The Original Buried Alive

With TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive and the season finale of Bones, compulsive hoarding has become a compelling trainwreck to watch. I thought we might take a look at the "Ur Text" of hoarding in popular culture: The Collyer Brothers. Homer and Langley Collyer's demise was the ultimate buried alive, at least for Langely.

Born in Gilded Age New York, Homer (1881 to 1947) and Langley (1885 to 1947) both graduated from Columbia. Homer practiced law and Langley studied engineering and was an avid musician. Their father, a prominent New York doctor, had built a brownstone in Harlem when it was en vouge to live in the neighborhood . The brothers never left the nest; apparently, their parents did. By the 1920's both of their parents were dead and the brothers had the house to themselves.

What came next echoed a Poe or Lovecraft short story, except this wasn't fiction--not yet.

Langley and Homer began collecting and neglecting. By the end of the 1920's the house was without utilities; for heat the brothers turned to kerosene and some sources say that the water was drawn by the bucket from a distant pump. And by the 1930's Homer was blind and disabled. Langley became his caregiver. Although the brothers had money in the bank, Langley picked food from trash bins. He saved newspapers, so that when Homer regained his sight, he could catch-up on the news. Papers, books (25,000), musical instruments, and odd items such as a baby carriages, clocks and yards upon yards of unused fabric all stacked up in the 12 room mansion.

To the neighbors, the brothers had become "Ghosty Men." In 1942 the Bowery Savings Bank began foreclosure proceedings when the brothers fell behind on their payments. In the midst of a confrontation with the bank and police, Langley paid off the mortgage with a single, final payment and wished to be left alone. Langley continued his foraging and collecting at night. And then one day in March of 1947, the police received a report of a dead body at the Collyer House. The front door was blocked, even when taken off of its hinges. The police gained entry through a window. In the squalor they did find Homer dead, but Langley was nowhere to be found. During the ensuing manhunt, which was going on as the same time as the city was clearing over a 100 tons of stuff from the house, Langley was reported in New Jersey, but the leads turned up nothing.

Homer was found on the 21st of March. On April 8, the body of Langley was uncovered by workman. It was less than 10 feet from the chair in which Homer died. In an effort to protect their "treasures," Langley had engineered as series of bobby traps. Unfortunately for him, he apparently triggered one while bringing Homer food.

Even after the house was cleared of refuse and objects, it wasn't structurally sound. The house was raised and the site now is a pocket park.

The brother's lives and legacy have been novelized by both Marcia Davenport and E. L. Doctorow, turned into a stageplay, inspired artwork and forms one of the narratives of Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men. And apparently, in the lexicon of New York Firefighters, the dwelling of a hoarder is "a Collyer Castle. "