New level in hoarding reached: floor collapse

[NetWareHead]

http://news.yahoo.com/connecticut-hoarder-killed-floor-collapse-police-192044097.html

BOSTON (Reuters) - A 66-year-old Connecticut woman was found dead in the basement of her home after the first floor collapsed under the weight of a waist-deep pile of newspapers, bottles and other household detritus, local police said on Sunday.

Police in the suburb of Cheshire, Connecticut, responded to the home of Beverly Mitchell on Thursday after a local mail carrier alerted them that her deliveries were piling up outside the single-story house.

They were unable to locate her but concluded that the house was structurally unsound, returning to continue their search on Friday before locating the woman's body on Saturday, said Patrol Sergeant Kevin O'Donnell of the Cheshire police.

"It appears, at least, that the floor gave way," O'Donnell said. "All the items that she had collected for many years covered her as the floor sank down into the basement."

O'Donnell said that local authorities had long been aware of the woman's living situation and had sent social services teams to try to help her but were rebuffed.

The death appears to have been accidental, with no signs of criminal activity, he said. Police believe she had been dead for about a week before they were alerted.

An internet image of the property, showed a small house hidden behind trees in a suburb some 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Hartford.

There was no particular pattern to the items the woman had retained, said O'Donnell, who was among the officers to respond to the scene.

"It's just junk," he said. "She just never threw anything away. Mail, packages, bottles lots of papers, newspapers, magazines, you name it. Piled to the ceiling in most rooms. There was a waist-high layer in the room she had been living in."

 

[Fritzo]

Actually it turned out the house had an elevator. Her last words were "I wonder what this button does..."

 

[DigDog]

ha_ha_nelson.gif

 

[PastTense]

The problem is obvious:
They don't build houses like they used to.

Seriously, do we have any architectural/engineering types here who could comment of how much weight floors are designed to handle and how likely general household stuff (even when stacked to the ceilings) is likely to exceed this?

 

[Imp]

The problem is obvious:
They don't build houses like they used to.

Seriously, do we have any architectural/engineering types here who could comment of how much weight floors are designed to handle and how likely general household stuff (even when stacked to the ceilings) is likely to exceed this?

Look it up in your local building code. Depends on a bunch of things like usage, building classification, what you're dead loading it with, various assumptions, etc. Then jack it up by a safety factor. The materials themselves should have their own safety factor.

But shoddy workmanship, deterioration, damage, etc. wear things down. And to save money or squeeze every last bit of profit, use materials so they just meet the requirements and no more.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow I put about 1000 lbs on a 2'x4' area in my kitchen and it was fine. I got a bit nervous though, and moved it. I can't imagine hoarding enough stuff to actually go right through. Mind you that 1000 lbs was at the edge of a load bearing beam. Would maybe have been different had it been in the middle of the span.

That floor used to be a bit crooked, it's straight now.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I think these guys have her beat, they just had a better house: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

140 tons of crap in their house when they died. One died due to a tunnel collapse in their piles burying him alive, the other due to starvation IIRC because the brother that died was the one bringing in food and water.

 

[Kaido]

I think these guys have her beat, they just had a better house: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

140 tons of crap in their house when they died. One died due to a tunnel collapse in their piles burying him alive, the other due to starvation IIRC because the brother that died was the one bringing in food and water.

 

[Greenman]

The problem is obvious:
They don't build houses like they used to.

Seriously, do we have any architectural/engineering types here who could comment of how much weight floors are designed to handle and how likely general household stuff (even when stacked to the ceilings) is likely to exceed this?

Residential is generally figured at 40 pounds per square foot live load. Without seeing the actual damage, I would guess that it was localized failure. The floor probably sagged several inches and then one joist snapped allowing the occupant and a bunch of crap to crash through. I've never seen a catastrophic floor system failure, even in a building that had termites, rot, and went through an earthquake or two.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Buried by the stuff she loved.

This is one reason I am glad my aunt (who is a genuine hoarder) lives in a single story house that is built on a slab.

Also - newspapers seem light, but tightly packed paper is dense and weighs quite a lot. 1 cubic foot of densely packed newspaper can weigh as much as 38 lbs per this site:

http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/business/documents/Conversions.pdf

Assuming an 8.5 foot ceiling and dense packing and you are talking about ~325lbs per square foot of floor space. The floor of a a 12x12 foot room densely packed with newspaper would have a load of somewhere around 40,000lbs!

Even if the paper was loosely packed the load on the floor would be very high. Over 20,000lbs for a 12X12X8.5 room of loosely packed newspaper.

 

[nageov3t]

if she was a hoarder, it's probably also safe to assume that the structure of the house may have been weakened from mice/pests, mold, untreated water damage, etc.

obviously hoarders don't clean, and at a certain level, they may stop letting people into their house even when needed (eg: allowing a leaky pipe to remain because they're embarrassed to have a plumber come in)

 

[dank69]

The problem is obvious:
They don't build houses like they used to.

Seriously, do we have any architectural/engineering types here who could comment of how much weight floors are designed to handle and how likely general household stuff (even when stacked to the ceilings) is likely to exceed this?

Been awhile but I think it's 40lbs/sq.ft. live load in CT. But depending on how old the home is it might have been less back then. New houses here are built with 2x10@16" o.c. joists but older homes often used 2x8s

 

[NoTine42]

Been awhile but I think it's 40lbs/sq.ft. live load in CT. But depending on how old the home is it might have been less back then. New houses here are built with 2x10@16" o.c. joists but older homes often used 2x8s

Some of that difference is the old, slow growth trees were stronger than today's fast growth farmed lumber (with more space per ring), plus a 2x8 used to mean 2"x8"

On the other hand, they didn't use joist hangers....

