Hoarders...

[hunnerbun]

Hoarders (http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/) I am watching this right now.
Has anyone seen this show? Its on A&E. Holy shit, I cannot even imagine living like this. It freaks the shit out of me.

[Misteriosa]

its not uncommon

http://www.randomthink.net/misc/ebay/

[razorboy]

Hoarders eventually become crazy cat ladies.

[jauble]

Hoarders eventually become crazy cat ladies.

I think its the other way around too.

[Brad in Bama]

I did some remodel work for a woman who was a hoarder once. She had over a hundred boxes of papers, and magazines dating as far back as 1979. Some rooms were just rooms of empty boxes. It was weird. She definatly had a problem. She had two storage buildings on her property that was floor to ceiling news papers.

I had been out of highschool almost 10 years, and I found a newspaper that had my games stats from a high school football game. It's weird what some people will keep.

[jauble]

I have appraisers who call me because they are trying to appraise a house that belongs to a hoarder and they cannot get into certain rooms. Its usually for an older person who's family is trying to sell the place.

[Misteriosa]

i wonder if any one appraises the contents? maybe these people have a diamond in the rough in that house

[jauble]

i wonder if any one appraises the contents? maybe these people have a diamond in the rough in that house

Thats personal property its based on the structure and the land value, but I bet some valuable stuff just gets tossed because it appears to be trash.

[hunnerbun]

its not uncommon

http://www.randomthink.net/misc/ebay/

Shudder...I can understand keeping stuff but most of that just goes way beyond my comprehension.

[Misteriosa]

i was just wondering if there was some like weird antiques roadshow moment where granny kept her nursery blanket and its worth 30 grand cuz it was knitted by hand by worhol , ya kno? :tongue:

[TooLowBrow]

i wonder if any one appraises the contents? maybe these people have a diamond in the rough in that house

i wonder how much a room full of 'used once', 'then washed' chopsticks would go for

[Suspect Chin]

Thats personal property its based on the structure and the land value, but I bet some valuable stuff just gets tossed because it appears to be trash.

Honus Wagner rookie card is in there for sure.

[Hottub]

i wonder if any one appraises the contents? maybe these people have a diamond in the rough in that house

With this post I must use my God given right to Raise The Fist Of The Metal Child.

Suck it, Joan Biaz!

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[Suspect Chin]

With this post I must use my God given right to Raise The Fist Of The Metal Child.

Suck it, Joan Biaz!

<object width="425" height="344">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M4rNgXS850o&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object>


Who's the tough guy now?

[razorboy]

Suck it, Joan Biaz!

Who?

[Hottub]

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Done!!

Later.

[Devo37]

there's a lady in the building i work at who's a major hoarder. she's constantly asking if we have any empty boxes that she can have so she can load them up with all of the garbage in her place.

i had to go into her apartment once, and there was basically a path running through the apartment with several years of 'collectibles' piled on either side of the path. several dozen old pill bottles stacked up on the kitchen counter, piles of newspapers lining one wall, cardboard boxes of who-knows-what lining another wall. it was absolutely disgusting.

she's already been warned by the building management to get rid of the junk, cuz that place is an absolute fire-trap!!

how can people live like that?!?

[hunnerbun]

I know. Both the families in tonight's episode were facing eviction and the one family was threatened with the removal of their kids. How can family members let it get to that point.

[Misteriosa]

i heard that stepping in and removing the hoarder's items without permission triggers the disorder to be worse. now the hoarder will be extra protective of the items than before to keep "others" from getting it.

[Misteriosa]

http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/effects-family-society/how-compulsive-hoarding-affects-families.php

[Misteriosa]

i heard that stepping in and removing the hoarder's items without permission triggers the disorder to be worse. now the hoarder will be extra protective of the items than before to keep "others" from getting it.

Can’t compulsive hoarding be solved by simply cleaning out the home?

While this may seem appealing as a means of creating safe, useable living space and disposing of excessive possessions, attempts to “clean out” the homes of individuals with compulsive hoarding without treating the underlying problem usually fail.

