Has anyone been watching the series Hoarders on A&E

[snooper2]

Jesus H. Fucking Christ, clean your house people! My mother-in-law has this problem, she's got shit everywhere, just a path through the house. She's not as bad as they worse cases they have on the show, but getting close. We are planning a "cleaning" session as soon as my lazy ass sister-in-law can dedicate a day to help. It's going to have to be a tag team effort so she doesn't implode. I really don't understand how people can live like that. Sewing stuff all over the living room, 100's of half completed projects. I looked at a one shelf and it was just full of old cordless phones and chargers. :wtf: Throw it away or donate it! Coupons, big stack of coffee coupons she pulls out of a pile the other day, "I've been saving these for you guys".

Thanks but no thanks, I'll pay the extra 44 cents for coffee if you throw this shit away! I'm glad I've been watching the shows as it's given some good ideas on how to handle this. One thing I've noticed is it tends to be older women who have this problem. Children leave the nest and the kids are replaced with "things"....

If you are a hoarder clean your shit up- you'll be a happier person...and you may have some family actually want to come visit you :)

This is NOT A HOME!

[NJmaverick]

1. I don't need to watch it on TV. As an EMT I have been in houses like that

the only thing TV can't convey is the smell

[Captain Hilts]

2. I can't bear to. Mom became a horder in her last years. At least she was clean about it.

She died leaving no dirty laundry or dishes in the sink.

It's a 'control' thing.

She was pretty amazing.

[spinbaby]

6. My grandma in-law was like that

We didn't even realize what a hoarder she was until we cleaned out her house and realized that every cupboard, spare bedroom, attic space, and basement was crammed full of neatly packed boxes of crap. Her actual living area was very clean.

[dembotoz]

3. yea it can be a problem

a friend of mine saw the show and told me about it.
I have not seen it yet.
This friend, whom i care very deeply for, is a hoarder.
I have spent a lot of time there as of late trying to help her and her
daughter get the place in some order. The daughter is autistic but fairly functional
and it was time for her social worker to do a home visit.
They were able to put the social worker off in previous years but not this year.
The social worker was there yesterday afternoon. I have not heard how it went.
My friend is an amazing woman, but when it comes to doing housework and throwing stuff out
she becomes extremely nervous and just visibly shakes.
The daughter is not much help because she needs supervision for even many mundane tasks and
quite frankly, the task is now overwhelming. Clearly overwhelming.
Her daughter and i have found that cleaning is most possible when the mother is away from the house.
I am sure people would say that the mother is just scaming a way to get someone else to clean
for her, but i don't think so.

So i will just hang in there and do what i can

[Odin2005]

35. Us autistics tend to be hoarders, and autistic traits run in families, so...

That mother might be a bit on the spectrum herself.

[TrogL]

4. That's easy for you to say, it's not that simple

Watch carefully the emotions of the hoarder as they go through their stuff.

I'm a bit of one (books, computer gear, synths, bookmarks (literal and virtual)) so I know the feeling.

The discussions usually goes something like (C: - clutterer, D: - de-clutterer)

D: So here's a 1978 calendar - why are we keeping this?
C: (cheerful) It might be useful.
D: Toss. So here's a broken teapot - why are we keeping this, there's 3 on the counter.
C: (tragic) I was planning on fixing that - it's my favourite.
D: Toss. 5 years of issues of Popular Mechanics from the 70's - why are we keeping these?
C: (worried) There's some good articles I wanted to cut out.

I've hired a declutter who's coming next week. Her conditions are that she wants free reign so I'm gonna have to run around ahead of time and rescue anything that genuinely needs keeping.

[LynneSin]

18. I just went thru that with makeup - I have stuff I've owned for over 10 years

Mind you I will toss away the Mascara - that stuff should be replaced on a regular basis. But it took alot out of me to toss away stuff because I kept thinking "One day I might want this this shade of green" even though I have 50 fricking shades of green eye shadow.

Sometimes I watch stuff like this just to make sure I keep my house clean. "Grey Gardens" is back on HBO and that can put me into a cleany frenzy.

My stepfather was executer of a great-uncle who was a hoarder. The guy saved everything including every bag used for the bread he bought. He said he lifted this giant pile of bread bags and the bottom ones were so old they were rotting away. But this guy was also someone who survived the depression - there is some hording tendancies there too.

