It’s interesting to me that pics are mentioned. My hoarding friend takes a gazillion photos any time she goes out to eat for someone’s birthday, at all events, and on all trips. She photographs what people are eating. She even photographs people she barely knows.
I think she’s afraid of losing a single memory, no matter how fleeting.
The hoarding friend I’ve mentioned became very upset and agitated about the fact that I sold a collectible that I no longer wanted–and that I “didn’t get enough money” for it. She also threw a fit when I said I might get rid of my old souvenir pennants/flags since I’m remodeling the room where they used to be and I didn’t want them on the walls anymore. She becomes outraged when other people get rid of stuff, and it’s not even HER stuff.
Talk about issues…
FYI, new episodes start airing tonight.
I am letting…nay, forcing my kids to stay up and watch it with me. 
Anyone remember the hoarder last season that had been homeless? His apartment was so cluttered that he couldn’t even get to the bathroom. The lady cleaning up found where he’d been pooping on the floor.
You know, my job isn’t so bad after all. 
Oh my God…this is by far the WORST house they have ever been too. And the woman also has one of the worst personalities. All of the other hoarders at least showed some want to clean up their shit, but she has no desire at all to not live in squalor.
It’s on at 11 p.m. where I am. Just yelled at my husband to set the VCR. (Yes, the old-fashioned “VCR” )
I’m glad the thread got bumped! I, too, use the show as incentive to clean out my house, and I’ve missed it…
They put their shit in the commode too. They said this old lady was crapping in the sink. This goes beyond hoarding. There’s something bad wrong to live like that.
It also looked like she had some kind of portable toilet/seat thing in whatever room that was she was living in, with (used?) toilet paper strewn all around it. Ugh. She was disgusting and had absolutely no realization that any of it was her fault. That table covered in filth & mold - “Someone threw out the table cloth that was supposed to be on it.” So I guess that means it’s not her fault that she let it get *black *with mold & rotten stuff.
I can’t imagine what was going on in Augustine’s head. Of all the hoarders they’ve featured on this show, she seemed to have the most severe mental issues. I know it sounds cruel, but I think the son was right: They should have just razed the house. With that much decay and structural damage, how could it ever be a safe and healthy place to live? Even a motivated person couldn’t keep it standing. Augustine just looked like she was in a torpor, waiting around to die. Finances permitting, I think the kindest thing the children could have done would have been to salvage a bunch of mementos and find her a nice, clean retirement home for the rest of her days.
New season, lordy, that show is hard to watch but it does light my housecleaning fires like nobodies business. It has also put me off one of my favorite pasttimes - going to antique/collectible shops. I allowed myself one used book the last time I went and I passed by loads off things I wanted to buy, dishes, pins, placemats, old phones, old clothes, iron implements, old furniture, all of it loveable junk. I left empty handed dammit!
Intervention is another show that wears me out, junkies shooting up, gross but compelling are their stories.
I just watched this ep. Holy fuck! I mean, what the hell is going on in her head? She seems so screwed up. I mean, yeah, if your place is bad enough to get on the show, you are, by definition, psychologically flawed. But damn. This woman seemed to feel absolutely no sense of responsibility for her situation being what it was. Everything wrong in her life is ‘someone else’s fault’ (“See this? This is my dresser; Susan borrowed it, and when she brought it back, this is where she put it! She couldn’t be bothered to take it back into the bedroom!”)
She just seemed totally detached from reality.
I really really want to know more of her story. My house is cluttered; stacks of papers, too many books, etc. but it isn’t dirty, or hazordous. My appearance has always been a little well, rumpled. In those younger pictures of Augustine she was quite “put together”. The daughter said that when she was a kid the house was neat. Is it as simple as some kind of breakdown when the son’s father left? Didn’t she have to work then?
Yeah, I do wonder if she had some kind of nervous breakdown, or maybe just slipped really deeply into depression. She just seemed so. . .I dunno, almost sedated or something. When her son showed up and she said “I wish you lived down here”, I didn’t believe a word of it. Seemed like she was just. . .going through the motions. Saying the stuff you’re ‘supposed’ to say, but then, with the crew, it didn’t seem like she knew what to say. She certainly didn’t seem grateful for anyone’s help.
I’m glad she’s following up with therapy. Maybe it’ll help her. But seriously, until she ‘owns’ the problem, the solution is only very temporary.
IIRC, problem hoarding can be a species of mental illness. The hoarder just doesn’t perceive the mess in the same way as everyone else; it’s like body dysmorphic disorder. I believe it is related to OCD, and I think there are very limited treatment options.
Dayum…I’ve watched pretty much all the episodes from the previous season, and this one really, really disturbed me. I kinda wished I hadn’t watched it, actually. Augustine is obiviously mentally ill, and I have to wonder if she was even really an appropriate candidate for the show. She is just too far gone.
I was surprised they even considered that house fit to live in with all the missing/molded/rotted drywall, exposed pipes, and no gas. Didn’t they even say something about no electricity? Even cleaned up, the place was unihabitable. I wouldn’t expect any class of man or beast to live in it.
Her son seems like he’s rather fragile, but all in all has made the best choice he can, which is to completely divorce himself from the situation. The daughter’s pain was really raw and heartbreaking, I imagine living near her mother must make it worse.
At the end if the show one of the therapists basically said that it was probably all for nothing. She said there was going to be a negative back lash, and that tomorrow if she were the daughter she wouldn’t answer the phone because Augustine would be fixated on some item that was thrown out and would blame the daughter for everything again. It all seemed like an excercise in futility to me, and I have never come away with that impression after viewing other episodes. This lady needs therapy, for sure, but it should have come long before now to truly gain any healing.
Also, the show just ended rather abruptly, with no follow up at all. I am sure Augustine’s house is currently full of garbage, a dead cat or two, and she poops in the sink.
…and another thing that made Augustine totally unlikeable was that she didn’t seem grateful or thankful at all to the 1-800-Got-Junk guys who bought her a new chair with their own money. She had to be goaded into saying thank you to them by the therapist. She also said she didn’t feel any love for her daughter.
Unlike some of the other episodes, Augustine wasn’t embarrassed, ashamed, or remosreful of her mess or her destroyed relationship with her children.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for someone like that. She beats out the rotten “it’s not puffy” food lady hands down.
Augustine’s lack of gratitude was shocking, but for me it was surpassed by her lack of affection for her children. I found myself comparing her to a married couple who was on last season. Their hoarding had led to them losing custody of their children. I though their behavior was far gone, in that that they couldn’t give up the clutter for the sake of their kids, but at least they expressed affection and seemed genuinely frustrated by the custody problem. But Augustine made them look like nominees for Parents of the Year. My impression from this episode was that she just handed her son over to her daughter and made no effort whatsoever to take him back or even provide for him.
On a lighter note, her son strikes me as the kind of geeky, soft-spoken guy I’d like to hang out with. He even has a bunny! Too bad I don’t live in Seattle.
This was the first Hoarders episode that dedicated an entire hour to one person, and frankly, it was necessary to show the full impact of how horrid is the condition of Augustine’s living space. It was really very difficult to watch. Even one of the cleaning crews refused to tackle one especially toxic bathroom. They had to get another crew to do it. I agree that the whole house should’ve been razed because even after all the crap removal and cleaning the house still looked unlivable. Besides, Augustine cannot be left alone because she’s clearly very sick.
That’s what I said to my girlfriend when we were watching the show. Even the “after” shots reflected a home I would be uncomfortable to walk into, much less sit down.