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Californians are well aware of just how damaging fires can be. Every year, California’s firefighters respond to hundreds of thousands of fire calls, including wildfires, vacant building fires, electrical fires, and more. When it comes to abating fire hazards, health and safety receivers are an essential resource within the state. The motivating force in all health and safety receiverships is to address substantial health and safety risks that affect property owners, tenants, and their surrounding communities. This includes fire hazard abatement.

The foreclosure crisis that affected the entire nation during the economic downturn of 2007-2009 created another crisis: an urban landscape filled with vacant and abandoned properties. While residential properties were empty because of foreclosures, commercial properties were abandoned because of the economic struggles of business owners. This, of course, raised the risk of vacant building fires.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, hoarding is a disorder in which someone has extreme difficulty discarding items that others may sometimes view as valueless. This disorder leads to extreme clutter and disrupts their ability to function in their living and workspace. Hoarding is not simply being messy or collecting something. Hoarding is an extreme accumulation of a variety of materials.

Joseph Diliberti, a local Vietnam veteran and artist, has been battling San Diego tax authorities for the past seven years, but the conflict may come to an end on Friday. The LA Times ran this story today about the planned March 18th auction of Diliberti’s San Diego County home.

The Mayo Clinic defines hoarding as “the excessive collection of items, along with the inability to discard them,” and notes the following characteristics as signs and symptoms: cluttered living spaces, inability to discard items, acquiring unneeded or seemingly useless items (including trash), excessive attachment to possessions, and discomfort letting others touch or borrow possessions, among others.