He himself" refuses hospitalization. It all ends only naturally—with the death of the garbage dump owner, as happened, for example, in Ryazan. Many years have passed, but the residents of the building on Timakova Street still remember Nadezhda Pavlovna. which came out She left the house wearing only a jacket and defecated anywhere, including on the floor of her house. The apartment was littered with trash, and her legs were sore and ulcerated. None of the numerous ambulances called took her. She died, but no one knew about it until about 10 days later. The neighbors from the floor below soon moved not just to another neighborhood, but to another city.

In the Nizhny Novgorod region alone, three stories about garbage dump regulars aired in July alone, and in two cases, there was no official response or change.

No one has counted how many such grandmothers, grandfathers, and middle-aged people there are by region; there are no such statistics.

Psychotherapist: "It's not a bad habit"

What is garbage collecting? Commenters often suggest that you just need to have a man-to-man talk with the "garbage man," give him a scare, "explain what's what," and cleanliness and order will follow. 

Clinical psychologist, Gestalt therapist, systemic family therapist Elena Barabanova assures that such methods will not help:

— Swearing from neighbors, the arrival of film crews, or the local police officer only exacerbate the problem: a person with the disorder will experience increased anxiety, and all the associated symptoms will become more pronounced.

Hoarding disorder is a mental disorder characterized by hoarding and collecting household items. Previously classified under obsessive-compulsive disorder in the International Classification of Diseases, it was later classified as a separate disorder, "Pathological Hoarding Disorder." The individual's actions are uncontrollable.

According to Barabanova, hoarding is a way to cope with severe anxiety, serious life dramas, and psychological trauma—the death of a loved one, loss of property, social status, and loneliness. The causes vary, ranging from biological (traumatic brain injury) to sociocultural (post-war poverty and the widespread shortages of the 1980s and 1990s). This explains the desire to own as many things as possible.

"In the early stages of hoarding disorder, it's an interesting experience, accompanied by important discoveries. The illusion arises that "I have everything," that "I own it!" This temporarily reduces anxiety. But it doesn't solve the person's underlying psychological and social problems, and after a while, anxiety returns, and they begin searching for new "values." — explains Barabanova. 

People with hoarding syndrome pose only an indirect danger to society. Their "hobby" can cause fires, the spread of cockroaches, mice, rats, and toxic odors. This is unpleasant, but not life-threatening.

Plyushkin's aggression can manifest itself when his boundaries are violated. This happens when neighbors try to "reason" with him.

The final stage of the syndrome is an apartment completely cluttered with trash. At this point, a psychiatrist is essential.

— For many, turning to a psychologist, and especially a psychiatrist, is not only “shameful,” but also “dangerous,” Barabanova discusses the reasons for the appearance of people with Plyushkin syndrome. People still believe that psychiatric treatment will put an end to their lives. Neighbors and colleagues will cut them off. These are prejudices. A culture of psychological support in the country is only just beginning to emerge. Psychologists are now available in kindergartens, schools, and universities. Of course, this support is very minimal, but it's something!

Psychiatrist: "We have the right to treat a patient only with his consent."

A psychiatrist at one of the neuropsychiatric dispensaries with 20 years of experience Galina Pokrovskaya (name changed) calls "Plyushkin syndrome" a symptom of a more serious mental disorder. These disorders can range from the early stages of dementia to organic delusional disorder, to schizophrenia. A "Plyushkin" can also be someone who is simply stingy and had a hard time parting with old things. Some trigger triggered the onset of a painful condition, and the stinginess worsened.

— If medicine could cope with this, then such “Plyushkins” would already be successfully treated, — Pokrovskaya throws up her hands.

Psychiatrists work based on the law "On psychiatric care and guarantees of citizens' rights in its provision"According to paragraph "a," they are obligated to examine a citizen only with their consent. A psychiatrist has the right to begin treatment without a patient's consent only under one condition: an immediate danger to themselves and others. For example, suppose a door opens, and a man with an axe flies out, screaming that devils are chasing him. Then—an ambulance and a hospital.

According to paragraphs "b" and "c" of the same Article 29, psychiatrists have the right to inpatientize a person who has lost the ability to care for themselves due to illness or if failure to provide medical care would cause significant harm to their health. These provisions do not apply to the "Plyushkin" cases, as they are able to move independently, eat, and go to the trash can.

"While in point "a" the psychiatrist has the right to make a decision independently, in the other two cases we must gather some evidence and present it to the court," Pokrovskaya continues. "Whether the court will allow the patient to be involuntarily hospitalized is unknown. Furthermore, the law obliges us to serve the patient with a subpoena, then the court's decision. So, we go to the site, introduce ourselves as psychiatrists—and we are obligated to do so—ask to speak with us, ask them to sign four pages of documents, and 99 times out of 100, we are refused and leave. Then they file complaints against us, but we act according to the law."

"Only unite!"

Pokrovskaya suggests that it would be logical to delegate the powers of supervision, petitioning for treatment of "Plyushkins," and managing their cases to social welfare agencies, but currently no specific agency is "responsible" for them.

For example, a former district police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, literally "cut it off": the police won't handle such cases. He explained why:

"We're short-staffed. We have to deal with petty theft, hooliganism, and fights every day. Previously, this kind of lifestyle would have been classified as "parasitism," but that's no longer the case. If someone drinks, they could be constantly harassed for being intoxicated in public, but they don't go to jail for that. If someone behaves inappropriately, I can call a psychiatric team, but there's no guarantee they'll be taken in. And the local police simply don't have the time for that."

The interlocutor nevertheless advised calling the local police officer and filing a complaint about the neighbor's inappropriate behavior so that it could be documented and supported by supporting documents.

