# Hoarders Season Finale **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 19, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176 "2011-01-19T05:22:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/21 "2011-01-21T21:03:28Z")
> [@fusoya](#): > > It’s been a while since I’ve seen this show (I love to put it on when I’m doing housework…man this place is getting messy. The irony) - have they ever done followup episodes with the hoarders? This isn’t a problem which you can just dust aside over a weekend with a garbage crew, and I would imagine that unless they get continuous help, a year later they could just come back in and film a regular episode with them again. 1. They do offer after-care, which some of them accept and some reject. 2. They did a “catch up” episode awhile ago. If I remember correctly, they visited the worst cases and little progress had been made. However they did go to the worst and most memorable ones. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/22 "2011-01-21T21:04:52Z")
By the way, the update episode was Season 2, episode 15 if you are wondering. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/23 "2011-01-21T21:09:35Z")
What’s the difference between a pet rat and a “nasty-ass sewer rat?” Are there domesticated breeds? ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/24 "2011-01-21T21:10:25Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I own two pet rabbits. I saw “rabbits” in the show description and deleted the episode immediately. > > Rats are awesome too, so I didn’t watch it either, but it sounds like a touching episode and I’m glad the ratties are getting adopted out. I didn’t see the rat episode but of all the other episodes they’ve had where the people hoarded animals, the rabbits seemed to be the healthiest. I don’t recall even seeing any rabbit carcasses, which you often see on cat hoarder shows (er, cat carcass not rabbit). Thought you’d like to know that the rabbits seem to have all turned out ok. FWIW the town the rabbit guy lives in is about 10 miles from here. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/25 "2011-01-21T21:40:33Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > What’s the difference between a pet rat and a “nasty-ass sewer rat?” Are there domesticated breeds? Degree of adorableness, basically. See, e.g., [here](http://www.tails.co.nz/_blog/Tails_Blog/post/Keeping_Rats/) and [here](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/07/24/pet-rats-trained-to-hold-tiny-instruments-in-paws-hilarious-pictures-115875-21543276/). Seriously, I don’t know to what extent there are differences in breed; I just meant that the original rats in this guy’s collection were pets, and most of their multiplicitous descendants still seemed to be largely tame and friendly, and living off his rat chow as opposed to whatever diseased debris and offal that wild rats eat. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/26 "2011-01-21T22:29:39Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > What’s the difference between a pet rat and a “nasty-ass sewer rat?” Are there domesticated breeds? Yes. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > Domesticated rats are physiologically and psychologically different from their wild relatives, and—when acquired from reliable sources—they pose no more of a health risk than other common pets.[4] For example, domesticated brown rats are not considered a plague threat,[5] though exposure to wild rat populations could introduce pathogens like Salmonella into the home.[6] Fancy rats experience different health risks than their wild counterparts, and as a result they are less likely to succumb to the same illnesses as wild rats. Also, wild rats are usually just brown while domestic rats come in a wide range of colors and coat markings. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/27 "2011-01-22T00:43:17Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I didn’t see the rat episode but of all the other episodes they’ve had where the people hoarded animals, the rabbits seemed to be the healthiest. I don’t recall even seeing any rabbit carcasses, which you often see on cat hoarder shows (er, cat carcass not rabbit). > > Thought you’d like to know that the rabbits seem to have all turned out ok. > > FWIW the town the rabbit guy lives in is about 10 miles from here. That’s good to know, thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/28 "2011-01-22T00:52:34Z")
I _totally_ felt sorry for the rat guy. He clearly really _loved_ his rats, was doing his best to care for them. The cat lady, though? God save me from self-righteous, totally selfish, whiny, fuck-everyone-else drama queens like her! ---
**Author:** ![Zulema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/db5fbb/32.png) [@Zulema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zulema)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/29 "2011-01-22T02:11:15Z")
> [@WolfpackJeep](#): > > The worst was the guy with all the rabbits, and his spineless wife/girlfriend. He clearly had some kind of mental disorder, but he was infuriating. I can’t believe the owners of the house didn’t start the eviction process immediately. I thought the same thing but then realized they at least had someone willing to rent their place. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/30 "2011-01-22T02:18:33Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > I _totally_ felt sorry for the rat guy. He clearly really _loved_ his rats, was doing his best to care for them. > > The cat lady, though? God save me from self-righteous, totally selfish, whiny, fuck-everyone-else drama queens like her! That sums up my feelings pretty well, too. The cat lady was just a trainwreck. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/31 "2011-01-22T22:20:18Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I have to give “Tonya Harding” psychologist(the lady… **that’s what we call her** ) credit. And now so will I. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/32 "2011-01-23T16:20:20Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > What’s the difference between a pet rat and a “nasty-ass sewer rat?” Pet rats are the same species as wild brown rats, the most common rat species, so think of it as the difference between a pet dog and a feral dog. A pet rat has - or at least should have - grown up in clean surroundings, with its cagemates and the human family it lives with as its “colony”, so its health and behavior is very different from that of a wild rat. Pet rats enjoy the company of humans and are curious and unexpectedly intelligent. There are not distinct breeds of rats as there are with dogs, but there are variations in appearance. Wild brown rats are mostly, well, brown. Different shades of brown, but still brown. