Hoarders (A&E)

[PWS]

Thanks, tcl. We had a similar experience with my mother-in-law's house, although she had the excuse of Altzheimer type problems the last two years. Before that she was very organized, but the last year or two she just saved everything, in weird ways. Mixed in with piles of junk mail for example we found a bar of silver the size of a Hershey bar! And we'd been about to just start tossing stuff at that point. So then we went through every piece of paper, and found she had bank accounts we didn't know about.
Definitely makes me sympathetic to the idea that some kind of mental illness may be involved (not that my brother showed any obvious signs).

[Dragonlady]

I'm not sure why I watch Hoarders. I'm equally repulsed and intrigued. Sometimes it's easy to see the reasons why some of these people behave this way, like tonight's episode about Dawn, who's cousin died on 9/11. Watching her mood swings from being helpful to throwing a tantrum like a child was so disturbing. It is obvious that she is truly tormented and unable to move past this behavior. Without continued therapy, I doubt anything will change and she'll revert back to hoarding. There's a huge void inside her and she seems to be trying to fill it with "stuff" even though it's just a temporary fix.

I have so much admiration for the doctors and professionals that help these poor souls. Their patience and caring is remarkable.

[Woostah]

I just watched the Andrew (Franklin, Massachusetts) and Lydia (Paterson, New Jersey) episode. Nasty. Just disgusting.

The Andrew segment mentioned that his mother is on the computer a lot. I'm a student who gets online only once in a while to goof off, but it makes me wonder how many of these hoarding people are stuck in trashed-out house, snuggled up with their computer, posting on websites like this one to escape all the trash in their lives?

Who are these people and how in the world can they live like this? I am so disgusted but, like you guys said, nothing motivates us to clean more than this show. Me? I watch it "ON DEMAND" so that I can fast-forward through the nasty parts.

[redsox girl]

These people may very well be your neighbors. They are people from all spectrum's of society, some are highly successful professionals others are barely struggling to make ends meet. They have a legitimate mental health illness and while most of us cannot imagine living like that, many people do, in secrecy, in many cases too ashamed to reach out for help because they know the judgments that will be made about their character. The mind is a complex thing, each of us copes differently with life experiences, especially traumatic ones and from what I've come to understand many hoarders are survivors of some kind of trauma and for reasons we cannot fathom as laypeople, hoarding is a coping mechanism-it's not about being lazy or a slob or unclean. Although it's easy to see it as such. It's frustrating for the families and I think it needs to be taken as seriously as addiction or any other illness. It's not simply a matter of tidying up the house. These piles of `junk' have a deep emotional hold on the `hoarders.' You would think just taking the `hoarder' away for a few days and having someone come in and clean the house would be the solution, but it won't cure the behavior.
There's so much suffering in this world in so many different forms and I honestly think it's pure dumb luck that I'm not in the situations of so many different people we see on television, whether they are addicts, hoarders, without a home,suffering from an eating disorder (whether it's in the form of obesity or anorexia) suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder, extreme panic/anxiety, post traumatic distress disorder, schizophrenia, an addiction to eating non food items or what have you. But, I sure do understand why so many people carry their illnesses in secrecy and I understand why they feel resentment and hostility because in the end, in their minds, true or not, they are being judged rather than understood.

[Poppy Fields]

Beautifully and succinctly put, redsox girl. I don't understand hoarding, but I do think we all have some degree of the inclination to hoard. I think it's why we have the urge to "purge" sometimes: to clean out the basement, the closet, Spring clean, donate to Good Will, etc. It's why we have "collections" of things and treasure them.

We like our stuff. Some of us find our identity in our stuff. Our cars, jewels, electronics, real estate, etc. It's only when our stuff is considered useless junk by others that saving it seems to border on neurosis. When saving it to the ceiling of every room of our homes, it's considered full blown mental illness. I truly do not understand the compulsion to do this. But I don't consider it an addiction, but rather an obsession/compulsion.

