Hoarders (A&E)

I saw this show for the first time last night. How disturbing!! I know two people like this, my aunt, who has her entire garage filled with junk, and all of the rooms in her house are packed to the ceilings with boxes of junk. When my grandmother died, and everyone was going to her house after the funeral, I went to help clean up and I just got garbage bags and trashed everything. I had no idea about how freaked out she would get because I had never heard of this before. She was so upset that I threw away trash!! Then, I have a good friend who does this and she always blamed it on her mother-in-law, whose house she lived in. So, a friend of ours went in and helped her clean up the entire house, and held a garage sale for her. It took months of this kind lady's time. But, then the friend's house went right back into the mess it had been in the first place within a couple of months. She didn't change on the inside, so nothing changed. Her and her husband just bought a brand newly built house, and it was really beautiful, but it's been almost a year, and the place has become what their last house was. It's a shame.

I haven't watched last night's show yet. I am completely frustrated with this show. I think part of it is the lack of explanation. Why do some people get assigned a therapist and others get a professional organizer? The therapists (especially) seem to be very slow, "we won't throw out anything you want to keep"... While I understand that there is a process when you are dealing with a mentally ill hoarder, this just gets ridiculous. These people have two days to clean up a pile of junk that has been growing for YEARS, and some of them have very serious consequences if they don't get the job done. They have NO hope of getting the work done if they have to have a long, drawn out conversation about the pros and cons of whether to keep or discard every item.

I DID like the organizer who talked to her client about his goals (I think it was the former homeless guy in transitional housing). Then they went through everything and looked at it from that perspective: "Will this item help me get to my goal" - Yes, keep it - No, toss it. It seemed like a rational and simple process that he could use even after she leaves.

On the other hand, I have little hope that most of these people will get any better because of this show. Especially the lady from the previous week that had a backyard and house FULL of junk, plus and mentally ill husband who had been removed from the home, and she refused to admit that she had a problem. I was surprised the authorities let her husband return, but I believe that it is only a matter of time before they remove him again.

They handle it a lot better on that show, "Obsessed". They give it several months of therapy along with sorting and getting rid of stuff. It seems like if the local municipality is involved and you're going to be turned out, it's time for something a lot more drastic than discussing every little piece of clutter.

This show is definitely going for the shock rather than trying to help these people, like the woman with the food rotting all over her house. The people on "Obsessed" seem ready to work on their problem, too. I've only seen two episodes of this show but both times the people involved didn't really seem to want to improve at all.

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Originally Posted by hepcat;3694171;

This show is definitely going for the shock rather than trying to help these people, like the woman with the food rotting all over her house. The people on "Obsessed" seem ready to work on their problem, too. I've only seen two episodes of this show but both times the people involved didn't really seem to want to improve at all.

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ITA. I have watched Obsessed also and I get a much better sense that the people there are being put on a positive, life-long journey. With this show it is "look at how terrible their house is", and then you hear if they got it cleaned up or not. MAYBE a sentence saying if they decided to continue counseling of some sort, but nothing much about where they are going in the future...

I have mixed feelings about this show. I agree with the shock value opinions but whatever they do it's better than not showing hoarding at all. It seems like most people know or know of someone that has this problem so it's good that the public has a name for it now. I TOTALLY disagree with them working, the way that they do with (some) of the people. If someone has rotten food, dead cats and feces (of all kinds) lying around the house, it should just be cleaned out immediately because it is a health hazard! It's not just dangerous for the occupants but for the NEIGHBORS too! Sure the people need counseling but I don't think that the 2 days that the therapist spends with these people is going to make or break the situation. When my daughter was in elementary school we would drive by a house that was by the school. It had bags of trash lining the sides of the driveway towards the front door. The first time that I saw the house I thought that they must have had a garage sale and hadn't put away the leftovers. The mess just got worse as the years went by. One day I stopped and asked one of the neighbors what was up with that house. She said that they were a very nice family but the husband was always going around to other peoples trash and taking things back to his house. She agreed that the neighborhood needed to do something about it. A few months later it was in the local papers that the health department went in and forced him to clean it (his wife had moved out because she was so fed up). Neighbors said that MICE and RATS were running down the streets and through the back yards as it was going on. They filled up 3 of those giant trash trailers with all of his junk. It's amazing how many of these people have refused counseling or treatment after the help from the show stopped. Even the threat of criminal charges doesn't seem to make them realize that they have a problem. This is a CRAZY mental illness and I think that it's great that so many shows are finally giving the public information about it. Maybe it will help future hoarders from letting it go as far as some of these people have.