[Arugula Latte]

27. The Depression created a lot of hoarders.

My husband's parents have that tendency, as did my grandma, although not to this extent. I'm trying to go the other way. In fact, I just got rid of a bag of stuffed animals today (donated it to school carnival). I've been trying to get rid of at least one thing a day. I thought my house was pretty clutter free, but I started taking a good hard look at every object and trying to justify whether we should keep it. I discovered there actually was quite a bit of excess stuff we could easily live without.

Anyway, it's amazing what a remarkably common problem hoarding has become in a society where "stuff" is cheap and plentiful.

[gmoney]

47. where do you hire a declutterer?

I could use one

[ChickMagic]

55. How do you find a declutterer?

I really need one.

[hunter]

5. My grandma was a hoarder.

Gotta say my own house doesn't look so good either, but not like your pictures.

My grandma's house did look like your pictures. She was eventually dragged out of it kicking and screaming and biting by the police and paramedics after she seriously injured herself in a fall.

I can guess how the trait is maintained in the human gene pool -- during times of great scarcity perhaps communities with a few hoarders were more likely to survive. But it's a wretched propensity to have in our culture of consumerism.

[wickerwoman]

7. It seems a lot more complicated than just "clean your home".

The woman in the second picture was homeless for a long stretch when she was a single mother. Now that she has a home, she hoards food so she will never be hungry again. It's a pathological obsession that can't be addressed simply with straight-talk.

My Dad works with former POWs and food hoarding is quite common for them. Even though they know logically that they have the money and can go out and buy food any time, they still buy way more than they could ever eat, hide it around the house and let some of it rot.

I think the same is true of material objects. If you've ever been really on the edge, and then gained a little bit of material security, you tend to cling to it even if it is expired coupons and fifteen year old magazines.

[newcriminal]

8. Yes, they obviously have some mental issues.

I truly feel sorry for them. The show makes me sad.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. It shows extreme situations but I think most of us have some hoarding tendancies.

For example, I was looking at my kitchen cabinet and I'm thinking to myself I probably have too many coffee mugs, but then I have my little justifications as to my personal attachment to each mug why I haven't gotten rid of it.

[Initech]

10. That show is fucked up!!!!!

There was one where they were cleaning out a refrigerator full of spoiled meats and one drawer had two inches thick of solidified meat juice. I would not want to eat anything that came out of that thing. :puke:

[newcriminal]

11. And she wanted to keep the food that was floating in it.

[Initech]

16. Ugh! That refridgerator should've been set on fire.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. you watched the series and clearly learnt nothing about the underlying causes of this

i am not surprised

[snooper2]

49. I know a lot about the underlying causes

but you can assume what ever you want princess...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

53. if you understood anything of this dear princess, you wouldnt ask them to just clean up.

[City of Mills]

13. I've come across this before

In a previous career path (delivering pizza) we had a customer who would order every now and then, an older woman, who was a hoarder. Little debris-free path through her front door, everywhere else just boxes and blankets and stuff...she had stacks of all the pizza boxes she'd ever ordered throughout her house. Always paid in change.

I have the opposite problem; possessions give me anxiety...they make me feel tied down and rooted. You know the expression "The stuff you own ends up owning you"? I want to be able to move my entire household overnight if necessary. I feel empowered when I sell or give away things. Weird...

[wickerwoman]

17. Yeah, me too.

Everything I own fits in less than three suitcases. I get really nervous having a lot of stuff around me with no obvious use for any of it.

When I moved into my last apartment, the owners weren't quite hoarders but they still had tons and tons of stuff there that they said I could throw away if I didn't want it. Dad had a whole drawer full of metal bottle caps and empty deodorant sticks and Mom had tons of baby stuff (including old needles and empty antibiotic bottles). Their kid was four but they didn't want to throw out baby formula and unused diapers. Plus they had billions of knick-knacks, Christmas lights all over everything, burned out lightbulbs and old receipts. I kept the receipts for them, but over the course of the next six weeks, I threw out enough crap to fill the stairwell landing six times. It just didn't feel like a place I could live until I got rid of all the extraneous, distracting stuff.

[Paper Roses]

14. Good grief, are those pictures real? I'd go nuts!

I was worried that my attic was becoming a little messy but after seeing these shots, I feel like it is bare in comparison. There is really something wrong with anyone who cannot see that they have a problem keeping stuff until the house looks like that.

[One_Life_To_Give]

15. Looks like my place

Well almost, there are days it seems that way.

