This tv show is fascinating to me. I knew a hoarder and didn't know she was until after her death. I was shocked. This show is so very real in how expert these people are at keeping their secret and how the family keeps it for them too! That is the part I don't understand, how the family can live like that. The quilter I knew that was a hoarder was a very nice looking woman, always dressed nice, with a salon do and make up whenever she was out. The few times I was at her house she always met me at the door and was either leaving or had to get ready to leave so I was never invited in. No one else were ever in the house except her family.
Her house was beautiful on the outside, two story plantation type house. You never know, so sad.

I was JUST writing an email to a friend about Hoarders to remind her it was on. I watched 2 episodes about Hoarding last night on TLC, or one of the other channels. I don't understand how people can live like that. But I have to say, watching those shows makes me feel better about the mess I live in :) Suddenly it doesn't look so bad!!!

I was able to come up close and personal with a hoarder. She had a 5000 square foot home with a 2 car garage and an outdoor wine cellar. Needless to say you could barely move in any of the rooms. Floor to ceiling! I saw up close and personal what hoarding is and am saddened by it! It took 3 days, 25 plus men, 12 30 yard rolloffs and about 10 of the huge moving trucks to get everything out of the house. She had pets that used the house as their toilet and rodents as well :-( A very sad situation indeed to see what some of these people live like and to watch the families do nothing and let it happen :-( After being so up close and personal with it I can not watch the show. It is truly a horrific situation.
Hugs
April

I felt so bad for the guy when his girlfriend came in and started ranting and raving about how nuts he was. Interesting when the one doctor said that the industry is reevaluating whether Hoarding should be classified among the OCD family because the sufferers don't respond to standard treatment.

I have a daughter that is a hoarder and doesn't clean. What to do. I have tried to help because she has four children and a husband. I don't know what to do. I clean one day and it's back the same way the next. Help!

Hoarding is a mental illness. The reason for the hoarding has to be addressed before anyone can be "fixed". I sure hope your daughter gets help-with kids it can become a bad situation because they can take them away if they feel the children are in a dangerous or hazardous to their health conditions.
I wish her the best and you the strength to help her!
Hugs
April

It must be such a controlling and sad feeling to be afraid of not having enough, or maybe having to do without. My son in-law adopted a little girl who hoards food. She has to be medicated to deal with life. at the age of four she was still hiding things and now she is ten???? In a day's time, she can hide more food than you can imagine, behind books under bed, in shoes...bread by the slice, cheese in toys, besides cereal everywhere. Thank goodness she doesn't bother with liquids. She was such a basket case but it has taken pure hands on and loving companionship to enforce that she has no need to think she will be without food. She has been weened from heavy meds, only during health crisis is it monitored closely. Before adoption, they took, all her pockets away and she slept in a bare room. Toy room was shared with others.....but you could find a trail of sugar ants and know something was hidden. Bless the little children who have known dispare. Bless them everyone.

I only have the basic reception cable, so I don't get A&E. I'd be interested in watching it, though I saw a program (maybe Oprah?) once about a woman who hoarded and it sickened me.

I knew a woman once who hoarded. She was one of those people you think are totally together, someone you'd choose to lean on in a pinch - but she had this other side. In her case, it's partly about loneliness. She has a boyfriend and a thousand friends, but no real family. She and the boyfriend have been together for decades, but they're never going to live together because he likes things clutter-free.

this past winter we had two fires in the area, and neither could out, because of hording.so sad.
it is a mental illness,and therapy and meds are needed to help deal with it. i have a neighbor who is like this.the house is not "dirty" or rotting food laying out..just cluttered, she must have 50 boxed of foil,wraps, hundreds of boxes christmas wrapping..i don't think she has ever thrown out a newpaper. she is old . they can't help it..they don't mean to be that way.

The A&E website has two episodes for viewing. They change them every so often.

