My idea for a new reality show - the opposite of all those shows about hoarding-

[hedgehog]

a show about people who keep their homes absolutely spotless at all times.

[mikeysnot]

1. That would be my wife...

I like a clean tidy house but her OC brings it to levels that are sometimes incorrigible. Not sure it would make for good tv....

[hedgehog]

7. Yeah, you're right. What would the crew do, track mud on the floor and

restrain the home owner?

Some of us are untidy without being hoarders, though, and it gets old being nagged by people with OCD. My house is dusted, my floors are swept and mopped, give it a rest about the number of books on my shelves, already!

[Roland99]

16. Mine, too

We've had all sorts of friends, family, window cleaners, etc. comment on how immaculate the house looks all the time. Even caught her vacuuming the spacing cracks in the garage floor one day!

[Union Scribe]

2. They probably wouldn't allow a production crew in

to trod all over their clean floors

[TlalocW]

3. Either that or

They would see a smudge on the camera lens and stop what they were talking about/doing to wipe it clean.

TlalocW

[spinbaby]

4. Been done

Saw it a couple of years ago. Lots of cleaning in cracks with toothbrushes and not being able to have people over because they might mess up the place.

[olddots]

5. I like the idea but think it would fail

Hoarding is a form of greed and as you know greed is good and good for big anything goes business for excessive profits .

How about a show called The Dumbest Celebrity ? oops they have too many of those already .

[marions ghost]

6. Hoarding is not really

a form of greed --it is a negative psychological dependency.

Most people who hoard (even in small ways) do it out of fear of loss or an experience of actual loss of some kind. Humans are not great at managing our fears.

[pipi_k]

11. Have you ever seen

any of the hoarders shows?


Some of them are quite sad. People hoarding totally useless things like old newspapers, trash, tuna fish cans, etc. That's not greed.


Like the person above me said, the act of hoarding itself is a negative psychological condition, most of the time brought on by some terrible loss or traumatic event. Once they get therapy to deal with the trauma, the compulsion to hoard usually disappears.

[hunter]

14. There's really no rhyme or reason for hoarding.

If anything, it's a kind of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, the opposite side of the coin of, say, keeping one's house excessively clean and sparse.

Such behavior can be triggered or exacerbated by certain experiences or situations, good or bad, but the tendency to be a hoarder or to keep one's house sparse and hospital operating room clean, is a symptom of the underlying OCD.

Nevertheless, I do think many very wealthy people, the "hoarders of money," are addicts in the same sense as gambling addicts, or else they are bullies, thieves, and sociopaths. The world would be a much healthier and happier place if our economic system did not reward this sort of behavior.

[GreatGazoo]

19. not greed -- a form of greiving, a dysfunctional way of coping with loss

[hedgehog]

8. I think part of my OP is a response to the not so subtle hints from my sister

that I need to down-size. For one thing, I'm still using all that stuff, and some of it is waiting for me to use when I have time after retirement. Knock wood, but I plan to be staying busy for quite a while yet, thank-you!

Besides - when I'm gone, let my kids take what they want and give the rest to charity or the dump.

[tabbycat31]

9. Allow me to introduce you to one of the biggest trainwrecks on the internet

www.largefamiliesonpurpose.com

This is a family with 9 kids who keeps a spotless home. This mom's views make the Duggars look sane.

[leftyladyfrommo]

10. I have OCD but not the cleaning kind.

Those people who feel constantly compelled to clean are absolutely miserable. They simply can't stop. Eventually it can ruin their marriages. It can completely mess up their kids. And they can't stop.

I knew one woman who couldn't leave her house until she had vacuumed the rug and no one had stepped on it. If someone left a footprint she had to start all over. All the cans in her cupboards had to be in alphabetical order and absolutely straight.

Some people can't get out of their house.

It's really a horrible, horrible thing to have to deal with. I think WHO rates OCD as the 3rd most crippling disorder.

I have the kind where I have to check things over and over. It got so bad that I was afraid I would not be able to work. But I went on high dose Prozac for about 8 months and that kicked it. It's still there but the compulsion is not so bad that I can't deal with it.

It sounds funny. But it is a really devastating disorder.

[hedgehog]

13. I've been on the very far edge of that sometimes - wondering if I turned the stove off -

you are right - OCD is absolute hell. Please forgive me for trivializing the condition. I'm not sure if I'd say some women have OCD, because I think they are responding more to societal pressures than they are to inner compulsions. But people,get real - those kitchens in the magazines may look great, but could you actually cook and bake in them?

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. I pet sit so I am in a lot of really big homes.

Most of them look like no one lives there. There is never anything sitting out anywhere. There are no books, no magazines. Everything is a big open space. I would hate to live in a house like that. Just give me 750 sq. feet with a coffee table you can put your feet up on and a big pile of magazines.