Families and agencies, such as local departments of public health, may spend many hours and thousands of dollars clearing the homes of family or community members with compulsive hoarding only to find that the problem recurs, often within just a few months. Individuals with compulsive hoarding whose homes are cleaned without their consent often experience extreme distress and may become even more attached to their possessions and reluctant to let others help them overcome this problem.

In treatment, clients make all decisions regarding saving or discarding their possessions and therapists never touch clients’ possessions without the client’s explicit permission. When clients decide that they would like to discard a large number of possessions with the help of others, such as family members and friends, they take charge of the clean out session, establishing rules for what can and cannot be discarded and arranging for disposal of unwanted items.


there you have it.. http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/questions-answers.php

[Devo37]

there was a story a few months ago of some guy in England (i think) who got suffocated when one of the 'tunnels' he dug through the garbage piled up to the ceiling of his house collapsed on him. i'll try to find a link...

[hunnerbun]

For one of the ppl tonight they brought in a psychologist. He basically said the same thing. If the stuff is just removed they will replace it all over again. They need to see if they can find what triggers the hoarding and see if they can stop the behavior. This particular woman had a problem with hoarding food. I have never seen anything so gross in my life, there was rotting food everywhere, and the fridge was beyond gross. When they were making her clean it out there was still stuff she wanted to save. Food that had been expired since 2007 and she was trying to justify saving it.
It was so bad that the guy that was there to help clean the place up had to go outside. It looked like he was going to vomit. He said it was the worst thing he had seen since he had started doing this. I can only imagine how bad that house smelled. She said she didn't even notice it anymore...and don't even get me started on the bugs...ugh.

[Drunky McBetidont]

fuck these people. they pose a threat to all their neighbors with health issues and fire risks

[TooLowBrow]

this is my favorite famous hoarders tale

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/Collyer1a.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Collyer5.jpg
Homer and Langley Collyer were brothers who lived in a Manhattan row house in Harlem in the early part of the 20th century. Their story is bizarre and illustrates the depths people will go to hold onto anything and everything.

The discovery of just how bad the Collyer brothers’ hoarding was came to light in March 1947 when an anonymous person reported there was a dead body in the Collyer residence.

The authorities did not have an easy time gaining entrance to the home. They started by trying to remove tons of garbage from the front foyer, which consisted of newspapers, phonebooks, furniture, boxes, and other miscellaneous debris. Unsuccessful in their attempts, a patrolman broke a window on the second floor in order to gain entry. After climbing through junk for two hours, he found the body of the elder brother Homer among the boxes and trash. Missing from the home, however, was Langley, the younger of the two recluses.


The hunt for Langley began, and authorities searched for him as far away as Atlantic City. A disturbing realization took place three weeks later, unfortunately, when Langley’s body was was found ten feet from his older brother’s. Because of the vast amount of garbage in the house, his body wasn’t unearthed until then. Langley had been crushed to death by one of his many booby-traps that he had made to deter people’s entry into their palace of junk. Langley actually had died first. He was crushed while bringing food to his elder brother, who was blind. Langley fed Homer a diet of one hundred oranges per week to try and restore his sight. Believing that the diet of oranges would restore Homer’s vision, Langley also saved every newspaper so that Homer could eventually read them when his sight returned.

Authorities eventually removed more than 100 tons of trash from the Collyer brothers’ house. Some of the more unusual items included human pickled organs, the chassis of an old Model T, fourteen pianos (both grand and upright), hundreds of yards of unused silks and fabric, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, and more than 25,000 books. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers#Homer_Collyer_found_dead)

[TripleSkeet]

My moms like that. Not to that extent, but still pretty bad. Growing up like that has made me pretty much the complete opposite. Where Im almost OCDish about throwing shit away if its not being used and may not be. Fuck holding onto things, I cant live in clutter.

[jennysmurf]

My boss's mom is like this. When she had hip surgery and was using a walker, my boss wanted to shift some of the stuff lining the walls so that she could get the walker through. The mom went nuts and wouldn't let them move anything. So not only could they not get rid of anything, they couldn't even move it.

