Hoarders the TV show on TLC.....

[Disneylover79]

OMG this is my first time seeing it, it is very sad.... I can't beleive someone would keep all that stuff...I have to watch to see what comes of the house....anyone watch it or know of anyone that is a hoarder?

 

[binny]

there was a big thread on here a month or so ago about it.

That is scary isnt it? I cant help but believe that its a mental illness though.

 

[lemondog]

My grandmother was a hoarder. She always had the tendency, but it didn't get bad until her husband died. After my grandfather died she lived independently in an apartment for almost 25 years before she died at age 82 of a stroke. By the time she died there was a thin path from the door to her bedroom, and there was a small space by her bed with a folding chair. The only surfaces left uncovered were her twin bed, the folding chair, the pathway and the toilet. She did throw away her trash so it wasn't nasty disgusting, it was just so much STUFF!!! She also smoked heavily so you can imagine the lovely smell...the white sheer curtains were literally black and almost hardened by the time she passed away.

I remember the months it took for my mom to go thru all her stuff. My grandmother was a very private person and I remember the guilt my mom felt going thru everything, but of course it had to be done. The things she chose to hoard were very random...stacks and stacks and stacks of newspapers, every piece of mail she EVER received, can upon can upon can of Veg-All , toilet paper, unopened cans of Diet Coke. She passed in 2001 and I swear some of those Diet Coke cans were from the 80s.

 

[Ohiodislover]

As a nurse, I've walked into several hoarder type homes.

I remember one in particular. The entire front room was full of newspapers and boxes...floor to ceiling, with a narrow path to the middle room which I believe was a dining room...which was used as the patients bedroom and bathroom (totally different and gross story) The upstairs was completely full, from the time you stepped off the stairs. Extremely scary---never ever went back


Another was a millionaire...seriously the richest person I have ever known. Had every butter container, and clinique soap container used since 1070...drank out of pimento spread jars.

Scary, and sad

 

[decaff38]

My great aunt was definitely a hoarder. I was young when she died but much of her things ended up in our basement. My parents were borderline. When my Dad passed 5 years ago, my Mom moved to a 2 bedroom apartment a bunch of that stuff went there. Well, this weekend , I went up to her house and threw away 10 big black garbage bags of paper and broken things. I have 10 more bags of consignment stuff. My mother and father were young 8-10 years old , during the depression. I think it had allot to do with that. My fathers Mother was also borderline. My oldest sister is definitely on track to be a major hoarder. She won't accept any help and can not sort things and purge. I find it so theraputic. I am soon going to be out of things to sort. Darn. It is so sad and desprarate for those people. The frustration makes many people very crabby.

 

[BelleWDW]

Dont think I could watch-BIL is a huge hoarder-his sister actually went and cleaned out his house when he went to hospital-his wife was totally embarressed that they couldnt get the stretcher in their room to take him away

 

[MIGrandma]

I watched an episode of the show last night. The one woman's father burned her stuff when she was a teenager, so that's when it started.

I have hoarding tendancies myself, so watching the show is helpful to me I think. The downstairs of our house is just fine, no one would ever know what the upstairs used to look like.

A small path in the center of the stairs going up, a small path in the hallway and 3 bedrooms full of....old stuff, papers, magazines, junk. I really have no idea how it got that way. It just got that way over time, over a period of several years. But since we really didn't use the upstairs, I never gave it much thought.

But then we were in a situation where we needed to have the upstairs clean for someone to stay there, so I HAD to get busy and clean.

At first it was SO OVERWHELMING. I just didn't know where to start. Or what to do with everything. I finally just had to pick up the first piece of junk and get started! I cleared the stairway first, so that when I got upstairs I could just pitch stuff over the railing. Then I would sort everything that I pitched over. One pile was to burn, one pile of stuff was things that wouldn't burn so went to the trash dumpster, and the other pile was for Goodwill. Slowly. Ever so slowly, I made progress daily.

It was wonderful to see the progress!! I got the hallway done, and two bedrooms. I still have one bedroom to do, and two hall closets but they will wait until spring.

I never want it to get like THAT again. It would have been so embarrassing for anyone else to see.

There are still things I save, that I probably shouldn't. Mostly magazines. I just can't bear to part with them. I might want to sit in my rocker on the porch in my "old age" and read them again.

 

[dislal]

This show is really sad. I have a SIL who is like that. I haven't been to their house in about 8 years,(I only live 5 minutes away) but my mom goes up from time to time and said you are lucky if there is a path to walk through, I just don't understand how my brother can live like that.

I always feel so good when I can take bags of clothes and things and give them to goodwill or a friend who can use them, so I don't know what these people are thinking. Just sad.

 

[Robinrs]

That show is amazing.... so sad.

I once lived in an apartment here in Atlanta that had a MAJOR roach problem. It was so bad I was able to break my lease. Turns out the person above me, they found out, NEVER took out her trash... NEVER!! The maintenance people were in there for days with masks on after evicting her.

 

[Tiger926]

Hoarding is a mental illness - doctors have been studying it more as of late as they are seeing it more and more. Unfortunately, TLC is all about the freak-show atmosphere, as evidenced by their program schedule, so I'm afraid that is how many people are going to view it.

There are many facets to hoarding - I haven't watched the show, so not sure how they are presenting it.

It is very difficult for families as well as the people who suffer from it.

