The surprise to me, is that most of them are very bright. It is not just dumb people who don’t get it but mostly smart people who can not control their impulses.
That is certainly the case with the ex-friend I mentioned. She is very bright and accomplished, college-educated, holds a managerial position in a company that is known worldwide. You wouldn’t think she’s one of the hoarders. A mutual friend tried to get her on the show and for a while she seemed interested, but then backpedaled because she didn’t want her face shown on TV and seen by any colleagues.
There are several houses in my neighborhood where folks are beginning to open the garage doors in the warm weather. It is amazing to me the number of them which are completely solid with boxes and old appliances and stacks of old carpet. I would say at least one in ten garages is nearly or completely filled with inaccessible belongings.
It’s safe to say that I have a tendancy toward this, especially if I get depressed. But it’s not that I am attached to, or don’t want to get rid of the stuff, it’s just that I don’t have the energy to do it. It’s easy to tell what my spiritual condition is just by looking around the house. Celtling has made a huge difference in this, as I’m always able to stir myself on her behalf, even if I can’t for myself.
My Mother’s place is wall-to-wall boxes. She’ll come to mine though and criticize the stack of mail on the kitchen counter.
My wife and I move through our house like a hurricane at least once a year, getting rid of everything we don’t need anymore. I can’t stand to live in clutter, and neither can she, thank God.
This thread may be of interest to some of you: Ask the Adult Child of a Hoarder/Clutterer.
I’ve never watched a full episode of this show, but I’m the grandson of a hoarder. My grandmother’s house was literally floor to ceiling “Stuff”- not even good stuff, just crap like boxes and newspapers and suitcases and crap she salvaged various places. I knew of other hoarders as well: an old lady who was a neighbor of my other grandparents was actually a very neat hoarder whose house was spotless and organized but you could barely walk through it because of all the neatly stacked boxes and stacks of paper and folded sheets and the like, and she actually had a mirror that reflect the TV through the LR so she could see it from the opposite side.
While I don’t expect this show to be around for long, one thing I like about it is that it lets people know that they’re not alone. My mother was a pack-rat but not quite a hoarders, and my sister is so neurotic about throwing anything out that she owns two warehouses- that’s owns, not rents, two, not one, warehouses, not storage sheds, one of which is full and the other one getting there and this on top of several houses she owns. I can only imagine what hell it would be like growing up in the house of a parent who had this compulsion.
I lean towards slobbery but not hoarding. I wonder if most hoarders are women or if men are about equally represented. The most famous two were the Collyer brothers, but most of the hoarders on television shows are women.
Well, OK. This post and ALL the others like it really took the shine off my schadenfreude.
Thanks for another way to look at it.
Now I will insert my finger, which had grown weary from the wagging anyway, up my ass.
Hey, maybe there will be a show about people like me someday 
I love this show. You actually see a range of different problems in the hoarders:
- person is physically weak and connot maintain a house (include obvious alcoholics and depressed people)
- cleaning is a REALLY low priority (these are the ones that make me mad)
- many people have anxiety issues (the lady who hoarded food)
- disorganized person (a couple of people who collected stuff, which is fine by me, but were clueless about effective storage)
- one that I don’t know how to catagorize- this guy was broke. He had been collecting things that probably would sell, but he was also unresourceful. He was going to jail if he didn’t get the dozens of cars off of his lawn (among other things)
- People who get emotionally attached to objects (that youngish lady who remembered good times by keeping objects around)
I say just because the symptom is the same, there would seem to be very different ways to deal with it. Anyway, psychology is a very new science, and in my opinion, not yet very effective. I don’t think it is fair that they go into places saying that they will clean it out in a week and then expect people to be on the right track in one year, but I always watch hoping for the best.
The youngish lady who kept receipts as memory joggers was also a collector who could not throw anything away. She had clothes she never wore, hundreds of bottles of hair care products and unopened toothbrushes and infuriated her friends when she could not bring herself to throw any of that stuff away. “That’s still good!” “I can still wear that!” “You threw away my papers! I needed them!”
All she needed was a few more years and she too would have been buried in stuff.
The one that I saw who really wasn’t a hoarder was the young gay man with the alcoholic dad. He was just a slob who needed help cleaning up.
Yes! He was the only one on the follow-up show who had been “cured”.
Is this a series? I thought it was a one off. (it back fired on me- I accused my SO of being a hoarder and made her watch the show. She made me admit she isn’t bad at all 
)
I wish I could show a couple of episodes to my mum. She being a hoarder was one of the reasons why I moved out.
My grandmother was probably some kind of hoarder: when she died, we cleaned out 17 boxes of used dry cleaning bags in her attic; removed at least 27 empty (clean) mayonnaise jars off her ironing board etc. But the “public” rooms of her house were fairly tidy.
Two of my sisters seemed to have this tendency. As children, they used to pay me to clean their rooms. It went beyond clothes on the floor and clutter. They have both passed away, so I don’t know if they would have been hoarders in old age.
If I catch the cable show, I watch it. I am both repelled and fascinated by it. I never saw it as exploitative–the crew and the counselors seem quite respectful of the afflicted person. But I do worry that it may become an issue for me (one of my kids seems to be like his deceased aunts). And I also use it as motivation to get RID OF CRAP.
The episode I saw some guy was hoarding his body wastes in jars. Now that is bad.
It’s actually two separate series; one on A&E and the other on TLC.
I remember him. He was kind of a big baby. Wow! the last person I would have expected to get reformed. I MUST watch the follow up.
That kid had a lot of anxiety problems, though. Remember that he was having fits over cleaning up his dog’s hair, because he thought the hair kept his dog alive?
Obviously his problems were exacerbated by his worthless dad. I mean the dad was an asshole to the therapist and drunk by 10 AM. He had hundreds of wine bottles stashed around the house.
Seems to me that the kid just needed some therapy to get him away from his dad. He had a boyfriend who loved him and a good dog. I’m glad to know he ended up doing well - that’s the only episode that’s made me cry so far.
If you know of a way to get around the US exclusion, there are some episodes on Hulu.
Wait, my wife was on the show? I must have been at work that day. 
Me too. His dad’s alcoholism was really doing a number on him, I’m sure it was exacerbating the anxiety. He seemed like the only one I’ve seen who really knew he had a problem and wanted to get better.
This show has helped my parents in an indirect way. Through watching it, and hearing the stories of hoarders and their families, I’ve been able to help my parents understand their neighbor, who’s at the goat-trail stage. Her grown daughters once came over while she was at work and threw out a bunch of stuff - I explained to my mom why that’s counterproductive. I’ve also been able to explain why we think it happens, and help them be a little more understanding.
These shows can easily descend into PALATR, but from what I’ve seen they’re really trying to shine a light on a problem that’s been overlooked and needs to be addressed.