One of my friends here lost a close relative in just such an accident. She suffocated under a pile of bags in a house packed floor to ceiling in every room with "stuff".
When they went to clear the house they found literally thousands of bars of unopened soap, over 100 pairs of new jeans still in their bags (most of them not the lady's size!), and similar massive stockpiles of things all through every room in the house. Apparently she had not been able to get into her bedroom for months, and so had slept in a chair.
Most of the rooms in the house could not be accessed and they had to "unpack" them from the door in.
I currently have a load of junk in my big shed that belongs to an elderly man with a similar disorder. In one box there are dozens of cigarette boxes, each meticulously packed with used matches. That is typical of the stuff he stored here, and those were the "treasures" he couldn't bear to part with when he moved house! I dread to think what it will take to get him to clear all this stuff out.
I originally told a friend he could store stuff in the shed but I had no idea he would allow someone else (an old man he felt sorry for) to dump this rubbish here. We are both currently trying to figure out how to get the stuff removed. The elderly man's family is objecting to us "upsetting" him, and I can understand that, but . . . . . . . . they could always come round and clear out the 3 or 4 truckloads of rubbish for him! It's not a high priority ATM, but I don't want to get stuck with a bill for rubbish removal. Worst case scenario is that my friend clears it all out, but I keep telling him that that is not fair on him and that he needs to get the family to do something.