\n<\/p>\n
Building rapport can help residents become more open to decluttering, Ms Lee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe home is a safe space for all of us and we probably would not let people just go into our house if we didn’t trust them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
People who hoard may already fear being negatively judged and may have strained relationships with family members, friends or neighbours.<\/p>\n
Someone approaching them with the aim of clearing their possessions may cause them to become more defensive, she added.<\/p>\n
Building rapport can start off with engaging them in conversations, trying to understand residents as individuals, learning about their lives and significant milestones.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis might start to build trust because they do feel respected and seen as individuals, rather than, well, you’re only coming to me because you’re trying to get me to reduce this behaviour or totally get rid of it altogether,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She noted that agencies have begun taking a community-focused approach, bringing together people from different task forces and volunteers to better understand and address the behaviour.<\/p>\n
The public, too, has a part to play. Ms Lee said greater understanding could help people avoid approaching those who hoard from a defensive or aggressive position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can understand it, if we can work together to try to relieve some of this stress that people have in their lives, perhaps we can then have a more concerted approach at helping them with this behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
BUILDING TRUST Building rapport can help residents become more open to decluttering, Ms Lee said. \u201cThe home is a safe space for all of us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--RWmTCrKU--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/09\/17\/hoarding-hero-1.jpeg?itok=NAYSs9Cb","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5544,4300,18108,1623,7052,27191,2257,823],"class_list":["post-85654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-charities","tag-community","tag-hoarding","tag-key","tag-longterm","tag-preventing","tag-return","tag-support","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}