So I recently discovered the tv show “Hoarders” on YouTube, and I’ve now watched about four full and a couple partial shows, and I’m wondering if they ever manage to really help anyone?
I mean, yeah, in two days the crew hauls away tons and tons of crap, and do a surface clean on at least a few rooms (mostly, not always) and then there’s the ‘happy reveal’ where the patients say how wonderful everything looks and how they’ll keep it that way or even keep cleaning stuff out (for the ones where they didn’t do the whole house or whatever) but at end they usually have these little, uh, admissions? about how Patient X isn’t continuing with therapy and Patient Y is already bringing in new junk.
It really seems like the ‘patients’ are simply allowing the organizers and cleaners to do their thing to end whatever the current crisis is (like fines being levied, houses condemned, children taken by CPS) but they don’t really change. They still don’t see that there’s anything really wrong/abnormal about holding on to every empty can or bringing in 30 pairs of shoes that don’t even fit them or thinking that twenty year expired batteries are still too valuable to be thrown out because they’re still ‘new in the packaging.’
And I suspect that if you came back in a couple years, things would look just like the way they did at the start.
Am I wrong? Has anyone done any sort of follow up on these cases? Do the Hoarders ever mend their ways in an on-going manner and manage to start living normal lives?
As a diagnosed hoarder (I’m in treatment for that and many other problems), my gut agrees with the above posters. Especially since if the subjects of the show really changed, there would be happy follow up episodes.
BUT, I’ll go further. The book Buried In Treasures (which I cannot recommend highly enough) says that shows like Hoarders allow folks with hoarding disorder to say ‘I am not nearly as bad as the people on that show. Therefore, I do not really have a problem!’ So, shows like Hoarders are actually making a bad situation worse.
In case anybody is interested, one of the issues identified in Buried In Treasures is keeping things not because you can use them now- but because they fit the vision of who you want to be. Fer exzample, while I have some basic skill at soldering and doig battery-powered gadgets (I made a staff full of LEDs that flash on and off when the end is stomped on the ground) I am NOT the electronics guru that OTTOMH ELindsey or EnginerCompGeek is. Once I finally let that dream go, I was able to get rid of a bunch of stuff I was keeping for the day I’d know how to use it. FaceBook Marketplace has also been a godsend. For a while, I was a toy dealer doing toyshows. After that stopped, I kept buying things to resell. Eventually, I was able to stop buying things to resell. But I still had a bunch of inventory. For a long while, I was selling things on FB. If they didn’t sell after a while and a few price reductions, I donated them to Goodwill. My current problem is that my soul-sucking job leaves me no energy. I really need to get back to selling. It gave me much needed income and more space in my apartment.
Anecdotally; my mother used to live in the same apartment building as a guy featured in the first season, and he was able to keep his apartment in order once they got the place cleaned up.
They have a psychologist with them when doing the cleanup and they give the hoarder aftercare therapy as well, lots of times the follow up at the end says that the hoarder did not continue with the aftercare.
I think I watched two seasons of it years ago and my recollection is that there were one or two people who appeared to actually be trying to change their lives themselves, but everyone else was reacting to some outside stimulus or family pressure, and seemed extremely unlikely to change anything.
IMHO, so much of “reality TV” (which really isn’t any longer, if it ever was) is that line of cocaine. It’s a short-term feel-good that so many of us crave.
It becomes akin to social media in that it often creates unrealistic expectations of what life is like for everybody else, and reinforces a tendency to be exceedingly critical of one’s own life.
Which can lead to all kinds of problems.
It’s painfully manipulative.
Because … exactly to the point of the OP … what happens after the cameras stop rolling ?
If you march in and clean out a home for a hoarder you’re treating the symptoms, not the causes.
When I realized I had hoarding tendencies I didn’t have a throwing-out-stuff party, I sat down and tried to figure out how I’d gotten to where I was. Then I took steps to change the bad habits and practices that led to the mess, and find ways to unload the stuff that didn’t cause excessive emotional distress. In other words, I looked to fix the causes, not just clean up the living room.
