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Hoarders (the show)

Posted: Jan 2, 2010

Has anyone seen that show (Hoarders)? It's one one of the DirecTV channels - Discovery or The Learning Channel or something like that. Now, I admit that DH is a packrat and without me around, it would be a tad cluttered around here. When he accumulates too much crap, I box it up, label it and put it in the attic. If he doesn't miss it for several years, it goes in the garbage. I thought we had a clutter problem. Wrong.

They go into these peoples' houses and have to shovel tons of crap out of there. One lady (if you're a cat lover, please don't read this part), they were going thru her house, and I think they removed 6,000 pounds of garbage. It had been there for about 15 years. In that garbage, they found her false teeth. They also found not one, but two dead pet cats.

Stuff is just piled everyone in these peoples' houses. They won't let go of foot that has been expired for years. There's meat blood all over the fridge and food in that blood that they want to keep. The list goes on.

It's a form of OCD and it's very sad. These people are on the verge of being evicted from their homes if they don't clean them up.

It's an interesting show. Has anyone else seen it?

;

I have seen it and very interesting - Lynn

[ In Reply To ..]
Over the years I have read of people like this, one I remember where a person died, the spouse had died years ago but buried under huge volumes of debris and never even found until the death of the other. I have 3 cats and hubby, even though we have plenty of room for others, insists I should not get any more. I have always thought he thinks I could become a "cat" hoarder. It seems the people involved cannot even give up the smallest scrap of "keepsakes" and it takes so much to work with them in getting them to downsize. It is a mental disease and you feel sorry for the people but so glad no one around me has.

Hoarders - Vikefantam - One more year, Brett!

[ In Reply To ..]
I do feel sorry for them. I can't believe they found another person in that house. Wow.

Hon, if you can take care of 3 cats and your house isn't a disaster area and you're taking care of things, there's nothing wrong with another cat or two, IMO. There are so many cats in need. We have homeless cats living behind a plaza by my house (behind a Chinese restaurant, no less). My neighbor took in one. I took in another, spent $300 on it at the vet, got it neutered and a week later it got out and got run over. Never again. However, I know plenty of people in my pug rescue organization who have 4, 5, 6 or more pugs at any given time (forever pugs and foster pugs). Pugs are the largest of the toy breed but they're a lot of dog in a small package. I limited myself to 3 because we don't have a fenced in yard and I can only walk 3. I would have gone for a fourth had we had the fence. We had to put our rescue down last September so we're down to 2 for now and I'd probably go up to 4 if we could afford to have our 2 cloned. Pugs sleep almost all day so they're easy to have around (and pug lovers adore the gentle snoring). They don't require a lot. But they do love people and do want attention. I sometimes have a pug on my lap while I type.

I know what you mean about those people who struggle to give up even the smallest keepsake. I get in my moods where it's "throw it away or keep it". If I haven't used it in a certain amount of time, it's gone. Easy enough for me. There must be some type of attachment disorder or maybe an abandonment disorder. Very very sad.

I've been watching it too - like a trainwreck

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm starting to get irritated with the perpetrators though. Usually they begin complaining they're ashamed or embarrassed and all I can think is - then what are you doing on TV? Now the whole world knows your nasty secret.
The last one I watched was a married couple with several kids. They sat there knowing their kids would probably get taken away, but did nothing. Then their kids got taken, and they did nothing. Then animal control came for their pets (they were way over the legal limit) and THEN they cried and did something about their mess.
The worse though was the diaper lady, an intelligent former IT professional. Her toilet quit working so her answer was to put on diapers instead of get it repaired. Problem was, she never discarded the diapers. Soon they were all over the house. She ended up tying herself on a potty chair to sleep in her kitchen, next to a huge pile of soiled diapers. Thank god she's now in an assisted living facility. She was unable to sell her house once they got it cleaned out, they had to tear it down and she only got 5k for the lot.
IMHO, hoarders shouldn't have it both ways. When their house gets beyond their control and they have to get professional help, they should not be allowed to sit there picking over every item and fighting with anybody who showed up to help. They have proved beyond a doubt their decision making process is flawed, and their counselors seem to be in denial of that simple fact as they sit there babying them and treating them as if getting hysterical over bags of garbage is normal and OK. The way they treat their family members for helping them is horrible. I think they all belong in assisted living until they can prove they have changed enough to be trusted on their own again.

