I have no experience with hoarders, but ISTM “just clean this mess up” sounds superficially easier to do than “just quit the drugs”.
No doubt I am wrong, but I wonder what the long-term recovery rates for hoarders are vs. those for chemical dependency. The messages at the end of Hoarders are not always very specific about how well the subjects of the show are doing in terms of not filling their houses back up.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve seen follow-up episodes of Intervention but I’ve never seen one for Hoarders. These shows are quick to produce and turn-around is relatively fast. An episode of Hoarders filmed in Westminster, MD aired in November was taped in late August, as evidenced by them experiencing the August 23 “DC earthquake.” I believe the show provides some amount of money for therapy for some amount of time after the show, maybe 6 months (?) but I don’t know if they keep track of them after that.
If it was as simple as “clean this mess up” they would not be hoarders. These are not people who just don’t clean, they have an uncontrollable compulsion to keep stuff that usually involves putting an undo amount of emotional attachment to objects that gives them the sense that the object have real value. They can’t bring themselves to get rid of the things and, most often, they have control issues that prevent them from letting anyone else get rid of the stuff. This is why the people on the show will either become enraged or shut down when the helpers try to get rid of something that the hoarder has not apprved or if a helper denigrates the stuff, even if it is obviously feces encrusted or urine soaked.
The people who ‘just clean this mess up’ will work for is the people on Clean House, who tend to be messy but not hoarders as such. They usually lack the emotional attachments that characterize a hoarder.
Equally bad, although the hoarders might have a slight edge because the hoarding mindset isn’t as well understood by the general public. Most people think of them as just packrats, or frugal. They don’t realize that throwing out all the junk doesn’t get rid of the mental issue any more than smashing up an alcoholic’s booze bottles won’t stop their need to drink.
My family contains both hoarders and alcoholics. The hoarders are as “addicted” to their stuff as the alcoholics are to their booze.
I’m torn. Addicts often steal to get their fix if it comes down to not having another way, and may steal from family and friends. Hoarders don’t usually do that.
But then there’s animal hoarders and other hoarders living in utter filth, and the problem of others thinking “well just clean it up for them, problem solved.” So it’s tough to decide.
Animal hoarding is just too heartbreaking to watch, even for me. Hoarders, addicts and everyone around them share some of the responsibility for their misery, that’s not true of pets.
The problem I have with the hoarders show is that they impose some massively urgent deadline which naturally –artificially- makes for some swell TV drama.
From the looks of most of these places, you’d need weeks to clear them out. Usually they say it has to be done in a weekend.
Now I know these folks brought this mess (literally) on themselves but there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re also being manipulated like hell all in the name of good TV fun.
From what I’ve read it’s 4 days they spend on each person, but half of it is interviewing the subject and their families. The therapists and professional organizers do not work just for A&E, it’s more of a side job for them; they have their own practices and patients.
There is a thread about it on A&E’s forum.
I’d screw some of the addicts, but none of the hoarders.