When Angela left the US to settle in Sydney 20 years ago, she arrived with one box of belongings.
Over the next two decades the now 43-year-old accumulated enough stuff to fill her inner-city apartment to the point where moving from one room to another was like navigating an obstacle course.
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How Angela beat her hoarding habit
Mission Australia's Room to Grow program helped "emotional hoarder" Angela overcome her tendency to accumulate stuff.
Letters, papers, receipts, clothes belonging to her three children, old school projects and toys - she struggled to part with them all.
"I came out here with one big box," she said. "Then the kids came along, they started growing up, I didn't want to let go of their things. Whenever I was out shopping, I would always go to the bargain bins. I would buy things because they were on sale and it would make me feel better.
![Angela sought help for hoarding and it changed her life.](/web/20170131095457im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/1/f/3/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtyzcu.png/1485760812712.jpg)
"It got to the point where there was no space for us to move. Everything was piled up around us."
Angela, who asked that her surname be withheld, her husband and the children, aged 13, 14 and 17, moved to a larger apartment in Surry Hills two years ago which proved a catalyst for change.
She joined an intensive pilot scheme run by Mission Australia designed to support hoarders by addressing the underlying mental health issues associated with extreme accumulation.
"I am an emotional hoarder," Angela said. "I just hate to let go of things."
![Forced clean ups, such as this one at the Bobolas family home in Bondi, do not address the underlying health problem.](/web/20170131095457im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/i/g/2/k/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtyzcu.png/1485760812712.jpg)
Mission Australia's program, Room to Grow, helped Angela and other participants understand what compelled them to accumulate things and how to discard them.
"Previously, if you were to come in here and make me throw out my stuff I would bite your head off," she said. "The program made me think about my choices. I stopped bringing stuff home. Now, when I go shopping, I just buy what I need and I walk out. I used to keep everything - receipts, ATM receipts, school papers, leaflets. Now, I've learned to tear them up."
![Angela and her family can finally use the dining room table now it is clear.](/web/20170131095457im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/1/f/3/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtyzcu.png/1485760812712.jpg)
Although there is more work to be done, her dining table, once a "dumping ground" is finally clear and rooms are easily accessible.
"We have never had this much space before. Never," she said. 'The program changed my life."
An evaluation of Room to Grow, to be released on Tuesday, shows the program had similar results for all participants, who experienced significantly improved well being and a reduction in clutter.
The pilot was funded by the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness (NPAH) through the NSW Department of Families and Community Services with Mission Australia advocating for ongoing funding.
"This program had a positive impact on vulnerable people and supported them to take the lead in addressing their mental health concerns, reduce clutter, increase cleanliness and boost their personal wellbeing to maintain a roof over their head," Mission Australia chief executive Catherine Yeomans said.
Ms Yeomans said forced rubbish removals, such as those conducted at the Bobolas family home in Bondi, can cost up to $20,000 and are a short-term solution.
"We know that forced clean ups and evictions are Band-Aid solutions, they don't address the fact that hoarding and living in severe domestic squalor are caused by mental health disorders," she said.
Hoarding has been included in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the "psychiatrists' bible", since 2013.
Research released at the 2016 National Hoarding and Squalor Conference found the disorder affected an estimated 600,000 Australians – up from about 400,000 in 2012 – at a cost of $1.8 billion a year.