Since this is a necro-ed post, I don’t think Brad works there anymore. Do the hearthlings in fact have access to all the items? Even if they’re in your inventory, they’re not necessarily accessible (e.g., an item was dropped/stored somewhere where there’s no longer a ladder, or it’s in a chest that’s behind or on top of another chest, etc.).
You could try using my StorageAlert mod (Paul the Great's modding vertex) which is not user-friendly or super functional but would let you know about items that the AI is trying to access but is unable to. It could at least let you rule out that the items are inaccessible by not seeing them listed there.