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/33 "2011-01-23T17:10:26Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > I can’t believe they were ripping out the walls and stuff to get them out. How’s that guy ever gonna pay for the repairs to his house? Yikes! Yeah, at the point, I was kind of wondering if he wouldn’t just end up bulldozing the place (after they took out all his beloved rats, of course). > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Was that also the one with the woman who flipped out and kicked the show out of her house? God she was an ungrateful bitch. I hate it when these people cry and cry about how they ‘hate to live like this and they know they have a problem, they just need some help and why oh why do I have to live like this? Why can’t it be clean!?’ and then when someone actually tries to help them they become selfish brats. “I didn’t know you were going to _clean_, I thought you were just going to clean!” :rolleyes: I got the impression that she thought they were going to come take everything out, sterilize the place, and then putting it all back in, instead of just throwing it out altogether. They did mention that she took her cats to some undisclosed location in a shopping cart. Which begged the question of, how can you pile 40 cats in a shopping cart? If they’re anything like my cat (and from what they showed, they seemed far wilder) they’d all be clawing and trying to jump out, especially once you get the thing rolling. > [@WolfpackJeep](#): > > I actually felt sorry for the chicken that died in the rescue lady’s arms…and I eat chickens! That whole family was messed up. > > The worst was the guy with all the rabbits, and his spineless wife/girlfriend. He clearly had some kind of mental disorder, but he was infuriating. I can’t believe the owners of the house didn’t start the eviction process immediately. I too am surprised the owners didn’t evict them, even after they cleaned the place out. And I wondered just how well they were able to clean it, anyway. I mean, the floors were literally covered in rabbit shit, and I can’t imagine that stuff comes out of carpets easily, especially if you’ve been walking all over it. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/34 "2011-01-23T19:46:21Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I too am surprised the owners didn’t evict them, even after they cleaned the place out. And I wondered just how well they were able to clean it, anyway. I mean, the floors were literally covered in rabbit shit, and I can’t imagine that stuff comes out of carpets easily, especially if you’ve been walking all over it. Dried rabbit shit is actually mostly just finely-ground hay; dried-up poop pellets will pretty much crumble when touched. So a whole, **whole** lot of vacuuming followed by a deep carpet cleaning would probably take care of it. The urine can be nasty-smelling if it’s been sitting around, but vinegar seems to break it down nicely, and if that doesn’t do it, a spritz of some kind of Oxy-Clean-style cleanser does it. I’d much rather deal with rabbit crap than cat crap. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/35 "2011-01-23T20:31:39Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I too am surprised the owners didn’t evict them, even after they cleaned the place out. And I wondered just how well they were able to clean it, anyway. I mean, the floors were literally covered in rabbit shit, and I can’t imagine that stuff comes out of carpets easily, especially if you’ve been walking all over it. 1. They seemed like decent people who wanted to help. 2. The house is destroyed to a point that only those losers with the bunnies would pay to live in it. 3. Evicting is awfully hard to do. The paperwork and legal red tape would probably be expensive and take a long time. 4. Lesson learned? Renting out your home is a total pain and attracts losers. Not always, but frequently. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/36 "2011-01-23T20:38:34Z")
Uh, I don’t want to offend anyone with my post above. Not all renters are losers, but renting out your home can really lead to attracting some shifty characters. Heck, my wife and I rented for 2 years when we came back from China to the US. The house we are now in(we own) was rented out for awhile before we bought it. The dude kept his large dog locked up in the basement for days on end and let it crap and pee down there. The owners had to do a ton of work to clean it up and get the smell out(they did, successfully). Anyway, I"m sure those people were very nice that were renting out. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/37 "2011-01-23T21:15:25Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > Which begged the question of, how can you pile 40 cats in a shopping cart? I’m sorry, the image of forty cats in a shopping cart has me laughing like a drain. I’m imagining a woman whistling while pushing a shopping cart filled to the brim with hissing, spitting, snarling, fighting cats and not noticing anything strange. Perhaps talking to them. Maybe with some kind of mesh cage over the top to keep them all contained. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/38 "2011-01-24T01:02:01Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > 1. Lesson learned? Renting out your home is a total pain and attracts losers. Not always, but frequently. Yeah, I can imagine one call you don’t want to get as the owner of a rental property is “Hello, we’re calling from the television ‘Hoarders’ and would like to speak to you about one of your tenants…” ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/39 "2011-01-24T13:25:36Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > I’m sorry, the image of forty cats in a shopping cart has me laughing like a drain. I’m imagining a woman whistling while pushing a shopping cart filled to the brim with hissing, spitting, snarling, fighting cats and not noticing anything strange. Perhaps talking to them. Maybe with some kind of mesh cage over the top to keep them all contained. “As I was going to see the rats, I met a loon with forty cats . . .” ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176/40 "2011-01-24T14:33:14Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > I liked the rat guy, I felt bad for him. He seemed like a nice person who just got in over his head with the rats and who truly appreciated all the help he was getting. Was that also the one with the woman who flipped out and kicked the show out of her house? God she was an ungrateful bitch. I hate it when these people cry and cry about how they ‘hate to live like this and they know they have a problem, they just need some help and why oh why do I have to live like this? Why can’t it be clean!?’ and then when someone actually tries to help them they become selfish brats. “I didn’t know you were going to _clean_, I thought you were just going to clean!” :rolleyes: > > Oh, but the worst one was that horrid woman a few weeks ago who lived in a trailer and had hundreds of abused animals. God she was sickening. that’s the first time i had to turn the show off. and i have a strong stomach! :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarders-season-finale/568176.md?page=3)