Archinect : School Blog Project : Texas A&M University (David Morris) : SÃndrome de DiÃ³genes (Hoarding)

This is by far the coolest disease I have ever seen or heard of. Living in a city like Barcelona, you can't help but wonder what is going on in the minds of all those extremely tan and wrinkled old ladies in torn up flowery sun-dresses who spend all their time picking stuff out of the garbage bins.

While I was eating dinner tonight, a show came on on quatro about this "hoarding syndrome", or SÃndrome de DiÃ³genes. It took me a while to realize that it is actually recognized by the medical world, apparently only the spanish medical world, as a "condition." The show basically consisted of a woman going to all these small villages in Spain, and entering apartments of these affected people, all extremely old ladies, most of whom lived alone, and filming the insides of the flats FULL from floor to ceiling with clothes, boxes, bottles, garbage, you name it, etc...

I've never seen apartments as disgusting as these. Anyways, I read a litle more on wikipedia, which doesn't have an english version for this page, and it basically says it's characterized by complete social isolation, complete lack of personal higiene, and an frenetical devotion to picking crap out of the trash and storing it for an unlimited amount of time in your personal space, whereever it might fit, or not fit.

Here is another good explanation:

Ã‰ste es el perfil que mÃ¡s se repite. El profesor Carlos MartÃnez Manzanares lo define asÃ: un mayor de 65 aÃ±os que vive solo ha padecido una situaciÃ³n de estrés o la muerte reciente de algÃºn familiar. En contra de lo que se cree, estos ancianos no siempre tienen dificultades econÃ³micas. Algunos pueden guardar gran cantidad de dinero.

The name apparently comes from a greek philospher, Diogenes of Sinope. A simple google search reveals a lot more about it. Anyways, this would really make for an interesting research project, or a documentary film. To follow one of these people around and really get to know them. Or to track one of them on a google map kind of interface on a daily basis. Maybe I'll come up with something that could turn into my thesis. I doubt it, but anyways...

hmm, interesting...
although Diogenes wasn't exactly colecting stuff, he was neglecting his body

apparently all elderly people sufffer from it to one degree or another.
I mean the obsession with objects, stuff, junk that they feel they must go on to acccumulate and keep.

If I were to do a thesis again I would do it on self-storage buildings. there is something sinister about self-storage buildings.

yeah you know what? that could make a really interesting research project. documenting all the things that go on at a storage building. who knows what kinds of things people put in those garages.

oh, and the wiki article also talks about how these people neglect their personal hygiene as well, and they also like to collect stray dogs and neglect them, but even still, the reference seemed a little strange when i first read it

Weird, I've always thought about self-storage buildings in particular to me as representing all that I hate about current Western civilization. I have often thought that if I had to work on a self-storage project I would stab my eyeballs out (or at least quit). Think about the implications: they are rambling buildings that cover an emormous amount of s.f.--greenfield s.f., way more often than not--and they exist to facilitate no life, no activity, no human functions other than the simple accumulation of--by defintiion--unneeded CRAP. They facilitate our consumerist addications. Half the time people are still paying interest on the credit card money that allowed them to buy the crap itself, and then they are paying more money simple for the privilege of keeping it... ugh, my heart hurts for our society when I think of all this.