[quote=LovingIzabella]I was able to come up close and personal with a hoarder. She had a 5000 square foot home with a 2 car garage and an outdoor wine cellar. Needless to say you could barely move in any of the rooms. Floor to ceiling! I saw up close and personal what hoarding is and am saddened by it! It took 3 days, 25 plus men, 12 30 yard rolloffs and about 10 of the huge moving trucks to get everything out of the house. She had pets that used the house as their toilet and rodents as well :-( A very sad situation indeed to see what some of these people live like and to watch the families do nothing and let it happen :-( After being so up close and personal with it I can not watch the show. It is truly a horrific situation.
Hugs

It isn't really fair to blame the families of hoarders for watching and doing nothing. It's hard to understand how people can live this way and think it's normal. One of the saddest and probably most frustrating aspects of the disease is that these people can't be helped if they're not willing to accept help. Family members can talk until they are blue in the face and it won't mean a thing, they become defensive, argumentative.... Even if family members make the effort to clean it won't stay that way. I think this disease/disorder is very difficult for family members as well.

Its personal for me, my mom became a hoarder. The house was nice when me and my sis grew up. It was after we left home that it got bad. My mom is depressed but won't take meds. She won't let me help her clean. Yesterday I stopped, and she let me take some clothes for donation, she has promised to clean up the living room and dinning area, get new carpet, paint and a new couch, badly needed. i told her if she would do that i would make her a quilt with dogs!She loves her dogs. She said she wants new things so I hope I can motivate her, she loves my quilts, only made 2 so far,
I also helped her fill two garbage bags, she choose the things to throw away, so sad, it didn't even make a dent. We used to have Christmas holiday there before it was bad, she got so upset when we said we wouldn't come anymore because of the mess, she was so hurt. Honestly, I didn't want to even eat thing that she made when she brought it to my house, so now we tell her to bring a jar of pickles and olives. They feel like they are throwing away their life when you ask them to clean it up. I feel sorry for my day. At least there is a path to walk though her house.
Lace (daughter of a hoarder)

I do not blame the family members but there comes a point where one must step in and do what is right for the other. I am not sure about all states but I know where I am you can have someone committed for an evaluation with two signatures of family members. I think the problem is that it is so hard to deal with so some family members just give up instead of fighting to help. I am not saying clean up after the hoarder I am saying help them. Family seems to always help those who have bipolar or depression or some other mental illness but shy away from hoarders because they are "dirty" and "want to live like that". No one WANTS to live like that but again they are mentally ill and need the love, support and help of their family not the unwillingness to give it everything no matter what. In the particular case I was in it was a matter where she was a shame to the family so better to leave her be than bother with her. These are the kinds of family members I am referring to sorry I did not mean to imply it was the family's fault.
Hugs
April

They sometimes find dead animals in those homes. I can not watch that. I consider them fifthy and would not go anywhere near them nor their houses. Just me and my opinion.
My Mom got to where her house was cluttered but, nothing like these. She has been dead for 25 yr.s or so.

Uh, not that I have a problem, but have the shown any episodes of people who have lots and lots of fabrics? Okay, I'm lying, I might have a problem, okay, I have a problem, but I don't want any help :):):)
I'm making a bit light of the issue, which is very tragic. We had a gentleman in the area that had died and it took the officers forever to find him in his trailer house. I always pray that people on these shows get the help they need by compassionate others who can guide them to a better way of life.

I always end up cleaning my house like a maniac after watching shows like that. Seeing the filth they live in just really grosses me out.

I used to work for a lady that was a hoarder. She owned a 3 bedroom house with attached double garage, a commerical building where she used to run a store, and she rented a huge storage unit. All of them (including her back yard) were piled to the ceiling with stuff. I worried about her because she was elderly and had hip and knee problems. I was afraid that she would fall and be trapped in the piles.

