But, insists Reissig-Lazzaro, instances of hoarding are extremely rare, an average of about eight cases from more than 17,000 public-housing apartments in Queens during the past 15 years. (Interestingly, Queens is the borough with the most reported cases of hoarding in public housing.) More prevalent is a condition that the city calls poor housekeeping. “It’s an entirely separate issue with too many reasons to get into, but none of them are related to mental impairment,” says Reissig-Lazzaro.

The line between poor housekeeping and hoarding is a blurry one, and for Ron Alford and Melissa Pusateri—owners of Disaster Masters, a Queens company that specializes in cleaning apartments that get out of control—it’s more or less nonexistent. In fact, he prefers the term clutterer. “It’s easy to mischaracterize someone who just lets their shit stack up as a hoarder,” he explains. “But hoarders don’t know that they’re hoarding. The problem is usually the result of depression, or even being ill and physically unable to deal with the stuff in your house. Or it’s a habit, like smoking or drinking.”

Alford deals only with clients who call him for help. He’s especially cognizant of landlords abusing the term hoarder just to get someone out of an apartment with low rent. “People are victimized,” by such labeling, he says. Accordingly, he refuses to use the word to describe even such astounding cases as a woman who, depressed by the September 11 attacks, jammed her place with two-liter Pepsi bottles filled with her own urine. “We carted out a 30-yard Dumpster slam-full of those bottles,” he says. “But is that hoarding? No, it’s cluttering.”

Pointing out that Jay Leno owns hundreds of cars, Pusateri asks rhetorically, “Is Leno a hoarder? No, he’s a collector. The difference between hoarding and anything else is in the relationship you have with stuff.”