Fairbury man makes last effort help hoarder son

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BY NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star

FAIRBURY — At 94, Sam likely won’t live much longer.

His heart doctor told him he had six months to live — and that was a few months ago. Another said he should be dead by now.

He doesn’t have much time to get his affairs in order — and to set his mind at rest about his youngest son.

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It took a cleaning crew several days to clear out garbage from this home in Fairbury. The photos were taken by a father who was concerned about his adult son's living conditions -- and who was frustrated by the difficulty in finding him help. (Courtesy)

That’s why he sent the pictures. Color snapshots of his son’s kitchen and living room, calf-deep in trash.

Bottles, pop cartons, frozen pizza boxes, empty gallon milk jugs, cans and cans and cans of food — the leavings of several years, dropped to the floor.

Sam sent photos and short letters to the Fairbury mayor, to a city council member he thought might be sympathetic and to the newspaper in Lincoln.

He wanted help for Dennis.

A ‘stormy 51 years’

Dennis is a smart man, his family says. He writes beautiful music, understands science. But he doesn’t follow through.

The youngest of three sons was born in the winter of 1957.

“So he’s 51,” the father says. “And I can tell you it’s been a stormy 51 years.”

When Dennis was in sixth grade, a Lincoln schoolteacher sent a note home suggesting the boy be evaluated by a psychiatrist.

At the end of the evaluation, the doctor turned to the father and said: “I can’t decide what I think about Dennis. What do you think?”

While the father was learning about his son’s mental illness, the two other sons were heading to college and launching their careers.

One became a professor, the chairman of a department at a state school on the East Coast. The oldest son retired from a real estate-related business several years ago after a series of strokes.

Back in Fairbury, younger brother Dennis was lining his windows to keep aliens out. And he was writing letters all over the U.S. — including one eight years ago that got the attention of federal authorities. It wasn’t exactly threatening, but it said: “I’m going to see that George Bush doesn’t become president,” his father recalled.

The letter got turned over to the Secret Service, Sam said. Then the sheriff picked Dennis up and took him to the Lincoln Regional Center.

He was better when he returned three months later, Sam said.

The Regional Center had set up a system to keep his son healthy: Medications dispensed by a psychiatrist in Beatrice and weekly appointments with a local psychologist.

It worked for a month or two. Then Dennis stopped taking his medications and talking to the psychologist.

He started turning inward. He started hoarding again.

Hard to help hoarders

Hoarding is a complicated illness to understand and treat, said Dean Settle, executive director of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Mental Health Center.

Many hoarders don’t want help. And it’s hard to force them into treatment.

Involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital is reserved for people who are a danger to themselves or others. Refusing to throw things away doesn’t endanger anyone. Living in a filthy house with 6-foot stacks of newspapers is not necessarily dangerous, Settle said.

Hoarders usually won’t let anyone inside their homes, so it’s difficult for police, who make  the decision about whether someone needs immediate help, to know what the real situation is.

And compulsive hoarders don’t believe they have a problem, said John Day, director of Blue Valley Behavioral Health.

“The disorder is based on irrational thoughts. For example, if I can keep certain possessions, I can ward away potential harm,” he said.

In Fairbury, Sam knew how hard it is to get anyone to intervene. His earlier attempts to get local officials to respond had failed.

There wasn’t much they could do.

Said Fairbury Mayor LaVeda Fry: “I don’t like the way he lives. But we aren’t in a position to tell people how they have to live. He looks healthy. He has a ski hat on in the summer time, but he doesn’t threaten anyone.”

The father’s final effort

Dennis hasn’t always been this bad. Until a year or so ago, there were times he would join the family for dinner in a restaurant.

Dennis was particularly close to his sister-in-law. “She’s better at talking to Dennis than anyone I’ve ever known,” Sam said. “We used to take Dennis out to a restaurant when they came to town.”

But eventually Dennis withdrew even from her. He banned his father from the house.

His father remembered him yelling: These are my possessions. You don’t have any business fooling with my property.

Once, his son caught him sneaking in and forced him out, but not before the father realized how completely Dennis had wrecked the house.

So Sam began the last search for help.

He called the state Health and Human Services Department, which sent an adult protective services worker to talk with Dennis.

“Frankly, he didn’t know what to do,” said Sam. “He said he didn’t have the authority to get Dennis out of the house.”

An HHS spokeswoman said the agency can’t discuss specific cases.

Sam talked to the police chief several times. But the chief said police couldn’t do anything.

“I tried to get the police to just take him down to the jail for two days so I could get in there and clean up the house.”

Then he sent the pictures.

Help at last

About two weeks ago, Sam got a call from a man — a police officer, perhaps, or a counselor; he’s not sure — who said Dennis had agreed to go with him to Lincoln.

“Maybe you want to come over and lock up the house,” the man said to Sam, who owns the house.

City officials had found a way to pressure Dennis through an “inspection warrant” that allowed them entry into the house, said Mayor Fry.

City Attorney David Bargen used the pictures Sam sent to convince a judge to issue the warrant, based on health and safety issues of the occupant or the public.

Sam learned recently his son is awaiting a bed at the Lincoln Regional Center. He hopes his youngest son is safe, hopefully taking the medications that help him sort his life out more reasonably and reduce his fears and obsessions.

And Sam is cleaning up the house.

The kitchen and bathroom were filthy. The toilet was in pieces; Dennis had been using a five-gallon bucket for his waste.

Several windows were broken and Dennis had put mattresses over them to keep people out. The doorknobs were gone.

The cleaning crew Sam hired found the floor after 10 truckloads of trash.

A son’s question

Forty years ago, Sam’s wife left the family to try to break into Hollywood.

“She stood in the doorway and said, ‘I won’t be coming back.’”

Sam remembers young Dennis’ plaintive voice:

What’s going to happen to me?

“And that has been ringing in my ears for 40 years.”

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.