Larisa Muravyova, deputy director of one of the management companies, was indignant when she heard the question:

"We have no authority whatsoever! There are three such apartments on our property. One is infested with dogs, and animal rights activists are constantly there, while in the other two, there are old people behind piles of junk. I brought one an order to pick up the trash—she sent me out the door, and that was it. We have no rights, but they just keep complaining about us."

According to her, not a single "garbage collector" was defeated in the area.

Three lawyers contacted by a NeMoskva correspondent for clarification responded almost word for word: "These are terribly long, tedious processes that in 90% of cases do not lead to a positive outcome."

Elena Barabanova advises neighbors to try to find relatives so they can encourage the person to have a serious conversation and call a specialist to the home. The doctor can prescribe medication, which will reduce the person's anxiety.

If there are no relatives, social services representatives should be involved. This includes the local police officer and a social worker, who can make a conclusion based on an inspection of the premises. After this, a local psychiatrist is called in, who has the right to order a medical examination and compulsory treatment if necessary. A psychotherapist believes that one should not give up; one should strive to help oneself and the unwell neighbor by contacting all social services.

Galina Pokrovskaya is of the same opinion:

"People—neighbors, relatives, social services, and local police officers—must come together. If there are animals in the apartment, animal rights activists should be involved. A better algorithm than this hasn't been devised yet."

Russian roulette

In other cases, the scheme works. This is something Ryazan resident Roman Fomin, for example, knows about. He and his neighbors spent four years trying to attract the attention of all authorities to neighbor's apartmentIn it, a mentally unstable son held his blind, paralyzed father "hostage" and hauled all the trash into the house. No one responded to the situation until Fomin posted photos of the apartment and his emaciated grandfather on social media in 2020. Overnight, representatives from all authorities showed up at the entrance, the son was taken to a psychiatric clinic, and the grandfather was hospitalized for therapeutic treatment.

"The more seriously the neighbors take the case, the more publicity they get, the greater the chances of success. After his treatment, social workers took good care of Vladimir Grigorievich; he lived out his days in warmth and cleanliness. Then he contracted COVID and died—and no one could save him." — Fomin said.

Become friends with Messie

Meanwhile, some countries have long since figured out how to resolve the problem out of court, without waiting for an apartment building to become infested with rodents and insects.

Love K. lives in BerlinSome time ago, she took part in a protest, removing trash from a neighbor's apartment, who was facing eviction from her rental property. In Germany, almost all apartments in apartment buildings are rented, so finding an apartment with a bad reference from a previous landlord is problematic.

In Germany, people who fill their apartments with all sorts of junk are called "Messie" [literally, "messies"]. They're considered mentally ill. There's a term called "Messie Syndrome," or pathological hoarding. Self-help groups estimate that about 5 percent of people in Germany suffer from this disorder. Self-help groups—comprised of volunteers and "Messies" themselves who are in remission—usually help them tidy up their homes. But there's also government assistance. — says Lyubov.

It can be found in the public domain sites Cleaning companies specialize in cleaning "dumpster apartments." They come to the "messy" and, for a reasonable fee, restore the apartment to a presentable state. Neighbors often chip in to pay for this cleaning service. The service includes a minivan that makes 5-6 trips to the nearest waste disposal station.

There are also volunteer communities providing psychological support. For example,Messi's support team"Therapist and practicing naturopathic psychologist Thomas Stolzenberger explains the principles of his work:

"Messi's help involves not only addressing the external symptoms but also addressing the root causes of the problem. By working with our clients on the root causes, we facilitate long-term change and sustainable improvement in their lives. My personal approach is based on compassion, individualized support, and creative ways to help our clients achieve this."

In Frankfurt am Main Messi the mayor's office is helping Literally everything—from cooking to regular cleaning. The city hall website has a dedicated section on the issue: "A Cluttered Apartment—What to Do?" Support activities for "Messi" are funded by organizations such as the Social Security Administration, the State Social Security Association, and the Long-Term Care Insurance Fund.

Neighbors are protected from apartment dumps by infection control laws and fire safety regulations. The smell of rotting food or a fire lit in an apartment can lead to measures being taken "against the will of the interested party." Landlords and neighbors can also file a civil lawsuit for violation of property rights or possession if an apartment is turned into a dump. However, this poses a pitfall typical of Russian courts.

"Eviction trials can drag on forever, so everyone here tries to befriend the Messi, find a way to connect with him, and help. Especially since such assistance is supported at the state level. After all, the Messi aren't criminals, they're just not particularly healthy people." — the interlocutor concluded.

In the U.S. The approach to "garbage collectors" isn't so lenient. Richard Bailey from Oregon lived with such a neighbor for a while, but soon moved out. He told NeMoskva:

"Renting an apartment is expensive [$1300-$1600], and it's not easy—the landlord might ask for a ton of information, even asking about your hobbies. That's why all tenants hold on to decent housing. If someone like that shows up in the neighborhood, the tenants gather and complain to the landlord. They might threaten to move out or call reporters. The reporters usually don't get it: the landlord offers the "garbage man" the option of cleaning up the place, moving into a shelter where he'll be looked after for a small fee, or joining the ranks of the homeless. That's what happened in my former building. The man chose the shelter, and the neighbors breathed a sigh of relief.

The most surprising answer came from a colleague. from Finland:

"This is basically impossible here, because social workers are always available to support elderly, lonely, and otherwise unwell people. Even if something like this does start to happen, neighbors can contact the police with any questions—they'll either refer you to the appropriate service or contact the appropriate authorities themselves. No one should suffer because of illness."