I watched Hoarders for the first time last night!

[Mom in High Heels]

OMG, I love that show. It makes me feel better about how we live (we're not that messy, but compared to the people on the show, we're fanatically clean), it makes me want to clean up and it makes James Bond (who saves EVERYTHING) toss stuff out.

[hillfarm]

My MIL is a hoarder, although she insists she isn't because she doesn't have pet filth or decaying food lying around. She is unable to see that she has reduced the usefulness of several rooms of her house to only a few narrow paths.

 

She used to be the kind of person who appologised if she had not just vaccuumed before company arrived. There was definitely a precipitating event for her. Dh's father had passed away and after a couple of years, MIL took up with a "gentleman friend". All was fine until one Easter they went on a trip to visit friends and relatives in Florida and he proposed to her. She came back home with a big ring and an altered mental state. Now she can't pass up a bargain. She has bags of purchases, some new some from thrift stores, that are piled approximately 5' high, many never opened once they came in the house and went into the pile. She may have a combination of shopaholism and hoarding.

 

She becomes extremely defensive and angry if anyone even tries to bring up the issue of hoarding or of her needing to get rid of anything. She is in complete denial and IMO, does not really even see the problem visually. There is definitely a mental illness component, this is NOT just lazyness or messyness.

 

Dh, BIL, and I have discussed that since we have all tried in a gentle way to help her and been met with intense anger, that for now we will just have to leave things the way they are. When it reaches the point where her physical health is immediately threatened, then I have volunteered to be the one to go in and beard the lion(ess). I would rather have her hate me than to see her relationship destroyed with either of her sons. I imagine I will have to issue the ultimatum that either the stuff goes and she begins to see a counselor, or she will have to enter a nursing home where her health can be more closely monitored. I don't look forward to this, I expect it will be very intense. But I care too much for her to let her end up one of the people eventually found deceased under a collapsed pile of the hoard, found only after the odor become too hideous for the neighbors to ignore. And I know she needs a good relationship with her boys, so I will be the one to do the deed when the time comes.

[Chelle in MO]

That's funny, I don't care who you are.

 

Awww...thank you, Honey. Now I don't feel invisible here!

 

Chelle, wife to Dad 4 Boys :D

[Remudamom]

I'm sorry, what losers to do that to their children. I don't have any sympathy.

[snipsnsnailsx5]

It affects me the same way! I totally get in the mood to organize and clean after that show. Its good for me! lol

 

It affects my kids too! My 8 yr old watched it with me one time, and afterward he went into his room and started cleaning it. lol

[kamom]

Who deals with it if there is no children around?

[fairfarmhand]

Am I weird in that I go into my closets and laundry/sewing/craft room and ask myself, "If I were suddenly struck dead, what will my children be left to clean up? What would my mil think if she were to try to get in here and sort out my stuff?"

 

maybe it's just me....

[DarlaS]

IAs I type, he is watching Tarzan on VHS, the first mainstream video he ever received...at age 4! (he's 14!) I said, "We still have that?" His response: "Where would it go?" Yes, indeed. :tongue_smilie:

 

We have Tarzan on VHS! It must have been bought for my oldest two when they were 6 & 3. :001_smile: It still works and the younger kids still enjoy it (and maybe the olders too. :D).

[DarcyB]

I find this very interesting. We have a good friend who is a hoarder and she has the most hurtful life of anyone I know personally. I never knew there could be a connection there.

 

My MIL was destitute growing up, and abused by family. She was of the generation/life that said, you get one pair of shoes this year. Grow out of them, too bad. Our food goes to the boys first, then you get whatever is leftover.

 

Needless to say, the woman is now slightly obsessed by shoes. She buys shoes at thrift stores of good named brands, and it took me years to finally convince her that I didn't need 14 pairs of shoes, and she was just wasting her money. I'm a 2 pair of shoes kinda girl LOL.

 

She's also that way with food. With only 2 of them in the house, she has a massively stocked pantry. But she is a blessing to us in that each time they visit, they stock our freezer :) She just wants to be sure we never go hungry.

[DarcyB]

Who deals with it if there is no children around?

 

The city, usually. If it becomes an issue where it's so bad it's uninhabitable, they'll pull the person out of the house, condemn it, and tear it down- worst case scenarios.

[Crissy]

She used to be the kind of person who appologised if she had not just vaccuumed before company arrived. There was definitely a precipitating event for her. Dh's father had passed away and after a couple of years, MIL took up with a "gentleman friend". All was fine until one Easter they went on a trip to visit friends and relatives in Florida and he proposed to her. She came back home with a big ring and an altered mental state.

