One in 200 people in the UK is a hoarder: someone who can’t stop collecting things, but can’t bear to throw them out either. Confessions of a Hoarder (working title) takes a closer look at the debilitating condition, which is on the rise.

Hoarding is a condition filled with shame and guilt, with many sufferers leading a life of such secrecy that even their closest friends might not know the truth. In some cases the condition can become extreme and out of control, affecting the hoarder’s daily life and their relationships with others. Most hoarders live claustrophobic, lonely existences, often in a vicious circle of deprived circumstances with the piles of rubbish preventing them from eating, sleeping and keeping themselves clean.

Confessions of a Hoarder (working title) finds sufferers from all walks of life: from the first man in Britain to receive an ASBO for hoarding: driven by an obsession with the Wombles, he can’t stop filling up his house with his neighbours’ rubbish; to the retired accountant forced to confront the problem when his wife stages an intervention.

Confessions Of A Hoarder will air on Channel 4 in March 2007.