Clutter Scale: Free Illustrated 1 to 9 Check for Each Room

How to use the clutter scale

Look at the room as it is today and pick the picture that is closest. It does not need to match exactly: the pictures show one ordinary terraced house, and your rooms will have different furniture and a different layout.
Judge by what can still be used: how much of the floor you can see, whether the seats, bed, worktops and cooker can be used, and how wide the path through the room is. What the things are matters less than how much space they take.
If the home has more than one bedroom, rate the one the person sleeps in. If a room is not in the home, or you cannot see it, choose skip.
You can rate your own home or, with their agreement, someone else’s. Choosing pictures together can be easier than describing the rooms in words.
Rate the same rooms again later, after a few weeks or months, to see whether things are changing.

The result shows each room’s level, the highest level, and what it means. You can print it or save it as a PDF with the date on it, for example to show a GP, a support worker or a landlord.

What the Clutter Image Rating is, and where it comes from

The Clutter Image Rating (CIR) comes from a research paper: Frost, Steketee, Tolin and Renaud, “Development and Validation of the Clutter Image Rating”, Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, volume 30, pages 193 to 203 (2008; published online in September 2007).

It has nine photographs for each of three rooms: a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom. Picture 1 is a clear room and picture 9 is very severely cluttered. For each room, you choose the photograph that is nearest to how the room looks.

In the UK, the CIR instructions hosted by London Fire Brigade encourage seeking help at picture 4 or above. London Fire Brigade’s hoarding policy uses the CIR photographs to assess clutter across the whole property, alongside a conversation with the resident and, where needed, a welfare or safeguarding referral. Some council safeguarding toolkits, such as Cumberland’s, use the CIR together with wider information about risks to the home and the people in it.

Hoarding levels: the nine pictures and the five-level scale

Searches for “hoarding levels” or “stages of hoarding” lead to two different scales, which measure different things.

The Clutter Image Rating has nine pictures per room and rates visible clutter only. This page works the same way.

The Clutter–Hoarding Scale, published by the Institute for Challenging Disorganization in the US, has five levels. It rates the home environment as a whole: the structure of the building, animals, how the household functions, health and safety, and the protective equipment someone working there would need. Its publisher distinguishes it from a psychiatric diagnosis. Many articles about the “five stages of hoarding” follow this kind of five-level scale.

The levels do not line up: level 3 on one scale is not level 3 on the other. Neither scale is a set of official medical stages.

Scale	Levels	What it rates	From
Clutter Image Rating	9 photographs per room	Visible clutter in a living room, kitchen and bedroom	Frost and colleagues (2008); used by London Fire Brigade and some council safeguarding teams
Clutter–Hoarding Scale	5 levels for the whole home	Structure, animals, household function, health and safety, protective equipment	Institute for Challenging Disorganization (US)
This page	9 drawings per room	Visible clutter, in the same three rooms as the CIR	Drawn for this site; not validated

What the score does not tell you

It is not a diagnosis, and it is not a hoarding test. Hoarding disorder is a recognised condition. The World Health Organization lists it in ICD-11 as 6B24, in the group of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (which does not mean all hoarding is OCD), and it is also in the US diagnostic manual, DSM-5. A diagnosis looks at more than the amount of clutter: persistent difficulty getting rid of possessions, clutter that stops rooms being used for what they are for, and the distress or problems it causes. A picture of a room is not that assessment.

It does not say whether a home is safe. The scale looks at clutter only, not at dirt, damp, pests, broken heating or the state of the building. A high level is a reason to check safety; a low level does not mean there are no risks.

It is not a council or landlord assessment. In England, councils assess hazards in housing under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, which is a separate process. London Fire Brigade’s use of the CIR, and the action bands in council toolkits, are local procedures, not national thresholds for a compulsory clear-out.

It does not decide what someone can decide for themselves. In England and Wales, adults are presumed able to make their own decisions, including ones others think unwise, and a cluttered home does not on its own show that someone lacks capacity (Mental Capacity Act 2005).

For a diagnosis or treatment, start with a GP. The NHS names cognitive behavioural therapy as the main treatment for hoarding disorder.

What to do at each level

These bands are this site's own guidance, not part of the Clutter Image Rating. At every level, start with three safety checks: a clear way out of every room to the front door, nothing on or near the cooker or heaters, and a working smoke alarm.