 

It is this sort of thing that fascinates me about the show. These people aren't losers. They aren't simply beyond caring about the state of their home or about their family and friends.

Their mental health is suffering.

It is heartbreaking to watch the show and hear of the tragedies that often lead to this behavior.

[Lostinabook]

It made me realize I was being a bit, IDK--something unpleasant--because I was using them for entertainment instead of being compassionate and seeing it as a real mental disorder.

 

I've never watched b/c we don't have cable, but my mom used to watch & said the same thing. She quit b/c it made her so uncomfortable to see inside people's souls on national television.

[KidsHappen]

Ok, did everyone run and add this to their Netflix que? I added the first season this morning and both discs were available. I added them to the top of my list. They just received my last three returns today so they should have been able to send these out right away but by the time they got to processing my next shipment there were long waits on both discs. Does it make any difference if I watch them in order or can I just watch any random one and get something out of it? Also, are they available on-line anywhere?

[T'smom]

At least one season is on the netflix instant streaming. If you don't have it on your TV, you can at least watch it on the computer.

[nrg]

the Hoarders website has two full episodes available right now.

[sbgrace]

One of my parents is a hoarder. It's sad. I can't watch the show because I know the outcomes (long term) for those helped aren't good and I've been through that with my family member. I've cleaned and organized three times in my adult life to try to help my other parent's mental state. Each time it was with great trauma to the person with the disease (it is a disease) and each time it went back. I won't do it again. But it's so sad. I know the triggers for my loved one from her childhood. I saw it once but I won't watch the show because it's depressing to me. Beyond that it feels like watching desperate and sick people for entertainment I guess because I see my own loved one in it all. If they actually typically did well post show I might feel differently.

Edited November 4, 2010 by sbgrace

[MamaBearTeacher]

I watched a couple of episodes and was completely shocked! Some of the stuff people kept never even crossed my mind, like old pizza boxes, tons of broken appliances, filth and backyards full of stuff. I can't say the show enriched my life in any way though it was interesting. I have never seen a house like those in real life. I was waiting for the neat and clean "After" but most of the people in the episodes were so resistant to the organizer and even though stuff was thrown out it seemed like hardly a dent was made. Also, the person was often crying about the stuff that was thrown out. Are there any episodes where the person agreed to throwing out most of the stuff and where the house looked a lot better? Does the organizer ever throw ALL the stuff anyways? If I was the organizer I don't know if I could stop myself!

[Tree House Academy]

When I see this show, I get up and clean...SOMETHING. If there are dishes in the sink, I scrub them. I mop. I vacuum. Just something. I am not a hoarder in the least - the opposite really, so this show really freaks me out.

[StephanieZ]

I tend to go straight to the basement or a kid's room with garbage bags. I love that show!

[Tree House Academy]

There was a guy...a single man (heavy-set man - but I can't remember his name) who lived in a TINY apartment full of trash. Literally...he hoarded TRASH. They did manage to do a total overhaul on his house and the end results were amazing. However, the house still had that "dirty carpet, stained walls" look to it...making the show much more real than a show like "Clean House" where they remove the clutter and make the house AMAZING.

 

Clean House is one of my favorite shows.

[Cindy in the NH Woods]

IMO, Hoarders is a show about one type of mental illness. While I really enjoy reading about or watching programs about home organization, Hoarders just makes me sad about those folks' entrapment. Especially as it strikes me that these folks will probably revert right back to their old behaviors, as others here have attested. :grouphug:

[cjbeach]

Oh gosh I had a woman I took care of in a low income/senior apartment in an urban area some 13 years ago. She was alone in the world, no family to speak of. She was a hoarder but more fascinating than the hoarding was WHAT she hoarded (at least for me).

In 1997 QVC was pretty BIG. This woman, disabled and on Medicare, bought what seemed to be EVERYTHING on QVC. She had boxes and boxes in her teeny, tiny apartment. The boxes were opened and looked into, but that was about it.

She had every haircare line on QVC and sometimes multiple boxes of it (autoship, monthly). This woman was disabled and did not shower all too often. The haircare boxes sat, unopened.

Sadly, she spoke of the hosts as if they were family, giving me personal details she remembered about each host. Obviously if a host she felt a connection with was selling a particular item she would purchase an item out what she described as "guilt." :confused:

It was such a sad, heartbreaking situation.

