Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March, 1947) and Langley Wakeman Collyer (October 3, 1885 – March 1947), known as the Collyer brothers, were two American brothers who became famous because of their bizarre nature and compulsive hoarding. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely seen men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders.

Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived, surrounded by over 140 tons of collected items that they had amassed over several decades.

The Collyer brothers were sons of Herman Livingston Collyer (1857–1923), a Manhattan gynecologist who worked at Bellevue Hospital, and Susie Gage Frost (1856–1929), a former opera singer. Their parents were first cousins. The Collyer family alleged their roots could be traced to a fictional ship that supposedly arrived in America from England a week after the Mayflower. The family was descended from the Livingston family, a New York family with roots going back to the 18th century. Robert Livingston was the first of the Livingston family to emigrate to America in 1672 – 52 years after the Mayflower. The couple had a daughter, Susan, who died as an infant in 1880. The following year, on November 6, 1881 they had their first son, Homer Lusk, and in 1885 Langley was born. They were living in a tenement while Herman interned at Bellevue. As a child, Homer attended PS 69. At the age of 14, he was accepted to the College of the City of New York as a "sub-freshman", earning his bachelor's degree six years later.