Watched this show for the first time....oh my, how absolutely sad. :sad

Why did that "Got Junk" dude have to smash that little boys playhouse right in front of him....:sad

I don't think I can watch allot of the Hoarding shows...they are way too sad. Like Jake feeling he needed to hold on to his dog's fur? :sad

Very sad.

Is this show by the same people that do Intervention? I was thinking Terry (Jake's dad) should be on Intervention and while Jake is on Hoarders.

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Originally Posted by ClosetRTWatcher;3694063;

I haven't watched last night's show yet. I am completely frustrated with this show. I think part of it is the lack of explanation. Why do some people get assigned a therapist and others get a professional organizer? The therapists (especially) seem to be very slow, "we won't throw out anything you want to keep"... While I understand that there is a process when you are dealing with a mentally ill hoarder, this just gets ridiculous. These people have two days to clean up a pile of junk that has been growing for YEARS, and some of them have very serious consequences if they don't get the job done. They have NO hope of getting the work done if they have to have a long, drawn out conversation about the pros and cons of whether to keep or discard every item.

I DID like the organizer who talked to her client about his goals (I think it was the former homeless guy in transitional housing). Then they went through everything and looked at it from that perspective: "Will this item help me get to my goal" - Yes, keep it - No, toss it. It seemed like a rational and simple process that he could use even after she leaves. ... [snipped]

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I totally agree. The show is generally frustrating because they don't really help most of these people. I also liked the method the organizer who helped the homeless guy used; the young couple with kids in one of the first episodes also got some good help, IMO. The others, it's been like watching a train wreck.

I'm just starting to watch the last episode. Jake, the 21-year-old garbage hoarder, is from my town.

:( I tried to watch tonight, because of the discussion on here, but the 21-year old just broke my heart. Well, the cat lady, too. But the young man...I missed how it was he wound up living with his father, but that mom...not being with her had to have helped mess him up, esp. to be left in those conditions. When he explained about why he couldn't throw anything out she'd given him, I about broke down. I hope there was something positive for him by the end, but I couldn't bear to watch the whole show.

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Originally Posted by momrek06;3694463;

Why did that "Got Junk" dude have to smash that little boys playhouse right in front of him....:sad

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In defense of the junk dude, he was just taking the things that had already been "okayed" by the family involved. He had no idea that this had not been discussed with the child and that the kid was going to be upset by it. The mom was the one with that responsibility and I think she just overlooked the potential drama because she was caught up in the mission of trying to get that mess cleaned up in only two days. It was unfortunate, but I think it was an honest mistake.

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Originally Posted by wannasee;3695456;

:( I tried to watch tonight, because of the discussion on here, but the 21-year old just broke my heart. Well, the cat lady, too. But the young man...I missed how it was he wound up living with his father, but that mom...not being with her had to have helped mess him up, esp. to be left in those conditions. When he explained about why he couldn't throw anything out she'd given him, I about broke down. I hope there was something positive for him by the end, but I couldn't bear to watch the whole show.

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I think the 21 year old came out the best of all of them. He was able to get rid of all the stuff and was receiving therapy. His dad was not although it said he had cut down some on his drinking. Dang, what a sad show. The cat lady was out there in some pretty deep psychological trouble. They had to give her meds on the day that they cleaned the garage - uggh.