I have found the best way to inspire me to houseclean - HOARDERS

[LynneSin]

I'm not a clean freak and I do tend to clutter but holy bat crap moses some of these folks are insane.

I spent my vacation cleaning and organizing but sometimes I just felt like vegging out and watching the tube. So to inspire my cleaning I'd allow my self an hour of Hoarders. Trust me, I could get 4-5 hours of cleaning done just by an hour of Hoarders.

This one woman was addicted to shopping Home Shopping Network and when they cleaned her house they found hundreds of HSN packages from the years that were never opened. Too bad the packages were rotted away from the layers of rat crap covering the floor.

One kid actually called Child Protective Services on his mother. He said he'd rather live in an orphanage then to deal with his hoarding mother.

[Duer 157099]

1. Me TOO!!

I can't even get through a whole episode before I turn it off and start doing something, anything, around the house. Often it just is washing dishes, but even so, man that show is inspirational.

[cherish44]

2. I watched the episode with the woman who was a food hoarder...

and as soon was the show was over I scrubbed my fridge TWICE inside and out. Oh my god I thought I was gonna puke watching that show!

[LynneSin]

3. Haven't seen that one yet - is it on A&E?

I won't watch the TLC version of Hoarders. I've seen it and it's pretty much the same deal as the A&E show. Except A&E won't promote idiots like Kate Gosselin or Sarah Palin.

[cherish44]

11. The one I watch is the A & E show....

The finding dead cats in the house thing has happened more than once. Amazing

[Initech]

7. Was that the one where they found 3 refrigerators full of expired meat juice?

:puke:

[cherish44]

10. Yeah this lady had several refrigerators full of rotten food

plus rotted pumpkins and produce all over her house. One of the people there to help ran out of the house gagging.

[nolabear]

4. Me THREE!

I can't stand it; I get up and run around organizing the junk from the past week and loading the dishwasher...it's great!

Poor people. I can't imagine--or maybe I can and the fear motivates me.

[Arugula Latte]

5. Exactamundo!!

Although, I do find I usually can't watch a whole show. I get so depressed, and, even though most of these people are mentally ill, I get so frustrated with them I want to shake them until their teeth fall out.

[Initech]

6. I saw one with a cat hoarder. Holy shit.

They pulled something like 19 dead cats from her home during the coarse of the show. That was nightmare inducing. :scared: :puke:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Oh, yeah. Hoarders freaks me out enought

to make me go into frenzies of throwing crap away. I'm enough of a slob that I could imagine myself lapsing into hoarder mode, not because I'm OCD but out of pure sloth. Hoarders is a little kick in the ass for me.

[LynneSin]

15. I think I'm the same exact way

I think I'm a level 1 Hoarder by definition. I mean I have the clutter and a few unfinished projects. I don't have the piles of junk everywhere but I swear I have the potential. That show jut reels me back in to sanity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#Level_I_hoarder

Level I hoarder
Household is considered standard. No special knowledge in working with the Chronically Disorganized is necessary. Level 1 hoarding can be seen as someone overlooking a pile of newspapers or pizza boxes gathering in the corner.

[HipChick]

9. Watch the ones on the Discovery Channel: Buried Alive

[applegrove]

12. When is it on? And what network? I don't hoard but I do need inspiration

to vacuum the other half of my apartment.

[madinmaryland]

13. That is so sad. Even worse is television networks are taking advantage

of these people to make a profit.

Sad, just very sad.

[tigereye]

17. it is very sad- those folks need help

[seaglass]

23. Yes my brother in law was a hoarder and after he died I just about cried when I saw how he lived.

He was estranged from my husband and his sister for years and I believe this was one of the reasons why.

I watched a couple of Hoarders episodes before my BIL passed away but after seeing how he lived, I just couldn't watch it any more.

