A&E: Hoarders and Intervention. Is it conspiracy?

I don't know if there's any conspiracy here, but I can tell you I love the show Hoarders, it makes me feel better about my house...which is a little untidy, but never anything that is like what you see on those shows. Lol. However, I can tell you I have seen homes like that. Quite a few times. And Beleive it or not I have cleaned homes like that!!! I used to be a maid for a service.

reply to post by ldyserenity

but I can tell you I love the show Hoarders, it makes me feel better about my house...which is a little untidy,

Yeah, I know! Right? It makes me feel better, too. I just think it's sad that it's at the expense of the people they enlist for the show....

reply to post by wildtimes


That's true but I am sure there is some incentive for them doing it. They get all kinds of funds for aftershow care which they probably would not be able to afford treatment so they're exposed, but they also get the help they need. I know it must be embarrassing to have their dirty laundry aired (sometimes literally ) on TV, but there are positives to the whole embarrassment issue. The first step is admitting they have the problem, of course I would not do that to anyone I cared for, I'd try to find a different route to helping them, and sometimes they seem so nonchalant about the whole thing like they don't even acknowledge they should be embarrassed. At least to me it seems.

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by ldyserenity

 

but I can tell you I love the show Hoarders, it makes me feel better about my house...which is a little untidy,

Yeah, I know! Right? It makes me feel better, too. I just think it's sad that it's at the expense of the people they enlist for the show....

OMG me to!! lol....no joke.......my place gets cluttered up with tossing clothes around but I am a clean person. So there may be things strewn around on the floor but that is a darn CLEAN floor those things are on........
Hoarders show makes me feel TONS better about my life and my apartment...... I am so glad we can talk about this behind avatars...I feel like we are really bonding over this love of hoarders show, in the light of it making us feel better about ourselves. What cute dorks we are......lol

Ldyserenity, I have tried so MANY different approaches in trying to 'help' my mother with her issues, but its all a dead end. She has paranoid issues so no matter what kind of cleaning help is offered she thinks people are 'trying to get at her goods'........I am VERY READY to get the hoarders show to come and make her issues public. Thats the worst thing my mother can think of is having her house on TV for all to see, so i think it would be the best thing for her.

reply to post by theRiverGoddess

OMG me to!! lol....no joke.......my place gets cluttered up with tossing clothes around but I am a clean person. So there may be things strewn around on the floor but that is a darn CLEAN floor those things are on........

Ya know, honestly, I think most everyone's house is untidy and cluttered to some degree, except when they are expecting guests, or if they suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (the opposite of Hoarders). And for that, I blame the media...the never-ending advertisements for cleaning products, medications, home improvement warehouse products, etc. etc. etc.

Most of us, especially those who have relatively normal lives and priorities (and heaven forbid, others who live in our homes including humans AND animals), I believe, have a somewhere-in-between state of living.

Cheers! Happy new year!!
(Resolution for second Jan 1 in a row: declutter!)

I watch Hoarders every week. I just am amazed by it I guess. I can understand some clutter but filth, bugs and dead animals I just am dumbfounded. Many actually have cleanup teams come in wearing masks and in some cases biohazard equipment.

And during the interviews most are calm to an almost hypnotic state. I always have to tidy or clean something when that show is on.

reply to post by maybee


Indeed. The people they "have on their show" are severely mentally ill. NO ONE who is healthy would live like that.

I was going to watch it last night, but I guess they've changed it from Sunday nights??

Anyway, thanks for the bump - this thread was one of my favorites, and got next to no attention!!!

Now --
GO CLEAN OUT A CLOSET, YOU!!!



just kidding.

Originally posted by PutAQuarterIn
Hoarding is VERY real. I hate to throw my mom under a bus like this to strangers but shes definitely a hoarding case.It's not that bad now because I clean up every so often but I've witnessed what it can be.
I haven't seen the other show but I don't doubt there are some of those people out there.
I could imagine there's plenty of padded reality shows but I will verify hoarders IS NOT fake in any way. I bet you know someone in your life...maybe you don't know about their issue. There are closet cases that contain it to one room so that people don't see. Either way its really common. I just read a story recently about a man crushed to death when boating magazines he had in the attic came through the ceiling. This was not a ''healthy'' sized collection.

I'll throw my mom under the bus right along with you so you're not alone in familial betrayal. My mom is a bit of a hoarder, too. Mostly food and disturbing amounts of it. There's so much that she frequently can't find what has spoiled....I helped her straighten it all out for a move. It took her less than a year to go to overflowing again. I, too, have tried to help her out when I've spotted encroaching "issues". Know how tough it is. It's hard to see really as the person's child. From the hoarding shows that I've seen, they really don't do nearly enough to actually assist in a meaningful way. It's mostly clean up what is going on but guaranteed it gets back to bad again pretty quick. I firmly believe that it's a deep seeded psychological issue.

