"Stuff": The psychology of hoarding: "
America's most notorious case of hoarding came to light on March 21, 1947, when New York City police were called to investigate a dead body in a three-story Harlem brownstone. The building belonged to two elderly brothers, Langley and Homer Collyer, and when the cops made it into the building, they were shocked by what they saw: piles of junk -- including 14 pianos, a Model T Ford and the remains of a two-headed fetus -- that reached to the ceiling, and a system of tunnels in which Homer and Langley were found dead, one crushed to death by a pile of things, the other dead of starvation.
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