In previous phone conversations, Suzy - an articulate single woman who has taught college here and abroad - sounded like she was on the edge and on the ledge. Afraid of being homeless, afraid of spiraling deeper into the chasm of her uncontrollable urge.
Suzy is a hoarder. She hates the word, she hates the idea of it, but she is a hoarder. She is too humiliated to show her face in a photo.
Her affliction intersects with H.O.M.E., the much-praised provider of housing to the poor and homeless, because Suzy's turned her room into a safety hazard.
If she can't clean it and clear it, Suzy will be transferred to a residence with more structure, meaning less freedom.
"I'd rather die," Suzy blurts, her eyes welling up. "It would kill me."
Suzy, who has no family, says that she has always been independent. Softly, sadly, Scullion replies: "What you have always been hasn't worked."
Suzy and I go to her third-floor room in the clean, high-security building that feels part dorm, part hospital. She opens the door, revealing a narrow path from the door to her bed.
Every other inch is covered with stuff piled nearly as high as Suzy. More than 30 large, black trash bags are stuffed full. "I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not," says Suzy, who has short, curly gray hair and a pianist's precise hand movements.
Around, atop and beneath the bags are blankets, apparel, stuffed toys, sunglasses, household goods, empty soda bottles, plastic containers and endless bottles of toiletries lined up like soldiers without a mission.
It's a scene out of a TV show about hoarders.
Cherry Hill psychologist Marla Deibler, who has appeared on A&E's "Hoarders," defines hoarding as "a psychological disorder in which people accumulate and have difficulty discarding items most people would consider to be of little or no value."