Hoarders - Vikefantam

[ In Reply To ..]
I find myself getting irritated with them too. I want to strangle some of them. They want to hold on to a year old pizza for one reason or another or they won't let go of boxes of expired coupons. My gosh, they've got professional help there and they won't let these people help them. Then I feel bad for judging them because they are mentally ill but it's sad when kids get taken away but the pets are better off elsewhere but sadly, they probably get put to sleep.

I cheer when they do have the occasional rare success.

they are probably on TV because - Mimi

[ In Reply To ..]
the show probably foots the bill for clean up and free help by professionals, they even may get paid on top of that. Same with intervention, it must be hard airing all that dirty laundry, but if it means getting a chance to send their loved one to a very good rehab, it must be worth it.

There is a lady in my town like that.... - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
It IS sad. I knew her from when I was smaller, she was one of my childhood friend's aunt. Now though, we have local dumps where we dump our trash and each time we take our trash off I see her at the dump basically getting TRASH. She will be inside the dumpsters getting things. The other day she was on her hands and knees getting a chess board set someone threw out, obviously over half of the pieces were missing, but she was getting them all.

I have never been in her house, but I am SERIOUSLY surprised her home hasn't been condemed! You can see in the windows that she has trash stacked all of the way up the walls and her ENTIRE yard has nothing but trash in it. I couldn't even explain how bad without you seeing it. It is quite sad.

Hoarders - Vikefan

[ In Reply To ..]
Oh, that is sad. I'll be she's one lonely lady. It's got to be a way of compensating for something missing in their lives. I've been to a dump before. It really stinks there. She must be really ill to be on her hands and knees looking for chess pieces. Poor lady.

My mom was like that - jackie

[ In Reply To ..]
I watched that show once. Some guy who was going to be evicted. It was just very disturbing to me that people would live that way and reminds me of my mom.

It is very very sad. When I would fly back to see her as much as I missed her and loved her and wanted to be with her I hated staying with her, but she always wanted me there. You would walk in the door and there would be a path to the couch. Their kitchen, which was part of the living room was free of debris. Then there was a path leading through the dining room into their bedroom (only to the bed, you could not walk around the bed). Then going upstairs where I would sleep, half the staircase had something on each stair, so you'd have to stay to one side, then at the top of the stair was a bedroom on each side. One of the rooms, forget even going in there. You could only look at all the stuff. The other room there was a path (barely), that led to the bed and her chair at her desk where her computer and stuff was. She spent most of her life up there as she and her husband were always fighting, so it was her space away from him. She did her quilting and watched TV and pretty much did everything there. When I would go back I would share half the bed with all her "stuff". Every time I went back all I wanted to do was help her clean, but she was never interested in cleaning. After she died my sister and I went upstairs to get some of her stuff she left us in her will, but there was so much more I wanted to go through, as there was stuff there my sister and I had as kids, but there was just no way to get across the room. Anyway...I just don't know why people are like that.

One thing I know is that she was embarrassed about it, wouldn't let anyone in the house. Once my dad dropped me off after being with him and he did come in, but that was the only person she ever let into the house. So she was embarrassed but she never did anything to fix it. When she first moved in with her husband the house was neat. She cleaned and it was very pleasant to be there (she lived in a beautiful (when it was clean) house on the lake. Then her husband started letting things go in the house and so did she. She always blamed it on him that he wouldn't let her clean, and to some point that was true. She would throw something out and he would pick it out of the garbage and examine it and then say ok, you can throw it out, or I wanted to keep that. However, the upstairs was hers and she could have gotten rid of anything she wanted to because none of it was his stuff, but it was pretty bad.

Because of her being like that and seeing her place and how they lived, I think I am the opposite. I'm no clean freak that's for sure (in fact I've got the last two days of dishes sitting on my counter, haven't vacuumed for about a month (which today is going to be a spring cleaning for me), but because of the way she was I hate to keep anything. If I don't need it I want to throw it out, which drives my husband nuts because he says "we may need that one day". LOL. It's just very sad to see people live like that.

