By Rick Wills
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Scott Touchstone watched Pittsburgh firefighters spend 10 minutes early Wednesday trying to get into a neighbor’s burning home in Crafton Heights.
The house was so filled with debris that its owner, John G. Rabusseau, 77, regularly had problems getting to the front door, Touchstone said. Firefighters said they couldn’t get into the chronic hoarder’s home, either.
“He had things like cans, pizza boxes and newspapers all over that house,” said Touchstone, 41. “He never let anyone come inside because he was embarrassed.”
Authorities said they found Rabusseau by the door of his home after responding to the fire call on Elmont Street about 5:40 a.m. Autopsy results were pending. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Neighbors said Rabusseau lived alone. It appeared he tried to escape the home when he was overcome with smoke, said Battalion Chief Doug Praskovich. He was discovered on top of a pile of newspapers and other debris blocked the front door, Praskovich said.
“It was very cluttered in there,” Praskovich said.
A message left for Rabusseau’s son was not immediately returned.
“These cases are the saddest,” said Randy O. Frost, a psychology professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., and author of “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” as well as two other books on hoarding.
“And they have an impact on firemen,” Frost said.
Firefighters arrived to find the first and second floors engulfed. It took two hours to extinguish the fire, Praskovich said. The home was still smoldering about 3 p.m., an emergency dispatcher said.
Touchstone and other neighbors said Rabusseau was friendly and talkative. They said he was in relatively good shape and could often be found working on his car in the street.
“I think he was lonely and had regrets about his life,” said neighbor Philip Betram, 25. “He liked to talk. He missed his wife, who died about 20 years ago. We’d see him in the street all the time. My mom would sometimes take him food. She did that last Thanksgiving.”
The Allegheny County Health Department cited Rabusseau in July 2009 for having garbage strewn on his lawn, said department spokesman Guillermo Cole. No complaints were made about the inside of Rabusseau’s home, Cole said.
Compulsive hoarding is little understood and can be dangerous, Frost said. The American Psychiatric Association is reviewing whether it should be a diagnosis.
“Hoarding disorder appears to be linked to genetic factors. It runs in families. The brains of these people work differently,” Frost said.
Some 75 hoarding task forces have been set up across the country. Allegheny County does not have a task force but does have a social worker assigned to hoarding issues, Cole said.
“It’s a community-based effort to fix problems like this,” Frost said.
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