I have been known to not throw stuff out. But my other half has really left me in the dust the last several years. Wish I had a clue where to begin to get her to slow down. Get one area of the house cleaned and it will be full of crap again in seemingly no-time at all. The only thing around the house that makes sense is the coffee mug that reads "She who dies with the most fabric wins."

[LynneSin]

19. Wow! Wouldn't it be great if it was just that easy

Most hoarders (and even myself, I'm known to hoard but nothing to the extremes you see there) usually have some issues going on with why they refuse to part with something. My hoarding is music products, books and make-up but I have some minor hoarding with clothes (I swear I'll get back into those size 10 dresses someday soon). However, with most hoarders it's pretty mild and manageable. I mean my kitchen is pretty clean (if not I'll get bugs) and I always have clean clothes to wear. Company is welcome to visit as long as they don't go into my basement or office (where the worst of my hoarding is packed away).

In general I keep pretty clean but I do watch shows about messy houses only to inspire myself to "Not be like that".

[tabbycat31]

41. I have hoarded clothes before

in fact the jeans I'm wearing now were hoarded. I gained massive amounts of weight due to drinking and being lazy, then lost a good chunk (and am still in the process).

I'm wearing jeans from when I was 23. I'm glad I held onto my old clothes cause they fit me again. I couldn't afford new ones at the moment.

[snooper2]

50. At my mother-in-laws there is no counter space...

one side of the sink is always full, no space in the fridge and the stove is always covered...

She has anxiety and lots of stress, some of it is from her husband having cancer and the cost of the drugs, being laid off two years ago, and my sister-in-law ( my wife is a twin ) "not living her life the way MIL thinks she should"...

The hoarding starting after they left the house 20 years ago though...now in even more stressfull times it's gotten worse.


We told her we are having a yard sale in a couple weekends so that's going to be a big start for the inside. I take care of the outside of the property every couple weekends so over the past year have removed quite a bit. Rusty stacks of posts, junk soaker hoses, steel shelving units, that kind of stuff...

[azmouse]

20. That looks exactly like my MIL's house.

She's 82 and has lived like that for at least 40 years.
I dread the day she finally leaves her house and my husband and I have to clean it out.
I've already voted to just bulldoze the damn thing and save a lot of time.

[Z_I_Peevey]

21. Last night's show was painful to watch.

The older man with the junkyard...his emotions were so raw I had to turn it off.

I thought I was a hoarder prior to seeing this series. I'm not even close...just well-prepared.

[AngryAmish]

22. Fantastic show

My dad got like that in later years...it was a constant struggle.

[Broken_Hero]

23. I've watched a couple

its a very interesting show, my inlaws are somewhat similar to the hoarders in the show, but not that extreme in their ways.

My FIL collects exercise equipment/radios/cd players, he literally has rooms full of this stuff, but he keeps up on it, dusts it, fiddles with it and the house is clean.

My own father I believe is starting to become a hoarder of sorts, but I think its because certain things remind him of something from his past, and he buys weird stuff for no apparent reason, until he explains why. For example he bought me an old outlet from the 30's or even older. I was like, wth is up with this, so I asked him a few hours later why he bought that for me. He stated that those type of outlets were the first ones that his dad taught him how to install.

My dad does buy a lot of weird things, but like my FIL he keeps up on it, and nothing is dirty. The show in question though, is a show of extreme's. Hell I'm a hoarder of anything superman, don't touch my stuff! :P

[KG]

24. whenever i see these shows or pictures i always think 'where do the get the money to buy all that

junk?', coz in many instances you see stuff still new in the shopping bags.

[dembotoz]

31. my friend has a very good job and is paid fairly well.

she seems quite normal
she IS normal
except for this thing.
I ONLY found out because she needed someone to tend her cats while she and her daughter were away on
vacation.

found out later that i was the first outside person that was allowed in her house in YEARS.

So much for a social life....
We had to clear a path for a new fridge and a washer and dryer.

You look around and you think all that money, but then when you start to clean it up (which i am in process), you discover that the build up is done over time. I found shopping bags with reciepts from
1999. Stuff unopened.
So figure 1 bag of stuff on sale every 2 weeks for ten years--that is 26 x 10 or 260 bags of stuff.

That a lot of stuff and the cost would be manageable.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. For these people it's not just a matter of cleaning.

Telling a hoarder to "just clean your house" is like telling a clinically depressed person to just get a grip and cheer up. They have serious psychological problems, and ever after someone comes in and helps them throw stuff away and clean up, they will soon revert back to hoarding if they don't get some help with the underlying problem. Have a little sympathy.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

29. ...