(Like @DocCathode I’ve been selling stuff on eBay and also donating a lot to various organizations and causes. I’m never going to be a neat-nick, but I’m a lot better than I used to be.)
Doing that, however, is not as quick and tidy and media-sexy as yet another “feel good” story with Hallmark overtones.
The reality TV show is just a one hour window into the lives of these people, and often (if not always) is produced for the primary benefit of the financial backer of the show and not the long-term interests of the featured hoarders.
I gave up on the show when they expanded it to 90 minutes for each person. Way, way, way, way too much time setting up the whole thing.
Yes, they do offer after-services(that is what they call it) and I don’t necessarily agree with @Kelby that the “vast majority” reject the treatment, but it’s fair to say a good chunk do. I think it’s more like 50-50 at most.
Of course, the treatment and after-services only last so long. The show is not, I think, providing many years of therapy or organizing services after the show. It ends at some point, but I’m not sure how far it goes.
The show is definitely only there to make a profit. I’m sure the clean-ups and the therapists feel they are doing good, but come on. This whole thing is just a TV show and it is all about profit.
While I don’t think the “vast majority” reject therapy, I do think the vast majority are not helped in any real permanent way.
It’s my understanding that the people on Hoarders are in an emergency situation; the landlord/city/county/authorities are imminently going to evict them or condemn the property unless cleanup occurs immediately. After the cleanup and the crisis is dealt with, however that is resolved, funds are provided by the show for therapy but from what I’ve seen very few subjects take advantage of the opportunity.
I haven’t watched Hoarders or Hoarding: Buried Alive in a very long time but it seemed to me that there were (broadly) 3 types of ‘hoarders’ on the show. Since I’m not a head doc, take everything I say with a grain of salt.
The first type are people who let the housework get away from them and just gave up trying. Some of these people were usually what I’d call ‘depressed’. These have the most chance of keeping the house up.
The second type seem to have an actual hoarding disorder. With these people it seems that if they, themselves requested the help, they have a much better chance of keeping up their homes, unlike those who circumstances forced the clean up on them. Those guys don’t seem to have a very good success rate.
Then there are those who are a danger to themselves and their neighborhoods to boot. They don’t seem to be living in the same reality as everyone else and should not be left unsupervised. They have little chance of keeping the hoard away.
Again, not a psychologist. Also, I haven’t watched in a long time because these shows either break my heart or make me angry and I can get enough of that in real life these days.
The show clearly waits until the city is going to come and evict them before showing up. They love the “3 days to city official visit” type stuff. It’s there go-to type of episode.
If they cared, they’d show up 2 months before the deadline.
I agree with your breakdown and your final sentence.
The other spoke on the wheel is family dynamics. Some of them absolutely don’t stand a chance (without intensive, long-term therapy), because their family situation is so obviously toxic.
Wasn’t there even a coprophagic person on one episode?
I also remember an episode in which the [male] hoarder had let the organizers know multiple times that he had a very personal stash upstairs, and that he didn’t want his sisters to see it. So what does the cleaning specialist (I think it was Dorothy) do? She hauls the sisters upstairs just in time for them to witness the unveiling of the hoarder’s dildo collection. One sister’s reaction was so over-the-top that it would have been comical if the hoarder wasn’t being disrespected so horribly.
So yeah, I’m really skeptical about whether or not it helps everyone. There is aftercare offered, but it seems like quite a few people don’t take advantage of that.
The one I remember similar to that was that he had a bunch of S&M magazines and so forth. The sisters and family were massively shocked and the hoarder was so embarrassed.
It kind of showed…he knew the show was coming and his family would be there…he still wouldn’t even throw away the stuff he knew would embarrass him.
If there was a coprophagic person episode, I’m glad I missed that.
There WAS one where it was a husband and wife who dubbed themselves “found object artists” but it had gotten way out of hand, and they had a big wicker basket full of ben-wa balls that didn’t have batteries in them and they absolutely insisted on donating them! The clean-up crew refused to do that.