 

[dank69]

Some of that difference is the old, slow growth trees were stronger than today's fast growth farmed lumber (with more space per ring), plus a 2x8 used to mean 2"x8"

On the other hand, they didn't use joist hangers....

I once surveyed an old 3-story brownstone in Hartford. I went into the basement and looked up to find actual trees used as joists. Not straight trees either, just a web of what I imagine was whatever was felled when clearing the lot.

 

[Imp]

Buried by the stuff she loved.

This is one reason I am glad my aunt (who is a genuine hoarder) lives in a single story house that is built on a slab.

Yep. I have a hoarder in the family. Loves his shit more than his family. Would kill his family just for throwing out his beloved scrap metal... piece of shit and waste of breath.

 

[dank69]

Yep. I have a hoarder in the family. Loves his shit more than his family. Would kill his family just for throwing out his beloved scrap metal... piece of shit and waste of breath.

He might need it one day and just think how embarrassed you'll feel when he doesn't have to spend $5 for it.

 

[Imp]

He might need it one day and just think how embarrassed you'll feel when he doesn't have to spend $5 for it.

He'll definitely need it... like that time a decade ago when he "needed" it so much that he threw a major rage, ran around the house yelling, hitting air, ready to beat someone up. Yep, right up until someone gave him a $500 bucks in compensation. Better deal than the $50 he would have got at a scrapper if he found a way to haul a metric ton of steel a few dozen miles without a car.

Then there were the other 2 times the neighbors complained and the city forced him to clean it up. Both times, he called a "buddy" (he doesn't have friends, just people who take advantage of him) to take the metal away for free -- no, wait, he "paid" them with a six pack.

Ah, mental illness...

 

[Squeetard]

Wow I put about 1000 lbs on a 2'x4' area in my kitchen and it was fine. I got a bit nervous though, and moved it. I can't imagine hoarding enough stuff to actually go right through. Mind you that 1000 lbs was at the edge of a load bearing beam. Would maybe have been different had it been in the middle of the span.

That floor used to be a bit crooked, it's straight now.

Former structural engineer tech here. Yikes, in Canada it is 50lbs per square foot live load (40 where Greeman lives.), you had it at 125.

But! The problem with designing for 50lbs is that those weak floors tend to have too much sag, you walk by a china cabinet and it tilts away from the wall as the floor moves. Plus there is always an over factor built in too. Most floors will do 100lbs.

 

[nageov3t]

Yep. I have a hoarder in the family. Loves his shit more than his family. Would kill his family just for throwing out his beloved scrap metal... piece of shit and waste of breath.

that's one good thing about my dad... he has hoarder tendencies, but he's perfectly willing to get rid of stuff as long as he thinks it's going to be of use (so my mom will have my sister and I leave the house with bags of stuff just to throw out at our own houses)

my elderly great aunt is the same way. she has full-on freakouts if I throw out furniture on bulk item trash pickup day (nevermind that the furniture may be rusty, ripped, and falling apart), but if I tell her that I'm leaving it by the curb for the church to pickup and take to Goodwill, she's fine with that.

 

[NoTine42]

Former structural engineer tech here. Yikes, in Canada it is 50lbs per square foot live load (40 where Greeman lives.), you had it at 125.

But! The problem with designing for 50lbs is that those weak floors tend to have too much sag, you walk by a china cabinet and it tilts away from the wall as the floor moves. Plus there is always an over factor built in too. Most floors will do 100lbs.

Isn't the load designation the max weight that will result in a certain amount of sag, ie 1/8" per 12'...but the actual failure weight would be much higher?

 

[Imp]

my elderly great aunt is the same way. she has full-on freakouts if I throw out furniture on bulk item trash pickup day (nevermind that the furniture may be rusty, ripped, and falling apart), but if I tell her that I'm leaving it by the curb for the church to pickup and take to Goodwill, she's fine with that.

lulz... That person in my family will deliberately break shit if he can't have it so no one else can benefit -- scorched earth. Examples? Old fridge that hadn't been used in decade: he cut the tube with coolant and let it leak out right after putting it on the curb. Someone ELSE'S old toilet he hauled home: took it in the backyard and broke it with a sledge hammer.

 

[ElFenix]

i have no idea what i'm talking about so here goes...

standing up, i'm more than 40 lbs/sq-ft live load. aren't i?

 

[gophertron]

i have no idea what i'm talking about so here goes...

standing up, i'm more than 40 lbs/sq-ft live load. aren't i?

Yeah, I'm curious how that system works. Let's say you had a theoretical person that weighed 1000lbs and was standing on one foot tippy toes, does he fall through? How does it work between a spread load and something very focused? I imagine the spread load is being supported by the beams, but the focused could just be on the floorboards.

 

[NoTine42]

i have no idea what i'm talking about so here goes...

standing up, i'm more than 40 lbs/sq-ft live load. aren't i?

Yes, you are more than 40 lbs/sq-Ft. But a 10x10 room has 100 sq-FT could hold (40) 200lb people and be OK...but you are not supposed to cram in 100 people.

 

[Squeetard]

Isn't the load designation the max weight that will result in a certain amount of sag, ie 1/8" per 12'...but the actual failure weight would be much higher?

No. Live load is the live load. Take a roof for instance it gets a live load of 100lbs per foot here to hold a lot of snow, no one cares about how it sags. The calcs you are talking about are what make us design to a higher level. There is a maximum amount of sag we want.

Live load of 50 lbs per foot does not mean a 200 pound person is going to bust through the floor. It means a 200 square foot area has to be able to hold 10,000 pounds.