Your mom - Vikefantam

[ In Reply To ..]
Looking in from the outside, I see a few things going on here. The show itself states Hoarders have OCD. OCD makes you fear that if you don't do certain things, something bad will happen.

Secondly, she is married to what sounds like a very manipulative man. I'm not sure about the "he won't let me clean comment", whether it's an excuse or the result of her husband's behavior.

Thirdly, is her husband still in the picture? If he's not, it could very well be because she's using material things to fill the void, and she's coping by continuing the habit she knows best.

Lastly, I can understand her embarrassment. After spending 3 months sick on the couch last summer, getting better and then breaking my foot right aay and having to spend another 4 weeks on the couch, I've been allowed to walk since about mid September with a cam bood and had to walk in that stupid thing for 4 months. I was tempted to burn it when they finally took me out of inNovember and my house is still a mess in parts. I was either too sick to clean or had to remain off my foot and could not clean. Until my house is back to my strict standards of cleanliness, I'm not inviting anyone in.

God bless you and your mother. With OCD, you're aware that what you're doing is wrong but can't help yourself. I think it would be a good idea for her to see a counselor if she can afford it. A psychiatrist might be a good idea. She could very well be clinicallly depresed. She may need something for anxiety or an anti-depressant, some of which (I'm sure you already know this) are supposed to help for OCD.

Good luck with both of you. May God bless of you and keep you safe.

My mom - jackie

[ In Reply To ..]
Her husband (I will never refer to him as my step-dad even though he is), was part of the reason she became ill. The stress he put on her was bad. She suffered from panic attacks, anxiety, and she was always sick with something. She had attacks and anxiety for years, always afraid that she would get cancer. Even when we were little growing up my mom was one of those people who just needed attention, but as she got older it got worse. She would call once a week or so crying... "I've got a pain in my hip, it's hip cancer"...I've got a pain in my shoulder, it's shoulder cancer", etc. A lot of it she developed because she would watch Oprah and the guests she would have on my mom would say Dr. So-n-so said that if I feel this way it means I'm going to die, etc. Anyway...every time she had a pain she thought she had cancer. The unfortunately thing is she ended up getting lung cancer, but she would tell people she never smoked, which was not true because she started smoking around 19 or 20. She used to be a professional dancer (ballet, tap, acrobatics, and owned her own dance studio, but after she married, got pregnant and stopped dancing, she started smoking and smoked up until she was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away 7 years ago this coming May. She didn't have OCD in the way that you describe. She never felt that she had to do certain things or something bad would happen. I think what it was was that she would try to get rid of something and her husband would inspect everything before it left the house. He went through the garbage bags and everything. When I would go back I'd stay with her for a week and I saw it. Then he started letting the house go (leaking roof never fixed, living room walls never put back up and pink insulation exposed, and he started hoarding. Anytime he saw a piece of metal or junk on the side of the road he'd bring it home and leave it in the yard. She used to have beautiful gardens and she made butterfly and bird houses, but when she'd drive home all she saw was the junk he kept bringing home. So with him going through the garbage all the time yelling at her for throwing something away, so stopped cleaning, stopped gardening, and stopped caring. She would do the dishes and that was it. Then she just never had energy or anything to have her two rooms upstairs cleaned.

All I say is her soul is at rest now and she is with her parents, and brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles who passed away, and my baby sister who died at 16 months old and I know she is much happier now. As a side note a very odd thing happened. Her brother died the day before she died. I'm just happy my mom is no longer suffering from the cancer and the stress that her life brought her. What a horrible horrible way to go at the end. She was such a good person and would do anything for anyone, and she suffered horribly in the end. I am glad that is over for her.

Thanks for posting this - MT Bottle

[ In Reply To ..]
It spurred me on to cleaning out some closets. Have been meaning to do these for a long, long time.

Hoarders - Vikefantam

[ In Reply To ..]
You're welcome. I'm going to get buzy tomorrow before and after my game (Giants vs my Vikings at 1:00). Hey, my priorities aay not be right but this is NFL footbal and my Vikings are being broadcast. LOL!

