You know, hoarding is such a hard topic to talk about for several reasons: 1. It is possible for some people to have a lot of ferrets and provide a wonderful home for them so they obviously are not hoarders 2. There are folks and shelters here who have wound up with the ferrets of hoarders, either when the hoarders realized what they were doing and sought help, or when the law cracked down on the hoarders and took the animals away. This is sure to happen again. 3. There have been people here at the FML who did hoard. 4. There have been hoarders here at the FML who relapsed and again began hoarding. I guess the key thing to remember is this: hoarding can't be told by numbers alone. It is told by conditions since rather than being a numbers thing it is a form of abuse driven by a compulsive disorder in which the people * do not know * that they are abusing the animals because they are so controlled by their compulsion/obsession. Sadly, those who worry and want to check the questions usually are not themselves hoarders, which is why it is important that such materials be read by everyone. Hoarders have a tendency to not know what they are doing, but there is always the hope that they will realize in time to avoid deaths or at least many needless animal deaths. Here are a few of the sorts of questions that are asked in combination. I'm doing this from memory but you can find this info in some very informative articles that are among the health and legislation sites in the critical refs section of http://www.ferretcongress.org A. Can health care be provided? Are the numbers of the animals low enough that if you had a major sweep of serious illness or injury could you provide care? B. Can the home be kept reasonably clean? Feces in bed, exposed electrical wires, inability to use things like sinks or tables for their standard uses does not qualify as reasonably clean. (Plain old messy is within normal ranges and not something to worry about.) C. Do you repeatedly think that you are the only one who can help animals instead of stepping back and imposing limits on yourself while knowing that there are other capable souls out there. In the worst cases there are animals appearing and disappearing -- dying, sometimes in the incredibly horrible cases even being "stored" in vehicles, refrigerators, or left where they drop. Those are my own wordings and the list is anything but complete. This is an important and debilitating problem which people tend to grow into without realizing that they are doing so till the compulsion controls them rather than them being in charge of their own lives without them even realizing it. It kills a great many animals even while the people are trying to do good. As you can see, this is not the situation where inspected shelters are involved, nor large households with good care given so those in such situations aren't hoarders, but it is important that people take those tests and think seriously because it is by doing so that hoarders or those tending toward hoarding will recognize their own problems and seek help before inadvertently hurting too many animals, and it is by understanding the disorder that others can seek governmental intervention through health departments, housing inspectors (these homes sometimes get so bad that they need to be condemned rather than being ones which can be cleaned), local mental health organizations, etc. when they know a hoarder who needs help but it otherwise unreachable. So, again: hoarding is not entirely a numbers situation; it involves a serious illness which controls the person and which creates an unsafe environment for the animals, for the person, and sometimes for the neighboring community. Markers include things like an inability to recognize that others can help animals, an inability to provide veterinary care, unsafe and filthy living conditions, etc. It is an important and terribly tragic problem which people should learn about because it is through such learning that help is found. [Posted in FML issue 4185]