> I would place the room in which I’m writing this at level three on the CIR – a ‘standard’ amount of household clutter, according to Frost and Steketee. If le

> I would place the room in which I’m writing this at level three on the CIR – a ‘standard’ amount of household clutter, according to Frost and Steketee. If level 3 refers to the CIR living room image at the top, well, this level being "standard" sounds weird to me. I mean, 3 to me is a mess already. I keep my house at what would be level 0, level 1 is already pushing it (acceptable temporarily, but these piles of newspaper? make me feel nervous), level 2 is when things get way out of hand (e.g because life is a thing and sometimes time/energy comes short). Most people I know would be the same, a few would need level -1 or -2 (that would be IKEA-like house, always clean and tidy in every way). I do know a couple of level 4/5 but while I'm empathetic, non-judgemental, and respectful that everyone is different, it blows past my "what is this I don't even" mental line, where it gets unsettling to me to physically be in such an environment. > But like Falkoff, who first became interested in what she calls ‘hoardiculture’ because both her grandmother and her father were compulsive hoarders, I grew up in a house that was somewhere between level five (hoarding that might require some ‘professional assistance’) and level seven (which poses significant safeguarding issues, requiring ‘a collaborative multi-agency approach with the involvement of a wide range of professionals’). Oh my looking at the pictures this sounds like the most horrifying experience to me.