I Stopped Visiting My Sister Because She's A Hoarder

Dear MOngoose,
My sister and her family live really close to me here in EC and our families used to gather all the time. Over the past few years, she's started hoarding stuff and her house has become a disaster. We miss hanging out with her family but it's awful going over there because of the horrible mess and we stopped visiting. Do we say something?

Dear Madame De Clutter,
When they say house guests are like fish maybe this is what they were referring to, nothing personal against your sister. According to the show “Hoarders”, it’s not just bad cleaning habits that cause this type of behavior, it’s somewhat of a mental disorder or compensation for a void somewhere within the psyche of that person.  

I would approach it no different than if your sister were on drugs or addicted to buying scratch offs at the Hot Spot. Let her know you love her and miss her and bring in the professionals if that doesn’t work.  I’m talking about the mental pros, not clean-up pros—that comes later.  

Mental illness is a real thing, I often wonder if the larger percentage of the population suffering is due to increased awareness or society has become so toxic more are affected.  Whatever the answer might be, I'm convinced Facebook has something to do with it.