[val123elephant]

I watched the Extreme Couponing last night and after seeing these peoples' homes, they too are Hoarders. How can you use toilet paper when you have a 150 year supply. They are just buying because they have a coupon, not because they need the product. One poor fellow was losing his "man cave" so his wive could start yet another stockpile room. It was exciting though to watch the bill decrease raplidly as the coupons were scanned. Even other cashiers were hovering around to watch.

[PA Snow Bunny]

Did any of you catch last nite's episode with the 2 people who were "over run" with animals to put it mildly?
The guy who had the rabbits was wondering how clean everybody else's homes were. Well Gary, I have 3 cats. I change their water/food & clean their litter boxes twice a day. They pretty much have free access in my home with the exception of the kitchen & the tables. Garbage is taken out daily & would can actually walk on my floors, sit on my chairs, eat at my tables & sleep on my beds. I don't have aminal crap, garbage & papers thrown all over my home.
I won't even comment on the woman who had all the chickens, turkeys & goats. That entire family is dysfunctional.

[Debb70]

Did any of you catch last nite's episode with the 2 people who were "over run" with animals to put it mildly?
The guy who had the rabbits was wondering how clean everybody else's homes were. Well Gary, I have 3 cats. I change their water/food & clean their litter boxes twice a day. They pretty much have free access in my home with the exception of the kitchen & the tables. Garbage is taken out daily & would can actually walk on my floors, sit on my chairs, eat at my tables & sleep on my beds. I don't have aminal crap, garbage & papers thrown all over my home.
I won't even comment on the woman who had all the chickens, turkeys & goats. That entire family is dysfunctional.

OMG. That elderly lady was so mean to the animals and the people that it made my blood boil! I'm all for helping people with mental illnesses, however, that help group did the animals a disservice by convincing them to leave and let them handle it. That woman was NOT receptive to any help. She abused her kids and now she wants to abuse the animals. It was horrendous. She cared nothing for the animals welfare and as the helper lady said, she was the most uncooperative person she has ever dealt with.

I was glad to see that they did release the chickens AND that the lady was charged with failing to provide the animals medical care.

[Holly in SoCal]

OMG. That elderly lady was so mean to the animals and the people that it made my blood boil! I'm all for helping people with mental illnesses, however, that help group did the animals a disservice by convincing them to leave and let them handle it. That woman was NOT receptive to any help. She abused her kids and now she wants to abuse the animals. It was horrendous. She cared nothing for the animals welfare and as the helper lady said, she was the most uncooperative person she has ever dealt with.

I was glad to see that they did release the chickens AND that the lady was charged with failing to provide the animals medical care.

I watched that episode last night...the old, nasty lady's name was Hannah. In my opinion...they should have taken ALL the animals away from her without any concessions given to her. Clearly she was being neglectful and abusive to those animals. And then after they take the animals they should have committed HER to a nuthouse. She is seriously sick in the head (and in her body) and needs intensive therapy and meds. She needs some serious HELP!!! Not just a clean house.

And those people with the rabbits...of course, the wife is on disability and social security or whatever. Most of these people that are on these shows are on some kind of gov't assistance and can't work. It really makes me angry that my tax dollars are going towards people that are disabled mostly because of their hoarding of animals and/or things which cause them to live in filfth which usually is the cause of their health problems. I work very hard for my paycheck and resent it going towards enabling people to continue in this kind of behavior. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying these people don't have a problem...but come on...the majority of them don't work and live off the gov't...aka...our tax dollars and then use those hand-outs to buy more stuff they don't need or to buy cigarettes or buy food for their overflowing hoard of animals. I'd rather those tax dollars be spent towards getting them the psychological help they desperately need. That would be a better usuage of our tax dollars and I am all for giving them REAL help.

[Debb70]

I agree Holly and I'm not one to resent helping anyone. Was she on disability. I thought you could only get out what you paid in. Anyway, whatever, the case, it really isn't right for them to disrespect a rental house that way. My goodness. Why were the landlords so calm and accepting? Are you serious? How could they agree to allow those people to stay in that house? What was up with that. There had to be some kind of financial reason that they let them stay unless they are completey out of their mind too.