MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A W.Va. city has become the first in the state to form a hoarding task force, trained to deal with hoarders and the safety issues they may bring upon themselves and first responders.
The Morgantown task force will bring together fire officials, law enforcement and mental health agencies to identify potentially dangerous homes of hoarders, according to the Associated Press.
Capt. Ken Tennant, Morgantown’s fire marshal, recalled responding to a fire in a home that had tires for furniture and a car transmission in the bathtub. For his own safety, he turned around.
“Sometimes it’s not worth dying for,” he said.
The International Obsessive Compulsive Foundation says hoarding may affect as many as one in 20 people, the AP reports. Because hoarding is so deeply rooted in a person’s psychological and emotional health, code enforcement officer Tammy Michael says this specially trained task force is necessary.
“I can’t tell these people, ‘You just have to get rid of everything in 20 days,’” she said.
The task force’s intended goal is that by identifying which residencies pose an in-house safety hazard, first responders can be better prepared when responding to calls in those homes.
A county 911 center has already formed an internal tag as “overloaded structure” to denote a call at a home with potential hoarding-related risks.