There are hoarders on both sides of my family. My father's father was a hoarder on the scale of those on the program. My mother's father and mother both were hoarders. I can remember when I was a little kid my Grampa had a shed in the back yard. There was a path thru the shed to the back. By the time I was a teen he had filled that shed floor to ceiling and wall to wall and built on a 10 foot extension and filled it full. Plus he had another old house down the block that was full nearly to capacity. We never thought my Grandmother was a hoarder until after she died and my mother found all her cupboards and closets packed full of stuff like styrofoam meat trays and oatmeal boxes. The house was always clean and neat though. She just hid her hoarding.

I think my mother is a food hoarder. She has a huge chest freezer that's always packed full, her pantry is always packed full and there's barely room to put a can of pop in her refrigerator. She lives alone. My husband and I couldn't possibly eat all the food she has in a year!

I think the people on the show have other issues besides just hoarding.

Sadly, I have a friend who fits this description. Other than this problem she is a wonderful and creative gal. Her commercial shop was 5,000 sf, all stuffed. I remember it was so packed that the public entrance door had to be shoved hard just to make enough room to get in. Also, she had rented multiple storage units. The rent for the storage units ran over $2,500 a month! She kept buying/hoarding until she ran out through 2 or 3 million $. Eventually her storage unit contents were auctioned off by the storage company, her 3,000 sf house over Lake Washington, also packed half way to the ceilings, went into foreclosure. The court had 20 tons in the house hauled to the dump and the rest was put into PODS. The PODS also eventually were auctioned off by that storage company. ALL of THAT because this illness drives her to buy and hoard and the ONLY thing that prevents her from doing it is literally NO money, NO credit, and No friends who will loan her any money.

P.S. bodie358, If you lived a little closer, I'd just have to "kidnap" that precious puppy!

Thanks for this information! I've watched shows on the network channel websites, never thought to check the cable channels. I'll be watching them this week.

The law prevents family members from taking over. All the family can do is report the conditions to the right authority and then the law decides what's to be done. Most times it's not what's best for the family to do it the law's way so they just deal with it the best they can. If the law would let family members restrain the hoarder in a mental facility someplace while the mess is cleaned up it would be better then dragging it out with the hoarder throwing a fit or be put in jail.

In my National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) group, we have two members who are hoarders. They hoard stuff plus "resuce" cats, which means that they have 25-30 cats living in the house. Now I love cats but those cats have peed and pooped everywhere and destroyed stuff so it is disgusting. Neither of them recognize this is an issue but would blame the other if they did recognize the problem. When I know they have kittens, I do provide kitten chow for mama and babies so they have good start. I do know they need help b/c at Thanksgiving time we gave them a turkey but they had to empty the freezer of dead cats before they could accept the gift. They had kept the cats in the freezer so they didn't rot before they could be buried. This is true in case you're wondering whether I made it up.

We have man & wife that live on 10 acres about a mile from here and the outside is as bad as the inside.

Nice people, if you met them on the street. They have 2 teenage children,(this is a very small community) The kids have their share of teasing and then some now that that show has put the spot-light on hoarders. It's really sad.

The bad thing is that the hoarder most often does not realize that they have a problem and "doing what's right" is very stressful for the hoarder. Without their participation and willingness to go through the ordeal, if someone just goes in and "cleans up" or throws out the rubbish, that will only result in more hoarding. It is a mental illness and it takes serious long-term support to help these people.

It pains me to watch them agonize over scraps of garbage and their inability to recognize it as such. To the hoarder, even the garbage can have paralyzing meaning.

I will have to look this up and post a link to the article but there was a place in New York I believe that these brothers were such hoarders that they eventually died because of it.....Crushed to death by their own stuff. They had something to do with the sewing machine industry, and this all happened in the 1920's if I remember correctly.

But I am a hoarder as such with all of my sewing machines, car parts and cars, but they are all neatly tucked away, labeled and very organized.

My friends tell me I have my own NAPA store in my garage! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I have enough parts here I could build at least 3 or 4 cars never leaving my garage for anything.

I even have a complete set of vintage (and a few new) catalogs in a rack just like the old parts stores used to have. It comes in very handy when I have to find parts for these kids that work behind the counter have no idea how to look up anything. I just give them a part number and its all good! Plus it helps me find what I need from everything that I have amassed through the years.