Ironically enough, I'm OCD but then again, maybe that makes sense, eh?

reply to post by Neopan100


OMG I was thinking how sorry I felt to her neighbors for that one I saw that episode...it is definately one of my guilty pleasures that show! I do beleive there all real and I wouldn't doubt it a bit, because there are some homes like that I have seen first hand.

reply to post by theRiverGoddess


Yep, you gotta do what ya gotta do. I know that I am with a hoarder. When he left last year though, I tossed all his stuff. He was loaded with crap from clean outs and tools. He is a contractor so I can see the tools, but not so much the other crap. I did feel bad for letting go of the tools because he came back and has to replace all the tools the other stuff now, well he's not as bad as he was before the break up last year. I really do think that it's a emptiness that they're trying to fill. He finally realized after this fifth time trying to replace it with other women that I was the one that filled that emptiness, and I think not only did it help with the cheating, but also with the hoarding if that makes any sense. All this time I think both were indeed to fill a spot that he felt was lacking, but he completely turned around now.

What made my place from looking like those shows a lot of times was because he went away for work long durations and I'd clean out some things (Not the tools though), the tools I would put in our shed, and it was easy because he didn't even know the stuff would be missing...lol, so maybe some of ya with family members with this issue all should send the hoarder on vacation and tell them you will only be organizing their stuff and toss a bunch of it and clean up? I don't know though if that would work if it's a real extensive hoard. I know that it came in drips and drabs with my children's father so it wasn't hard to toss it unoticeably a lot. (I also never tossed his weapons either) But also most of the hoard was confined to sheds, and closets so it didn't make the house look filthy. My kids did though JK.

It isn't an easy thing to deal with. I am Obsessive compulsive actually. Imagine that living with children and a hoarder. Go figure. And his mom was a hoarder too real bad!

Ask ANY paramedic or ANYONE who deals with folks in their homes.. its real, it happens, and its horrible.

I just retired from the PA's office and within victims advocacy sometimes you have to go to their home, speak with them, go through the court process, help them see you as a person in their corner and not some legal eagle jerk.. and these days you have to pick many up in your personal vehicle and bring them to court. Ive been in some homes that I wanted to go to the CDC and get tested.. or at the very least decontaminated. Its kinda hard to sit there, provide information and speak with them on deep personal and hurtful subjects while fighting gagging or the urge to run out... and I was an RN in an ER for a decade.. so the stomach is strong. Given the nature of my job, I can see how dysfunction in the family, tragedy, stress, depression can really effect folks and prompt hoarding for a plethora of reasons. Blocking the outside world, foring a safe womb around them of junk, saving everything as if they want to stop time, etc. It's the filth and trash hoarders that really are disturbing.
About 3 yrs ago I had the misfortune of working with a sexual assault victim. WHen you see this with your own eyes.... its a weird feeling.. like a person drowning or burning alive and you cant stop it.. but youre forced to watch it. Its just a bad feeling. Sexual assault.. thats a nice clean sterile word for some heinous crap this woman went through. Her home was the worst Id ever seen.. anywhere. It went as far as feminine hygiene products stacked up around the side table like she has been saving them in an orderly way... ANYTHING that went along with bodily function maintenance materials ( kwim.. not trying to get too gross here) was kept.. along with all trash and anything else she could order due to her not leaving the house. She would save jars of urine and test them over and over for pregnancy, then save the tests ( negative) and somehow that made her feel better.SHe knew that she couldnt still have a chance of pregnancy, but she was compelled to do it to relieve the anxiety I guess.The assault was almost 2 years previously when I got involve in it.. and she had been doing it for that long. She didnt take the trash out because that would have meant leaving the house. She was VERY embarrassed and apologetic... its not like she thought it was okay or was in denial concerning the filth. She knew something was wrong, but couldnt leave to get help and was too embarssed to seek help in the first place. I think it gets so bad that they just lose hope and it becomes a vicious cycle.
These shows that offer inhouse counseling and help are really doing wonderful things IMO.. I hope the show has a LONG life if the byproduct of exploiting human suffering for ratings means certain folks get some needed assistance they wouldnt otherwise get.

WHen you watch this show.. just really realize you are getting a small glimpse into someone's own private hell.

reply to post by Advantage


Wow. Thank you for sharing your experience.

I think it's tragic, truly, that these people are hurting so badly....and are so lost. Thank you for what you do. I was a case manager and itinerant counselor for a while myself; but I never, ever saw anything like the homes on the show...

I'm glad to know that it is more on the side of sincere than "advertising money", and that the people are getting help....