Story of Collyer Brothers

The infamous story about their bizarre natures and compulsive hoarding

Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley Wakeman Collyer (October 3, 1885 – c. March 9, 1947), known as the Collyer brothers, were two American brothers who became infamous for their bizarre natures and compulsive hoarding. For decades, the two lived in seclusion in their Harlem brownstone at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street) where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and myriad other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to crush intruders. In March 1947, both were found dead in their home surrounded by over 140 tons of collected items that they had amassed over several decades.

Since the 1960s, the site of the former Collyer house has been a pocket park, named for the brothers.

Langley spent the majority of his time tinkering with various inventions, such as a device to vacuum the inside of pianos and a Model T Ford adapted to generate electricity. He also cared for his brother Homer. Langley later told a reporter that he fed and bathed his brother, read him classic literature as he could no longer see and played piano sonatas for him. He also tended to Homer's health and was determined to cure his brother's physical ailments through "diet and rest".

Langley concocted a diet for his brother consisting of one hundred oranges a week, black bread, and peanut butter, claiming that this regimen was curing Homer's blindness. After Homer became paralyzed due to inflammatory rheumatism, he refused to seek professional medical treatment because both brothers distrusted doctors. The brothers feared that if Homer sought medical attention, doctors would cut his optic nerve, leaving him permanently blind, and give him drugs that would hasten his death.

Langley Collyer later told a reporter, "You must remember that we are the sons of a doctor. We have a medical library of 15,000 books in the house. We decided we would not call in any doctors. You see, we knew too much about medicine."