[Gvac]

There was a crazy old bag man who lived in the town I grew up in. He'd walk everywhere, always carrying a paper bag full of stuff.

It turned out he was a brilliant musician and a session man down in Nashville back in the day, playing with everyone from Willie Nelson to Emmylou Harris.

I got to know him pretty well and would give him a lift home now and then when I saw him walking.

The first time I helped him into his house I was shocked. There was literally a maze of newspapers in there, with a narrow pathway to get through. They were stacked about chest high and completely covered the living room.

[razorboy]

There was a crazy old bag man who lived in the town I grew up in. He'd walk everywhere, always carrying a paper bag full of stuff.

It turned out he was a brilliant musician and a session man down in Nashville back in the day, playing with everyone from Willie Nelson to Emmylou Harris.

I got to know him pretty well and would give him a lift home now and then when I saw him walking.

The first time I helped him into his house I was shocked. There was literally a maze of newspapers in there, with a narrow pathway to get through. They were stacked about chest high and completely covered the living room.

I liked the story better in the other thread.

[Gvac]

I liked the story better in the other thread.

Caught my goof, huh?

[Devo37]

wow, just watched the first episode online. thanks for the link, hunnerbun. fascinating!

now i don't feel so bad about the shopping bag full of old mail i've had sitting next to my shredder for months that i'm too lazy to shred.

[hunnerbun]

OMG I didn't think this could possibly get any worse...This kid needs a shrink and a bulldozer! Oh and his dad is an asshole who needs a smack.
And the crazy animal rescue lady..EEEeKKkkkk

[IamFogHat]

There's a gay on tonight. And a crazy cat lady.

[KC2OSO]

the Collyer brothers

Great post. Just poor crazy people. This has always fascinated me. I'm a collector myself of radios myself - not to the the degree of disability most of the folks on the show are but I sort of get why they do it.

This show infuriates me but I watch it every time it's on. It's such a puzzling disorder. Most of the shows I've seen come to no good conclusion. These folks are very troubled. They are so disabled and the clean out is so stressful that they basically have to give up.

It's interesting that in most of the shows I've seen so far, there is sort of an long suffering enabler person standing by the side of the hoarder. Also, the show also doesn't go into what the thought processes behind the hoarders inaction is and where this behavior comes from. Great show though.

[Dude!]

Also, the show also doesn't go into what the thought processes behind the hoarders inaction is and where this behavior comes from.

being a radio horder yourself
perhaps you could shed some light

[Suspect Chin]

If you're interested in the Collyer Brothers, read the new book by E.L. Doctorow, Homer & Langley.

[KC2OSO]

being a radio horder yourself
perhaps you could shed some light
I'm a collector, not a hoarder. I wrote a whole boring response on my retarded reasons for my radio collection which i'll spare you.

I choose not to spoil this rich and vibrant web space with the minutia of my stupid life.

[Devo37]

new episode on a&e now.

very sad and kinda creepy knowing that people actually live like this.

[GregoryJoseph]

new episode on a&e now.

very sad and kinda creepy knowing that people actually live like this.



My buddy and his brother finally had enough and rented a 40 yard dumpster and went to clean out his mother's house.

She was weeping as they threw out tons of pure junk.

The sad thing is that they realized they have to rent at least another 40 yard trailer.

The basement, garage, and upstairs are PACKED with pure crap.

The main floor is a maze and you literally would have to leap over walls of crap 3 feet high to get into one of the extra beds.

[KC2OSO]

holy shit the dishwasher is disgusting. blech

nice - there was a rotting cat in there too

[Devo37]

holy shit the dishwasher is disgusting. blech

i think the 2 decomposing cat corpses trumps the filthy dishwasher.

they took more than 8000 lbs. of garbage out of that house!!!! holy christ!

[KC2OSO]

i think the 2 decomposing cat corpses trumps the filthy dishwasher.

they took more than 8000 lbs. of garbage out of that house!!!! holy christ!