:thumbsup:

[snooper2]

51. I have plenty of sympathy, trust me...

But when I open the fridge and I find a package of green pork chops ( I think they were pork chops ) riding in some black liquid on the bottom of a shelf, enough is enough..

Also, we are having a baby girl in 6 weeks and there is no way she can visit/stay the night with the house in the current state. I didn't mention the three 5 month old shephards she's raising in two large crates in the living room. Mother dog got knocked up and she still insists on keeping all of them. Those stupid square training pads are not designed as a long term solution. Still don't know if all that urine will come out of the wood floors...


As I stated upthread a little I've been working on the outside for about a year. My wife and I found the good cop/bad cop works pretty good to actually get something done.

[Arugula Latte]

26. It's so frustrating for me to watch.

When they obsess about one piece of crap out of a million pieces of crap, I just want to scream. I get that they're mentally ill, but I still want to drive a bulldozer through their house.

[grasswire]

28. as an antique picker and dealer, those pics make me rub my hands

Lord almighty, let me at it! Latex gloves, check. Face mask, check. I'm going in!

I have made a lot of money from things people have hoarded over the years.

Be careful what you throw away from grandma's stuff, folks. I once sold an old horse racing form for $550.

[gmoney]

48. that is a problem of mine

I once sold a british FHM for $75, and I see eBay has every magazine with some sort of a personality on it going for $5 or so. I feel like if I throw out a giant bag of certain magazines, it's like throwing away a stack of $5 or $10 bills.

[hyphenate]

30. Have you ever considered that there is a reason

some people collect larger and larger messes in their homes? Have you ever considered there might be an illness involved with some people? After I sunk into my depression, it paralyzed me. I couldn't--and didn't want to--do anything at all. Things started to pile up, and now that I am physically unable to do much of anything, it stays piled up.

Obsessive compulsive behavior is also a physical problem as much as a psychological one. Being hoarders is just one sign of the illness, but is often the first visible one.

I know it's chaos around here, and that's just the way it has to be right now. I can't stand for long periods of time, and I know I can't have anyone to visit because I'm embarrassed about it, but hey, if I could do it, mentally or physically, I would.

[grasswire]

33. I am sorry to hear of your situation.

If I didn't live 3,000 miles from you, I would offer to come and help. I know that many people have posted criticisms unwittingly here, not remembering the complexity of life for those who have mobility problems and temporary incapacitations.

My best wishes to you, dear.

[Odin2005]

36. Many high-functioning autistics can be hoarders to some degree, myself included.

It's because autistics have great trouble with change and tend to develop very strong attachments with stuff, throwing the stuff away can be a traumatic experience. I have tons of old science and tech magazines stored away that I just can't bring myself to throw!

[LynneSin]

37. Just so you know it's ok

and I've been down that path. I've gotten bad but usually I can get around to cleaning it all up to make it liveable.

:hug:

[ThatsMyBarack]

32. I have.

It really scares me what can happen to your house if you get too much stuff and don't throw your shit away....

[Odin2005]

34. I'm not nearly THAT bad, but I do have a hard time throwing things.

But at least my place doesn't look like a pig sty.

[Cairycat]

38. that looks like my MILs house - the last time I saw it, anyway

which was less than a year after she bought it and twelve years ago. So it's probably much worse now.

It doesn't make sense to live like that. But maybe instead of this judgemental, "these people are just lazy or stupid" kind of talk, maybe a little compassion? It's a mental illness, a way of OCD manifesting, and overwhelmed hoarders often can't change without a lot of help and support. So being judgemental and gathering a crew to just throw stuff out doesn't work. Any more than pouring an alcoholic's booze down the drain - it just gets replaced. And such judgmentalism is so unkind and really unnecessary. If the OP keeps that attitude, it's pretty much guaranteed nothing will change.

I don't try to change my MIL, though her hoarding can make life weird sometimes. I just thank God every day that she's not an animal hoarder - that's an even rougher situation.

[Duer 157099]

39. Obviously these are extreme cases, and there is an underlying medical condition

related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, so it's a brain chemistry thing, not just someone being eccentric.

But those of you who talk about our "consumerism" society causing this, and then talk about tossing everything away because you can always just buy it again if you need it... don't you see the paradox in that thinking?