Tiger

 

[Robinrs]

Hoarding is a mental illness - doctors have been studying it more as of late as they are seeing it more and more. Unfortunately, TLC is all about the freak-show atmosphere, as evidenced by their program schedule, so I'm afraid that is how many people are going to view it.

There are many facets to hoarding - I haven't watched the show, so not sure how they are presenting it.

It is very difficult for families as well as the people who suffer from it.

Tiger

Watch the show, it's treated like an illness or an addiction, not like a freak show.

 

[Aisling]

It seems like there are more people with this problem than I imagined.

I knew an elderly man who lived alone who saved every piece of junk mail "in case it's important', but he never opened them, just had them stacked everywhere. He saved every piece of paper in case he needed it for "scrap paper". He was a diabetic who saved every used insulin syringe, the disposable ones, because he "might need them for something." His apt was always a mess, but he'd get agitated when I offered to straighten up for him. He kept every used tin can, again because he might need them for something.

I always thought he was just quirky, but the shock hit me that he is a hoarder. This man is a PhD is psychology, retired, and it goes to show that he must understand his problem but was powerless to fight it.

He now lives in a nursing home, so he can't hoard any more, and he seems to be fine with that.

 

[agnes!]

I used to be (at the very least), a 'collector', but auctioning off the one collection from my childhood cured me of that. Turned out, nobody was willing to pay what the collection was worth...so all this other stuff I had been keeping that might be worth 'something' someday?.... Guess what? I don't want it and nobody else does EITHER! It's mostly just JUNK!!! And if someone gave it away to me, that doesn't mean I have to keep it...after all, they GAVE IT AWAY. Duh.

And all the stuff that wasn't part of my collection, that I have been selling through a friend who's an EBay Power Seller, has gotten me more money than I ever thought it would.

Last week I even gave away about 75 VHS tapes + a VHS/TV combo. That was HARD, but my DD also went through the tapes and pulled a very few that she wanted to keep and she went with me to drop the tapes & TV off. Everything went to a charity (I checked before I took them there) and they were THRILLED to get it, the woman at receiving was practically giddy with excitement. Now when I'm sorting I pick stuff up and think to myself "Would this mean ANYTHING to anybody else on the planet?" If it's not somehow meaningful to a family-member, it GOES...given to a charity, sold on EBay or tossed in the trash. I tell myself that "it's practically a sin to keep something that someone else could use or wear, that could help someone else" and that also helps me to get all this stuff OUT OF MY HOUSE.

agnes!

 

[binny]

I used to be (at the very least), a 'collector', but auctioning off the one collection from my childhood cured me of that. Turned out, nobody was willing to pay what the collection was worth...so all this other stuff I had been keeping that might be worth 'something' someday?.... Guess what? I don't want it and nobody else does EITHER! It's mostly just JUNK!!! And if someone gave it away to me, that doesn't mean I have to keep it...after all, they GAVE IT AWAY. Duh.

And all the stuff that wasn't part of my collection, that I have been selling through a friend who's an EBay Power Seller, has gotten me more money than I ever thought it would.

Last week I even gave away about 75 VHS tapes + a VHS/TV combo. That was HARD, but my DD also went through the tapes and pulled a very few that she wanted to keep and she went with me to drop the tapes & TV off. Everything went to a charity (I checked before I took them there) and they were THRILLED to get it, the woman at receiving was practically giddy with excitement. Now when I'm sorting I pick stuff up and think to myself "Would this mean ANYTHING to anybody else on the planet?" If it's not somehow meaningful to a family-member, it GOES...given to a charity, sold on EBay or tossed in the trash. I tell myself that "it's practically a sin to keep something that someone else could use or wear, that could help someone else" and that also helps me to get all this stuff OUT OF MY HOUSE.

agnes!

I had a hard time giving away some of my dads stuff. One thing taht helped me was watching a show like that years ago and the therapist said "Does this item bring your dad back? Would not having it lessen the memory you have of him?" At first I thought it was really callous to say that to the person who was still grieving but it sunk and made sense.

 

[MiniGirl]

Watch the show, it's treated like an illness or an addiction, not like a freak show.

I agree. The overwhelming emotion I hear about this show is sympathy for those people who are living like this and through this. It has also done a great job at motivating people to declutter their own lives and homes.

I am not a hoarder, but I don't like to clean. (I can think of about a bajillion things I'd rather do more. ) This show though has caused me to stop and put something away when I was done using it or throw it in the trash before walking away from it and saving it for later.

 

[Robinrs]

I agree. The overwhelming emotion I hear about this show is sympathy for those people who are living like this and through this. It has also done a great job at motivating people to declutter their own lives and homes.

I am not a hoarder, but I don't like to clean. (I can think of about a bajillion things I'd rather do more. ) This show though has caused me to stop and put something away when I was done using it or throw it in the trash before walking away from it and saving it for later.

I absolutely agree. I've been semi messy ALL of my life and it made me analyze some things about myself. What the doctor taught the little boy (youngest person diagnosed with Hoarder disorder) was really helpful.

 

[NYPDwife]

I absolutely agree. I've been semi messy ALL of my life and it made me analyze some things about myself.

Me too! While I watch the show, I'm constantly thinking about cleaning my house!! DH said I could have hoarder tendencies so I need to be careful. OTOH, I've thought about letting it all go so I could just have someone come in and do it for me. I'm lazy like that! LOL