The one positive in all this was that my BIL lived in my husband's family home, which due to the estrangement my husband had not been in for years. My BIL would not allow my husband to have any mementos of his mom's or dad's after they passed away so when my husband got access to the house he found a lot off wonderful memories hidden beneath the trash.

[Sanity Claws]

14. I visited someone whose neighbor was a hoarder

He has stuff piled up that you can see through the windows, pots, pans, newspapers, all kinds of stuff. It's a real illness.

[tigereye]

18. I have a friend who has moved a bit that way since her separation from her

husband. It kind of scared me when I went to her house after not visiting her for a while. I was tempted to tell her that I would be glad to come over to help clean up. Her husband used to make a huge fuss about the house being tidy when they were married, so I think that entered into it. I also think depression plays a part, too.

[LynneSin]

20. I've got a friend getting like that

I really want to help her and even her daughter jokes about 'mom could be on Hoarders'.

The good thing is she's an extremely clean hoarder. Everything is boxed and somewhat organized. Their is no garbage on the floors, no pet feces scathered - it's a clean house for the most part. But she's saved the box to everything she has ever bought for the last 20 years and still has kid stuff from way back when the kids were infants.

[tigereye]

22. well, it's kind of easy to save a lot of kid stuff, but you have to go through

it all and clear it out every so often. You should have seen my front room before we got rid of all the little red, blue and yellow kid toys, but then - my husband filled it up with a lot of stuff he had saved when kiddo moved into his old "office." Sigh. You have to thin the stock so to speak, or you won't be able to function. I really think we as Americans are so consumed (he) with stuff that we don't realize that most people in the world have next to nothing - just the clothes and food utensils and a few other things. I think they would be shocked at how much "staff" Americans tend to accumulate.

My friend had stuff piled everywhere- it was hard to move- I am kind of worried about her from that standpoint. I don't know how her kids (teens) deal with it.

[tigereye]

16. it's scary, eh?

That sort of thing usually sends me into an organizational frenzy... :scared:

[NuttyFluffers]

19. like a dabbler watching a junkie, scares me straight right quick!

suddenly those piles of National Geographic magazines look a lot more menacing and symptomatic than they did minutes ago. the sad states of the mentally ill are so appalling that i am horrified and mortified if anything even remotely resembles mess and clutter. i'd like to think i'm healthy; it'd be shameful to let my home go to a similar state just cuz i couldn't get off my fat ass. those poor people have a disease -- i know i'm just lazy. and at that point there's no excuse for my messes.

:scared:

[tabbycat31]

21. Everytime I watch that show the thrift store gets happier

Even at Christmas this year I asked for things I needed instead of things I want. I asked my parents to renew my library membership instead of adding more clutter. I asked for "virtual goods' (read itunes gift cards) from everyone else.

I used to work at Kohl's and had access to very cheap clothes and other goods. I am just glad I realized it at 25 and not 55.

[TrogL]

24. I had to stop watching

I lived with a hoarder. She's still got three storage units filled with her crap even though she's currently homeless.

[pitohui]

25. havent seen that one but found mummified dead rats in a friend's house

and he was only in his 30s, a hopeless case

he threw away nothing, even just threw half finished pizza boxes on the floor, washed dishes never, it was just awful

tried to help him for a yr or two but eventually realized his problems were beyond any help a friend could give, i hope he has found professional help by now, because if he hasn't, he has prob. already died of some rat-carried disease

i can understand getting older and your mind going but for this to happen to a young person i just don't get

my house is messy too, but whenever i bring something home i look for 5 things to sell or throw out, it works pretty well and sometimes i make some extra money...not sure why the house doesn't eventually get emptier since i never buy stuff, haven't in years, but partly it;s because people also give me stuff to sell, fix, etc. so i guess it accumulates

you really have to stay on top of it

i have another rule, any time i think of renting a storage unit or buying a shed, instead...it's time for another sale

i just made a $150 sale so i'm inspired to get cracking, i guess i need to get off the internet and look around for more!