[mama2cntrykids]

My MIL was destitute growing up, and abused by family. She was of the generation/life that said, you get one pair of shoes this year. Grow out of them, too bad. Our food goes to the boys first, then you get whatever is leftover.

 

Needless to say, the woman is now slightly obsessed by shoes. She buys shoes at thrift stores of good named brands, and it took me years to finally convince her that I didn't need 14 pairs of shoes, and she was just wasting her money. I'm a 2 pair of shoes kinda girl LOL.

 

She's also that way with food. With only 2 of them in the house, she has a massively stocked pantry. But she is a blessing to us in that each time they visit, they stock our freezer :) She just wants to be sure we never go hungry.

Awww...bless her heart! She sounds very sweet despite what she went through.

[scrappyhappymama]

Am I weird in that I go into my closets and laundry/sewing/craft room and ask myself, "If I were suddenly struck dead, what will my children be left to clean up? What would my mil think if she were to try to get in here and sort out my stuff?"

 

maybe it's just me....

 

Not just you! I think that all the time, especially when we're about to take a road trip- "What will my family see and have to sort through if we died suddenly." It's morbid, but for some reason it really motivates me to clean and organize!

 

IMO, Hoarders is a show about one type of mental illness. While I really enjoy reading about or watching programs about home organization, Hoarders just makes me sad about those folks' entrapment. Especially as it strikes me that these folks will probably revert right back to their old behaviors, as others here have attested. :grouphug:

 

This is what makes me feel a little icky about watching this show. I really do think it is a mental disorder, and I hate to think of these folks being used for entertainment value. But, it really does seem like the folks on the show and the family members involved are trying to help them out.

 

I use the show as a way of recognizing the path I *could* go down if I don't keep up with the general clutter. It is a path that one of our family members is currently headed down.

 

I usually tackle at least one area during or after each episode.

 

This is me. I've only seen the show a couple of times, and honestly I felt a little anxious watching it, almost like a panic attack. I am not a hoarder, but both my husband and I are definitely pack rats to some extent. (It's funny, there's plenty of his "junk" I'd be happy to toss, and I'm sure he feels the same way about some of mine) I also *love* to "bargain" shop, but I have to do it under very specific parameters now, because in the past I've been known to buy stuff that was "too good a deal to pass up" and then find bags of the stuff in a closet a year later!

 

So... I think the show makes me anxious because although I love organization and a clean home, our garage and shed still have more stored away than we really need to have. I think that if some tragedy were to befall me, and I had a mental breakdown of some sort, I could totally slide into a pattern like some of these folks. I think it was good for me to watch the show, to motivate me to keep decluttering. But I don't think it's a show I could handle watching often.

[katemary63]

My mom and MIL are both hoarders. It is horrible. The show helped us to understand somewhat but after a few, we just can't watch anymore. My MIL hoards ROTTEN FOOD! I bet most people wouldn't believe there is such a persone, they did have a show on someone who did that. Living with a relative who hoards is a nightmare. I know it's a mental illness, but I've never seen more selfishness in my life then I've seen on that show and in my own situations.

[Nestof3]

My husband about loses it. The people complain so much about having to do any of the cleaning. One woman was complaining that she wasn't getting her 12 hours of sleep. :001_huh: She had been out of work for a year.

 

I also don't get how all of these out of work people can still be buying so much stuff!

 

but I've never seen more selfishness in my life then I've seen on that show and in my own situations.

[Critter]

I think the worst thing about having to clean up my MIL's mess was that for such a long time I wasn't able to think about her in a positive light. It's a painful experience to feel angry at someone that you cared about who is now dead. I found out things about my FIL that I really would have rather not known. After those "discoveries" when I thought about what life was like for my MIL, I would be overcome with sorrow. I also felt sadness for my husband and his four siblings, wondering how they managed to grow up whole and healthy, and realizing that not all of them did. As a small child my husband slept alone in an unfinished and poorly lit basement filled to the brim with junk. He had to climb over junk to get to his bed. He was ashamed to have friends over and still has "issues" when company is coming and I give the house a special cleaning. Cleaning up the mess was therapeutic for him, although it was very emotionally draining too. I have a new respect for him because I know now the extent of what he suffered through as a kid and what he "rose above." The hoarding situation he grew up in wasn't the worst of what he went through, but I won't go into that. He never complained. I don't know how he managed to stay strong and solid like he has, I honestly don't think many people could have managed it.

