If you've ever watched the heartbreaking A&E show, Hoarders, you've probably sat there on the couch, at once repulsed by and sympathetic to these crazy people who fill their house with so much stuff that they sleep on the floor. And also, you may get a touch uncomfortable. Because you may recognize a little bit of it in yourself. Or your mom. (Certainly more fun to analyze mom, right?)

It turns out that hoarding is a big and growing problem, particularly in the elderly, as journalist Paula Span points out in the NYT blog, The New Old Age:

Hoarding — a compulsive need to acquire and inability to discard items of no apparent value, to the point where one’s ability to function becomes impaired — is a disorder that begins early in life, researchers are learning. But the symptoms appear to increase with each decade of age and so, of course, does the sheer amount of stuff amassed.