A cluttered house makes a cluttered mind, and vice versa...sm - trash

[ In Reply To ..]
There are also clean hoarders, I can understand those, but I have no empathy with hoarders who let their houses go dirty. How can one live like that? They must be infested with bugs, mice and rats....eeewwww! They are also endangering the neighborhood.

This is a reason for evicting a hoarder-renter, and the police should be called on an owner who is a dirty hoarder.

Thinking what others should understand, their minds are already - cluttered, thus the hoarding

[ In Reply To ..]
Willing to say you would not throw a person on the street just because they suffered from schizophrenia, would you? This is the same, it is a mental disorder, not someone just wanting to have a messed up dirty home. I have empathy with the underdog, always have and these are people who probably wish it were not happening to them, if they are aware of what is actually going on around them. To me, they are to be pitied rather than thrown out like trash.

Then they belong in monitored environments - not in control of others

[ In Reply To ..]
I can pity them to an extent, but I pity more the people in their lives. Does their landlord deserve to have their house trashed and under the scrutiny of the health department, with holes rotted in the flooring from piles of waste everywhere? Do their children deserve the stench and unhealthy conditions, and the shame? Its abuse. Do their pets deserve to wander under a pile of garbage, die, and lay there and rot until someone finally cleans it up? If someone "needs" so many pets they can't afford to take them to the vet and can't find them when they litter babies or die in their house, that's animal abuse. And they can claim to love them till the cows come home, actions speak louder than words.

These people should not be in control of a house, other human beings, or pets. Assisted living, group homes, visits monitoring their situation, etc. There has to be an alternative to just letting them stay in control of what they obviously cannot control!

I totally, 100%, agree with you....nm - trash

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

hoarders...sm - trash

[ In Reply To ..]
I bet that all those dirty hoarders who remain in the houses longer than 1 year are the owners of the house they trash up. No way they can get away with this being a renter.

No landlord would put up with this and he has the moral and legal right to evict them by going to court and win the case, even if these hoarders have a kind of disease, mental or physical.

Nobody has the right to destroy other people's property, no matter what.

hoarders tv show - rita

[ In Reply To ..]
Though certainly no psychiatrist, I wonder if it wouldn't be better if the counsellors/organizers told the hoarders: ''Look, you can keep 10 items from each room. After you make your selections, then you have to leave the house while we dispose of everything else and clean.'' It seems like the hoarders agonize over every single item. But once disposed of, they couldn't possibly remember every item they once had. Plus giving them the choice to keep a set number of things might make them feel they were still in control.

therefore I wrote "...and vice versa!"...sm - trash

[ In Reply To ..]
BTW, people like you describe belong into an institution, they are not able to exist on their own if this is really the result of their disease. This has nothing to do with empathy. You show them more empathy helping them to change this situation.

Not all of them are sick, they are just lazy.

Lazy would apply to the ones on show last night - their poor kids!

[ In Reply To ..]
Mom goes on and on about how getting her kids taken away would be "the worst thing that could ever happen to her". Then makes statements like "How could anyone live here WITHOUT getting depressed" (somehow doesn't seem to apply that to her kids and recognize the abuse though). Neither kid has even been able to get to their bed to sleep in it for years - but both parents can get to their beds (separate bedrooms too). Dad attempts suicide and Mom is loth to call for help because "then I'd lose my husband and my kids due to the state of the house". (Sounds to me like, "who gives a dang if daddy dies and how they feel about it as long as I keep my kids").

When the team shows up, her and dad stand outside wringing their hands while the crew and the KIDS do ALL the work - youngest seems especially desperate to get it all clean on schedule and works like a maniac the whole time. During the show the complacent counselor makes statements like "Your parents are supposed to take care of you, not you take care of your parents", the crew boss observes that the parents "Just need a leader and need to be told what to do, then they'll do something". As the crew is leaving, the youngest kid breaks down in tears because he's going to "miss them". (Does anyone else see this as a sign that someone needs to help this child?)

Once the house is finally clean, mom suddenly "owns" the former mess and apologizes to her family for "letting it get so bad". Yeah, lady, its all about YOU, your feelings, and whether YOUR kids get taken away. The rest of the family is just window dressing in your universe. The whole show creeped me out, and felt like the tip of the ice berg as to what is really wrong in that family.

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