That look is often achieved by having a cleaning service come in at least once a week.

Yes, OCD isn't the same as just liking things to be neat.

You know there are some OCD people who if they hit a bump in the road have to go back over and over and over just to make sure they didn't hit someone. That would be so awful. They end up two hours late for work.

[csziggy]

20. I wonder if those "sterile" houses are indicative of minds with few thoughts

I don't understand how anyone can live with empty shelves, no books, no magazines, and lots of space. And it's not the cleaning services that get a house that way. Cleaning services will not put things away - they will clean around clutter and leave the clutter where it is.

I live with clutter because I am constantly doing different things. I have too many projects going on at any one time to get them all put away at once. I have lots of knick knacks and stuff because they are part of my history and remind me of important events in my life or in my family history. There are books and magazines all over my house because I am a compulsive reader.

People with "sterile" houses and no knick knacks worry me on some level - who are they, where did they come from, what do they read (or why don't they read), why don't they have a history they are willing to show to visitors?

[leftyladyfrommo]

22. I'm a reader, too.

I think some of those people work so many hours a day that they are almost never home. Or maybe they are never home because their home is so sterile they would rather be someplace else.

I don't understand it. I just checked a book out that had tiny apartments from all over the world. They were small but they all had been completely rebuilt. They were all stainless steel and clean lines. And nothing sitting out anywhere - except for some perfectly placed art pieces.

I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally break something when I'm in those houses.

I do have one retired Marine officer where everything is always lined up perfectly. You could eat off his garage floor. I think he got that way from being in the military for years and years. I don't think it's OCD.

[csziggy]

25. I have been in houses where their clutter is organized

And the home is immaculate. That's different than a "sterile" house with nothing that provides intellectual stimulation!

I think that some people just don't accumulate - but I consider having nothing to "populate" their living space a form of poverty. Some of the decorating shows I've seen are really sad - the ones where the people have no art and the decorator commissions or paints an art object for their wall that does nothing but compliments the decor. We used to call that "hotel art" or "sofa art." It's not real art, it only provides another spot of color or texture, not any sort of history or impulse to appreciate the quality of the picture.

That's only marginally better in my opinion than houses with nothing on the walls, not even photos of family. Those are the homes that seem less than a hotel room. I wonder at their poverty of memory.

The art on my walls is varied and every piece has a history. Some a very deep history such as the picture created by my husband' great grandfather while he was on a painting tour in Italy where his wife died. Or the pen & ink drawing by the brother of my great aunt's special friend that I have owned since I was a child. Some because my husband and I purchased the piece together from the artist at a street show or a gallery. Some I created with my needlework. Every piece has a history and a story - and is fun to look at.

[sabrina 1]

12. I'd like to see one about Money Hoarders.

[adirondacker]

28. +1000.

?w=720&h=480&crop=1

A belated Happy Holidays and New Year Sabrina!

[sabrina 1]

30. Same to you, Adirondacker!

[lame54]

15. They already have that show...

[treestar]

18. A lot of reality shows are about pathology

Addiction and such. People seem to like to see that others have done worse.

This would work too, though. The viewers would then look for failures or imperfections. No one can keep their home spotless at all times, so the protagonist would get criticism where it was not perfect.

[jwirr]

21. My daughter would qualify. We all call her a clean-a-holic. She goes to visit her children and

cleans. She has even done this for friends. The kids tried but she just does it over again. We have all given up.

[hedgehog]

23. For some people, this is a problem of OCD. But i think for others, this is a

way of implying the homeowners are too lazy to keep the house properly cleaned.

I wonder if there is a generational divide here, whether young women are as house proud as some older women? And I do say women; I've never known a male to go into another male's den or workshop and start rearranging things. I think this is an expression of the expectations placed upon women that they are the ones who should keep the house clean.

[jwirr]

24. I think the last is definitely part of it. Her grandmother kept a very clean household and she loved

her. She is getting better. I live with one of her sons and do the dishes and that seems to allow her to set down for a visit. Her husband was an alcoholic and I think this all started as a way to show she was different and it was also one of the aspects of their life that she could control. So when everything else was falling apart she cleaned.

[hedgehog]

27. I very much agree. I'm very thankful for the thoughtful repsonses here.

They've helped me clarify my own thoughts so I can smile and ignore my sister's hints. Sometimes it's best not to have a confrontation.

[dilby]

26. So it would be a show about people with OCD?

You could have someone walk through the house and touch stuff and watch the person who is OCD totally have a melt down as they are wiping up everything after the person.

[librechik]

29. haven't seen that since i moved out of the ashram...

[Turbineguy]

31. A show about people who lead

happy and well-organized lives?

It will never work.