Driving in Burke this morning I saw an elderly white woman with her never-been-washed Lexus SUV stuffed to the roof with randomly stacked miscellaneous stuff and garbage. Just enough space in the entire car for her to sit in the driver's seat.

Fairfax County has a hoarding task force you can call for suspect houses, but are their laws against people doing the same in their car?

Is her home in the same condition?

Is she just trying to prevent a carjacking?

Should she be reported so she can get the mental health help she needs?

http://goo.gl/t7sIsW

Yuck!

Department of Code Compliance is the proper agency. However, they won't take a case on someone's car being filled up.

Maybe she parks in the grass, or has somer property maintenance issues on her house? Anything like that they will investigate, and once assigned, they look into any problems that come up.

Sounds like poor lady needs some help. Follow through for her!

Code Compliance does not have mental health services. The old hoarding task force did.

Code compliance writes you up, you have so many days. If you don't comply, they take it to the magistrate. One of our neighbors had this problem, ended up hiring a lawyer to figure out how to get a county social worker involved. County actually condemned the house of someone with obvious psychological issues rather than deal with them.

How does her messy car affect you? Maybe she is just a slob. Now if she is posting here on FFU, that is enough evidence to get her committed.

Code Compliance has a bigger budget than the old task force, yet it provides less services? That's Ed Long for you. They really need to have mental health services with Code Compliance as it is a well known fact that hoarding is a mental health problem.

She is probably homeless or mentally ill. Ratting her out won't make the world a better place.

Not all hoarders are car hoarders. I knew a hoarder once and her car was immaculate, her house, well no. Reason being she was not metally ill or homeless and it would be of great embarrassment if everyone knew about her deep, dark secret.

Have to love the ignorance on this board. "Lack of services" faults county for condemning the old lady's house, "rather than deal with them."

Code Compliance can't "make" anyone leave their house unless they condemn the property. Do you think mentally ill hoarders open up the door and invite county workers in for a cup of coffee? They need tangible proof that the hoarding is directly leading to life safety issues.

Perhaps she was in bad shape, just like the house was. They then can condemn the house, and that is their only leverage to compel a person to a) clean up the mess and b) seek mental health services.

People have rights, and people with mental illness have the same rights. It is not that easy to force people to get help.

I do agree with you that hoarding is a MH issue - and APS and MH services should be involved and should be the ones seeking out wrap-around services for these people.

Dirty car? Leave it alone, unless you know she is unsafe in either her car or her house.

I always used to see this old bat parked on King St. who had newspapers and garbage piled from the passenger seat to the headliner. There was no way she could have seen out to drive.

I still don't know why the cops never rousted her and made her level that off at least. They probably didn't want to smell the car or talk to her.

idontlikebeingrightaboutshitlikethisbutiam



Edited 21 time(s). Last edit at 5/31/1967 05:57AM by WingNut.

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The "new and improved" Code Compliance department is anything but. The old Hoarding Task Force was better. They would send a social worker out as part of the team. This was written up in journals, Fairfax was described as a leader in mental health.

Now, under Jeff Blackford, that does not happen. They take complaints and if people don't comply the County takes them to court. If the so-called "hoarder" wants mental health help, it is up to them. And with the County budget cuts, less of it is available.

Yes.

There is a picture of a cluttered car on Code Compliance' web site. So I would say call them and ask if they really do it or not. They did get approved for a budget increase this year, if they say, no, you could ask them why they have the picture if they don't do this.

Many of these in-car hoarders live in their cars.

I see them parked at nights in parking lots at libraries, supermarkets, schools, etc.

I know for a fact people park at libraries at night to use their wi-fi. Sometimes they forget to turn it off when they close the library. You also see a large number of people who camp out at McDonald's and so on for wi-fi usage.

why don't you mind your own business? Intrusive asshole.

Stuffed Potato Wrote:
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> Driving in Burke this morning

I see the problem: You were in Burke.

If you report the vehicle to the police as unsafe they will get code compliance involved, code compliance will go to the registered owner's address and evaluate the situation.