Just shit all over the bathroom. :glurps: That's the worst episode I've seen. These people on now are amateurs compared to that last lady.

[hunnerbun]

O...M...G... I am just watching this now. Unbelievable. Having to use shovels to clean out the living room...and the flattened dead cat corpses...

[hunnerbun]

Wow...how sad is it when you choose shit over your children. One would think the choice would be easy, but apparently it isn't. These ppl are fucked up.

[ANC]

I find myself watching enough of the beginning so I can be like "Eeew what kind of person can live like that" then turning it off before the helping begins.

[angrymissy]

Wow...how sad is it when you choose shit over your children. One would think the choice would be easy, but apparently it isn't. These ppl are fucked up.

For some reason, the thing that disgusted me most about that episode was her sitting on a rocking chair on her porch eating a RAW HOT DOG.

[hunnerbun]

I found it odd that she seemed more upset about losing the animals, because she didn't know where they would end up, then she was about losing her kids, because she knew they would eventually be coming home! What kind of skewed logic is that. :wallbash:

[sr71blackbird]

I was a meter reader and had to go into millions of homes and some people had the rats maze through the clutter leading from room to room. I saw a show once and they took out the junk and found that colonies on mice were living in the clutter, shredding newspapers for bedding. Generation upon generation. Silverfish swarming over the stuff. My gradeschool friends mother, a window, collected TV guides and she had them stacked hundreds high in dozens of stacks in her living room. I tend to gather certain things and keep them, and when I see what I'm doing after a few months, I go nuts and throw it all away in a whirl wind of frustration. My father has more nuts and bolts than Home Depot! He has so much stuff in his garage that it will take several dumpsters to cart it all away.

[PapaBear]

ICK!!! (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7175141.html)

LAS VEGAS — A four-month search for a missing Las Vegas woman came to a ghastly end this week when her husband found her corpse in their home amid a labyrinth of squalor that had been impassable even to search dogs.
Bill James apparently had no idea that the body of his pack-rat wife, Billie Jean, was under the same roof as he helped police scour the home and the Nevada desert for any sign of her. Then he spotted the feet of the body poking out of a floor-to-ceiling pile of junk Wednesday, revealing in shocking detail the woman's penchant for hoarding.


Police say they searched the home several times — even using dogs from a unit that helped locate bodies at ground zero after Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina. But they were unable to find the body of amid the piles of clothes, knickknacks, trash and other junk.

[dameon666]

I saw that show, and that must have been what my last tenants were. Not only did they leave all sorts of crap, they stopped paying for trash pick up as soon as I started bitching at them to move. It took me about 3 months to get rid of them, and guess how many months worth of trash they had piled up in the garage ... and, they had let their daughter move in with them, and my neighbor said later that she had been sleeping w/ her husband out in that garage ... god it stank out there, I can't describe.

maybe I'm hoarder to though ... i tried to save some of the dishes they left, nasty dirty dishes of course. the only thing i had to put in the dishwasher at the time was laundry soap. That's not such a good idea!!! (http://jdat747.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-laundry-detergent-is-not.html)

-d:wallbash:

[Gutter]

I saw that show, and that must have been what my last tenants were. Not only did they leave all sorts of crap, they stopped paying for trash pick up as soon as I started bitching at them to move. It took me about 3 months to get rid of them, and guess how many months worth of trash they had piled up in the garage ... and, they had let their daughter move in with them, and my neighbor said later that she had been sleeping w/ her husband out in that garage ... god it stank out there, I can't describe.

maybe I'm hoarder to though ... i tried to save some of the dishes they left, nasty dirty dishes of course. the only thing i had to put in the dishwasher at the time was laundry soap. That's not such a good idea!!! (http://jdat747.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-laundry-detergent-is-not.html)

-d:wallbash:

liquid dish soap isn't advisable either.

[sknight]

Revisiting this thread. Anything good on this season so far before I download them?

I fucking HATE hoarders and the one thing I like about the show is how they coddle the people. I know it's not the solution, having dealt with my mom's fairly minor hoarding, but it exposes what pieces of shit these people are.