We just had a relative die but fefore that we tried to help him make his house livable enough so a nurse could come in there... He was a pack rat, there were few places to sit and the living room had no entry way at all... the guy could not change his thinking, that seems true. We spent time trying to clean the place up for him when he was alive and the idiot would go shopping and bring back all sorts of stuff, he had a pickup truck... he had a house full of plastic shit from Kmart and had some real antiques stored outdoors!! I had a hobby workshop that was a mess, after seeing his house for the zillionth time I went home one day and just started cleaning that thing up, no more pack ratting for me, I've seen people deteriorate and die somewhat because of the stuff, one old lady could never decide what to do with all the junk, and that affected her decision where to live and that caused her to wind up with noboby to talk to for months on end and then she got so senile she couldn't function. Read up on Feng Shui, clutter is horrifically bad for energy...
My wife uses clutter to take over the house though... I had to stop and figure out what the hell was going on, I was squeezed out of everywhere, then I just started piling up stuff in one room I wanted to use for trading, it has furniture on top of furniture, papers in piles, books, boxes, electronic junk, just enough mess and mostly stuff she can't place a value on so she is afraid to come in and afraid to toss anything, and not so much I can't function....