Levels 1 to 3: the rooms can be used
- Clutter alone at this level does not usually call for outside help.
- If letting go of things is hard, Mind's self-help page on hoarding suggests starting with small steps.
- If it is causing worry or distress, talk to a GP.
Levels 4 to 6: clutter is getting in the way
- The Clutter Image Rating instructions hosted by London Fire Brigade encourage seeking help from picture 4. That refers to their photographs; our level 4 only approximates it.
- Do the three safety checks, and ask the fire service for a free home fire safety visit.
- Talk to a GP about treatment, and call the HoardingUK helpline for support.
- Make a plan with the person: one area at a time, nothing thrown away without their say.
Levels 7 to 9: rooms can hardly be used
- Safety first: a clear way out of every room to the front door, and ask the fire service for a home fire safety visit.
- Then support for the person: a GP, the HoardingUK helpline, and social care. In England that is the council's adult social care team; our free hoarding help page gives the routes in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- If the person agrees, a specialist firm can clear and clean with them.
- If there is a deadline, such as a landlord inspection or a council notice, tell the landlord or council early and ask for support and time.

The fire service visit, adult social care and HoardingUK are all on our free hoarding help page, with a postcode search for the right council and fire service. Our guide on how to help someone who hoards builds a printable plan with the person. If a firm is needed, hoarder cleaning explains what one does, and hoarder cleaning cost shows what UK firms publish.

Questions people ask

What is the UK clutter rating scale?: Usually the Clutter Image Rating: nine photographs for each of a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom, from clear (1) to very severely cluttered (9). You pick the nearest photograph for each room. London Fire Brigade and some council safeguarding teams use it, and the instructions hosted by London Fire Brigade encourage seeking help at picture 4 or above. The scale on this page works the same way with pictures drawn for this site, so our level 4 only approximates their picture 4.
What are the 9 levels of clutter?: The CIR does not name its levels; each is a photograph. On this page the pictures show, roughly:
A clear, tidy room.
A few things left out; the floor is clear.
Most surfaces covered; a few small piles by the walls.
Piles to knee height along the walls; a wide path.
Half the floor covered; seats or the bed cannot be used.
Most of the floor covered to waist height; a narrow path.
Piles between waist and chest height; an uneven path.
Stacked to chest height and above; the doorway partly blocked.
Filled almost to the ceiling.
What does a clutter score of 4 to 6 mean?: Clutter is getting in the way: seats, the bed, worktops or much of the floor are covered and paths are narrowing. The CIR instructions hosted by London Fire Brigade encourage seeking help from picture 4 of their photographs, which our level 4 only approximates. Help at that point can mean a GP, the HoardingUK helpline, a fire service home safety visit and a plan made with the person, not a clear-out done to them.
What is level 5 or level 7 hoarding?: On a nine-picture scale, level 5 is a room with about half the floor covered to knee height and the seats or bed unusable, with a path about a metre wide. Level 7 has piles between waist and chest height across the room and only a narrow, uneven path. These describe how full a room is, not a person or a medical stage.
Is a hoarding score of 15 high?: The Clutter Image Rating gives each room a level from 1 to 9, so 15 is not a single CIR room rating. It may be several room ratings added together, or a score on a different questionnaire, such as the Hoarding Rating Scale or the Saving Inventory-Revised. Ask whoever gave the score which scale they used and what it means on that scale.
Is there a hoarding test?: Not one you can take online and get a diagnosis from. This scale measures clutter. The International OCD Foundation lists clinical assessment questionnaires, such as the Saving Inventory-Revised and the Hoarding Rating Scale; neither is a diagnosis on its own. If you are worried about yourself, a GP is the place to start.
What mental illness is associated with hoarding?: Hoarding disorder, which the World Health Organization lists in ICD-11 as its own diagnosis (6B24), in the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders group. Being in that group does not mean all hoarding is OCD. The NHS names cognitive behavioural therapy as the main treatment.
What are the 5 levels of hoarding?: The five-level scale comes from the US: the Institute for Challenging Disorganization’s Clutter–Hoarding Scale. It rates the whole home, including the building, animals, health and safety. In the UK, London Fire Brigade and some council safeguarding teams use the nine-picture Clutter Image Rating instead. See hoarding levels above.
Is there a hoarding scale available in the UK?: Yes. HoardingUK and London Fire Brigade publish the Clutter Image Rating as a PDF (links above), and this page is an illustrated version you can fill in on screen and print.

Clutter scale: rate each room from 1 to 9