 

My MIL was 86 when she passed away. She refused help until nearly the end of her life, often she wouldn't even invite me into the house when I dropped by and would stand on the porch to talk to me. She failed very quickly at the end of her life. She spent a couple weeks in the hospital and a month in the nursing home. I wonder if she worried the whole time about who was going to clean up the mess and what they would find. Just like the show, I think her story is a very good cautionary tale for those who have hoarding tendencies.

[Impish]

*haven't read responses*

I refuse to watch it.

 

Mental illness doesn't = entertainment to me.

[Laura Corin]

I watched it once or twice. It made me more sympathetic to my mother, who is a minor (but reasonably clean) hoarder. She was sent home from Africa, where her parents lived, at age four, then sent to boarding school at age seven. I think she was very damaged by her childhood and the hoarding is the symptom of that. Her mother was very tidy and (unconsciously) she reacts to that by not tidying up and by holding onto objects that make her feel safe.

 

I do feel that if I watched any more it would amount to voyeurism - I already know all that the programme can teach me about this form of mental illness. I already try to be more tidy than my mother and keep in mind that I don't want to leave too much mess for others to clean up.

 

Laura

Edited November 5, 2010 by Laura Corin

[Nestof3]

I can appreciate these sentiments. One of the things that did strike me is that it is considered a mental illness. I didn't realize people hoarded rotting food and such -- I thought it was going to be more about overshopping and not being organized.

 

*haven't read responses*

I refuse to watch it.

 

Mental illness doesn't = entertainment to me.

 

[Liza Q]

I thought it was going to be more about overshopping and not being organized.

 

That is why I sometimes watch Clean House and Clean Sweep, as they are encouraging to me without being so....well, I remember a few episodes where there was rotting food but in each case it was because the family had lost track of things and weren't cleaning, not because they wanted to keep the gross stuff, kwim?

 

This discussion has me wanting to watch an episode but I am a little afraid. My MIL was a hoarder and we cleaned out her apartment many years ago because she was going to move in with us. She told people that we made her get rid of everything including her wedding dress :001_huh: while the truth was closer to her being unable to be rational about her stuff - everything was equally precious! She moved in with 14 boxes of stuff that sat in the corner of her room for 8 years. She moved them with her to my SIL's home and, even though she has been dead for a few years now, I know those boxes are still sitting in her old room there. My SIL has basically closed the door to that room, which I am sure if chock full of all kinds of stuff as she was not as strict with Mom about bringing stuff in to the house as we were. I am just glad that there is unlikely to be any rotting food!!!

[hillfarm]

I'm sorry, what losers to do that to their children. I don't have any sympathy.

 

I think there are various types of mental illness that can manifest as hoarding. Not being a psychologist, I don't know the proper terminology, but it seems to me that there are those who hoard in response to some childhood trauma, those who hoard because they are having trouble dealing with adult life, those who slide from collecting and sloth into hoarding, and (as in the case of my MIL) those who hoard due to some type of acute onset brain event. IMO, due to the severity of the situation, some may have more ability to control their actions than others. I think it is wrong to tar them all with the same brush.

 

I fully believe that my MIL has no ability to stop hoarding unless her brain chemistry changes. In many ways, what she experienced seems similar to a stroke. She was fine one week and then a hoarder the next. She literally does not see the piles. She values each item in the pile as if it were her only possession in life, even though to me it looks like a chipped what-not from the Goodwill. She becomes irrational, cries, gets angry, and begins to shut down if anyone even brings up the topic of getting rid of anything. If forced to get rid of stuff, I suspect she might be one of those mentioned who just sat on the porch in a nearly catatonic state while all the junk was being hauled away. Although certainly some people are fully capable of getting off their lazy backsides and helping clean up the mess, I don't think she would be.

 

I have read some things about varous types of brain damage effects and understand that sometimes when one method of information processing is damaged, the person can occasionally still process through other routes. I have often wondered if she would be able to "see" the problem if we went to a neutral location and showed her photographs of the mess rather than trying to get her to "see" it in person. But we haven't done that, because I am afraid that it could touch off an even worse brain problem. Although tempting at times, I am not willing to play Junior Psychologist and cause even more problems.

 

She loves her sons dearly and if in her "right mind" would never do anything to hurt them. She fusses over their health, attends the dgc's Christmas plays and music recitals, sends us a continual stream of newspaper notices of fun homeschool/field trips to do about town. It's just that now she is mentally ill and not able to address this hoarding problem. While it frustrates and saddens me, I don't hold it against her any more than if she had experienced a stroke. I really don't think she can help it.

Edited November 5, 2010 by hillfarm