I do hoard some things, and not only can I justify it, but even moreso nowadays when the "new" versions of things are the crappy plastic stuff from China. Me, I'd much rather hold onto the older, better-made versions then just have the "convenience" of going to the Dollar store and getting a crappy version.

Same goes for clothing that I've had for over 10 years. You just can't find it anymore (except in thrift stores, and even then, people are wising up and cleaning them out too)

[hunter]

43. I don't see a lot of hoarders in my family tree before the age of "consumerism."

I know they were there, but hoarding was something else when there was nothing much to hoard. Somebody who made for example a giant ball or string, or collected a cache of beads, animal teeth, or broken arrowheads was simply eccentric. Even cat ladies weren't that odd if there was no way to feed or confine the cats.

[UTUSN]

40. This is very different from some of the posters saying they "buy a lot of some stuff"

It's not "collecting." It's rotted food, dirty containers of rotted food, even dead animals, all mixed in with all kinds of other stuff in disorganized piles.

It's different from "clutter," such as, say, a very old music professor living alone, with stacks of sheet music and 78rpm platters, all covered with dust. This type wasn't either "collecting" OR "hoarding," just let the housekeeping get away from him without entertaining the idea of HIRING a housecleaner.

This legal/psychological trainer for social workers, on the subject of filling out a mental health questionaire to help decide whether to seek a court order for INvoluntary treatment, said, "When you see more than TEN cats inside the house, up in the cabinets and on the kitchen table---------FORGET the questionaire: Just go straight to the courthouse and GET THE ORDER!1"


It's a little surprising that they can do a whole series of one and another hoarder, except maybe to illustrate how many there are.

[jmm]

42. One of my grandfather's brothers was a hoarder.

He was a WWII vet who fought in Normandy and was by all accounts not the same when he came home. His boss held his job for him while he was gone and he continued to work there for over 50 years until he retired. On some level he could still function and I'm sure only his family knew his home looked like those pictures. Mental illness, like physical illness, can be difficult to overcome. Due to the lack of understanding and assumption many make that you can just snap out of it mental illness in many ways it is even more difficult to cope with than a physical illness.

[XemaSab]

44. I have to say I feel better about my room after looking at these pictures

I "hoard" books, clothes, and sometimes papers.

I collect a few other things too. :P

The problem is that I don't have NEARLY enough bookshelves or closet space, so stuff gets stacked up, and there's nowhere to put it all other than in a big pile.

It's very depressing. :(

[gauguin57]

45. If you've ever known someone with any variant of OCD, then you wouldn't be saying ...

... "clean your house, people," in so cavalier a manner, as if waving a magic wand would make a physiological condition go away.

Not all hoarders are lazy or slobs. Many have have obsessive-compulsive thoughts that don't allow them to throw things away.

Some hoarders have an out-and-out impulse-control disorder ... one that seems to come from the same sort of psychic place that compulsive hand-washers, or trichotillomaniacs (those who pull out their hair/eyelashes) or cutters or binge eaters or dermatillomaniacs (obsessive skin or scalp or finger pickers) come from.

Psychic stress builds up in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders; the various repetitive rituals, saving of seemingly useless items, pulling out the hair, cutting the skin, etc., serves to calm down the built-up anxiety in people with OCDs.

[annonymous]

46. My father was a hoarder but he had dementia

My family had to get him declared incompetent. My brother took pictures and sent them to the housing inspector who condemned the house and had my father removed and put into a nursing home. It took my family 9 months to clean up the mess and it was truly apalling. The bathroom was literally covered in shit. My husband and I had to go in with gas masks, chemical suits and rubber boots and chemical gloves. There was rotten food in the refrigerator which we took to the dump without even opening it. There were tons of magazines and other paper, which the cat had peed and pooped on. We had trouble finding tax documents needed to satisfy the IRS which had put a lien on the property for failure to file a tax return for 5 years.

My sister has inherited some of my father's hoarding tendencies. There are stacks of magazines all over the house. I am the opposite. I can't stand clutter.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

52. I think they should change the name of the show

"Hoarders or Just Plain Lazy". There are some definite Hoarders on the show, but there have been people who just dont clean their houses. I understand people hoarding belongings they cant part with and that is sad. But are there people hoarding empty milk cartons on the floor?

[ChickMagic]

54. When your through cleaning your mother's house

You can start on ours. Hubby and I are packrats
and there's a path in our place. It's driving
me crazy but I'm too overwhelmed by it to do
anything. I used to keep house well until
he moved in.