Billy

I don't think I could watch it.

When I requested membership in our local freerecycle club (thank you to whomever posted the info on this org), I told them that I'm a very organized pack rat who has reached her rattiness level! I think Lostn51 and I have some similarities, in that regard. Several times I have de-cluttered only to re-clutter; very expensive! I've decided that I need a certain level of "stuff" in order to feel comfortable and secure. But, again, I know there's a limit!

The way I look at it is that some of these car parts I have they will never make anymore and if I can get a deal on them go ahead and buy it because I might could use it later.

I bought 3 rare hoods for a 1932 Ford for $100 for all three. I sold 2 of them a couple years ago for $1500 each. I also have a set of 1934 Ford Roadster fenders that were new old stock I bought 20 years ago for $15 each. I have been offered $3500 for the pair and I might let them go for $4500. But everything has its place on the wall in my garage and in the attics. I am a neat freak and can not stand clutter so you dont really know how much stuff I have until you really start looking.

Billy

Billy, you should meet my boyfriend's brother in Maine. He used to be the top Chrysler mechanic in the country. He has an enormous garage that sounds a lot like yours.

I absolutely believe hoarding is a type of OCD...absolutely!
It is not just being lazy, greedy or lack of motivation, it is a 'drive' or obsession. I'm glad they are reevaluating it. Good to know. :thumbup:

amen!

[quote=ctquilter]Oh, I have to agree. Family of grown hoarders cannot do anything about it.
Without medication and therapy, you cannot legally stop someone that is driven by anxiety...whether they hoard out of fear, or they hoard bc it gives them a high for a little while.
It is not against the law...at first.
I mean the health dept. can become involved in some cases and even child services, but other than that, you can't force grown ppl to live the way you think they should.
They have to want help.

I agree with quitlncrazy. They have to want the help b/c otherwise the situation and hoarding can be exacerbated by a well meant intervention.

I have a much loved family member that only has a path the width of a person's body to walk through the whole house.
The house is not very big, but no one will visit, except me of course.
I don't go to see the house, but that's another angle.
I don't blame anyone for not visiting. It is uncomfortable to say the least. It can be hazardous too.
What if there was an emergency?
Yes, I know how you feel and it is sad. For me, it is sad to think this person is suffering.

Hoarding is a symptom of an underlying mental disorder. It isn't OCD in the true interpretation of that disorder according to the DSM IV, and that is why they are having a problem categorizing it. It overlaps with other disorders, so they have to determine if it is a result of a separate disorder like unresolved grief, or it's in a category all of it's own with sub categories.

People who suffer from OCD have set rituals that they follow because in their thinking it gives them control and order. They are aware they are doing the rituals, the problem is they don't know why. Getting to the underlying motivation for the rituals is difficult.

Hoarders have an emotional attachment to the things that they hoard. They have to recognize what that attachment is before they can begin the process of working to change. Their families can't help them because they don't understand or have the qualifications to help them. If their family were to go in and clean out the house, they haven't addressed the underlying issues, so the hoarder replaces everything that was removed. In order for a hoarder to change, they must go through the process of sorting through and discarding things that they have collected.

I've watched the show several times. No one would choose to live this way. They are unable to help themselves. It really is so sad.

It isn't that they are unable to help themselves, they don't know how. The underlying issue has to be addressed before they can take steps to change and that takes the help of a professional.

You are absolutely right. They don't know how to help themselves and they can't explain why they are emotionally attached to things, they just know that they can't get rid of anything. Such an overwhelming, sad disorder.

It is very overwhelming for them, like you said, no one chooses to live like that. Until they understand why they are hoarding, it causes tremendous anxiety for them to part with things.

The problem with it being labeled a mental illness is that people with mental illness don't know they are mentally ill. Their behavior although bizarre to us, is perfectly normal to them. Hoarders know they have a problem, they feel shame when their problem comes to the attention of family and friends. But they don't know how to fix it.