I Am Anticipating HOARDERS The New Series On A&E!

Yeah!

http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/

spin-off idea from an episode of A&E's Obsessed show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPX7mE9-gXY

Great hoarding documentary on Youtube if you haven't seen it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ-ZBvZrf1o

I think compulsive hoarding is one of humanity's top five terrifying potential traits.

I hate these kinds of shows because I think they exploit people with real mental/emotional issues, and turn us all into rubber neckers, but then also I am totally going to watch this because I am horrified and fascinated by certain types of what is considered abnormal behavior, especially hoarding. Especially cats.

Plus I worry that if A&E comes in and starts throwing people into intensive, short-term therapy but fails to support the people with long-term recovery (because come on, you can't fix this shit in six weeks or whatever), these shows end up being seriously harmful to the participants.

Mega anticipating this. Hoping it will be on hulu or whatever as we can't afford real cable.

I have an in-law with a v bad case of this btw. No one has been allowed into the house for over a decade. Super dreading the day this person passes away and the physical nightmare redounds to my wife for sorting.

don't need a show for this -- i can just go visit my mom

i definitely have it in me. i get it from my grandfather (decades of empty wine boxes in the barn. without my grandmother to keep him in line he would have totally given in to the impulse). i've gotten better on my own over the years. i've done my own self-therapy. (and opening a record store sure does make things easier too! i can buy tons of cheap junk and it never has to come home with me!) (as far as the true reality of hoarding - keeping all your garbage, etc, no, i don't have those impulses. or maybe maria saved me from this fate. i'd always kind of took it for granted that i was going to grow old alone. and weird.)

oh, so, my point: i empathize with these people. and i can relate. (bad childhood ocd, tics, etc.)

plus, i dunno, there is something about disorder + the ordering of random crap...it's fascinating!

I hate these kinds of shows because I think they exploit people with real mental/emotional issues, and turn us all into rubber neckers, but then also I am totally going to watch this because I am horrified and fascinated by certain types of what is considered abnormal behavior, especially hoarding. Especially cats.

― she is writing about love (Jenny), Tuesday, August 11, 2009 2:35 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this!!!!!!

i don't have tv/cable though but i will find a way

seems like a lot of the series is devoted to one guy, richie:

"Richie is an extreme hoarder who can't throw away anything that belongs to his deceased mother. As he grieves her loss, he's even blocked off the hallway to his mother's bedroom, making the room inaccessible. In the longest therapy process of the entire season (approximately one year,) his therapist pushes and helps Richie as he tries to fight through his emotions."

first episode:

"Patty and David appear to be living the American dream. But their secret hides behind the manicured yard of their new home. Patty's hoarding has taken over the entire house and their children were removed by authorities. Now, if the family is to have any hope of ever getting their children back, Patty must overcome her compulsive shopping and hoarding and clean out her entire home. For 25 years Lorelei coped with her partner Bill's hoarding. But last year she tripped on a pile of his things, fell down the stairs and broke her arm. Bill didn't seem to care. His clutter has taken over their home, which is filled with junk and nearly uninhabitable. She has given Bill an ultimatum, clean up or move out."

xpost How is that hoarding tho? I mean he is not accumulating any MORE stuff of his mom's, right? I feel like a hoarder has to be adding more more more...

no dude. they had richie on obsessed last night. hes a hoarder extraordinaire

hoarding = just keeping stuff for later imo

is A&E just all crazies all the time now?

is A&E television just all crazies all the time now?

should we move this to I Love Vinyl?

I will download this series and keep in on my hard drive forever, along with complete sets of Mad Men, Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Kings, Generation Kill, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, King of the Hill, Boondocks, ATHF, Venture Brothers...

^^^ don't forget to save the unexpanded .rar files too, just in case!

Great hoarding documentary on Youtube if you haven't seen it...

Watching this now Scott, nice one. The guy who keeps his own faeces though - wow, that is a whole new level of hoarding.

shoarding.

i know that urine in jars has always been pretty big among the hoarding set.

Well it's all supposed to stem from 'anal hoarding' according to Freud isn't it?

That fella probably wishes he could just keep it inside himself.

Anal hoarding is way sexier than normal hoarding.

I will never give up my anus collection!

hoarding cats!!

should we move this to I Love Vinyl?

― Chinavision (altair nouveau), Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:04 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah but the thing about those unlistenably scratched 45s is that I need to save them until I get a copy in better condition or if I do get a better copy it might have a label variation or be from a different pressing plant or have a different matrix number in the dead wax and anyway they remind me of that one thrift store that closed a couple of years ago. I got some good records there.

okay, i missed the first episode of this, so i watched it last night on A&E's site. um, this is really heavy stuff. the kids really got to me with the one family. the little boy crying cuz they are smashing his playhouse and throwing it in the dumpster...oof. so sad.

don't need a show for this -- i can just go visit my mom and dad

i have it in me too. have tried to fight it by not ever going to thrift stores anymore (sob) and avoiding yard sales, etc. mostly i am terrified of the day when my parents' roof finally caves in (it already started).

i don't know if i can watch this show, tbh. i saw the obsessed ep with richie and the part where he couldn't get rid of that stupid little doll because it reminded him of his mom made me so sad, like ZONG my heart hurts sad. in those "clean house" shows the people are really mean, but i got the feeling that these therapists were gentler.

What was the context of smashing the little boys playhouse and throwing it in the dumpster? That sounds really brutal.

yeah wait what's that about? was he 'hoarding' it??

the quick cut from the mom going "I forgot to tell timmy that I gave them permission to take the playhouse" to the dude with the sledgehammer dealing it the first blow while timmy ran up to it was incredible

i think the mom was just in a frenzy of everything must go! you know? and she knew the husband - who is way worse than her - wouldn't do anything to help. he just kind of wondered around in a catatonic daze. she had to wait until he was out of the house to clear out the attic. he thought everything up there would be safe! i lost count of how many old mattresses they had in their attic.

and the other woman, i don't even know where to begin. i just can't believe that she wasn't overrun with rats! though she did have a cat. can't believe the rats haven't eaten her cat.

the show is shot so effectively. you really do get the claustrophobic sense of being in there with them. trapped.

trapped is exactly how it feels in my parents' house. if anyone wants car & driver magazines going back to the 60s (i think) my dad has been hoarding those.

The guy with long hair on the last one really didn't seem like he was hoarding anything. It was all just plain garbage. Seemed incredibly lazy, the other lady obviously needed help, this guy just seemed to want everyone to do everything for him. I was gagging the week before with the lady that had the yogurts and pumpkins.

A friend with a hoarder mother was just telling me about this last night!! Haven't seen it yet but she raved about the show and says the hoarders are just like Dear Old Mom. Apparently her parents' home is also way, way run-down -- more than she thought possible, last time she visited. Not taking bets on their roof, either, Amanda. :(

the second episode wasn't as traumatic as the first. though it was still enlightening. the techniques used to get people to throw stuff out and not freak out about it. such a long process. you would think that letting people slowly go through everything - deciding what to keep and what to get rid of - would drive the people who are helping out insane! or maybe that's just me. maybe i wouldn't have that kind of patience. i would want to yell JUST GET RID OF IT ALL! which wouldn't be helpful at all.

is this ever gonna be on hulu???

you can watch the episodes on the a&e site, if that helps you at all.

it does, yes! thx

i would like a support group for only children of hoarders, pls

You can be in it with my other friend. :(

my parents used to worry about this with me, but then i pointed out to them that they're minor hoarding habits are pretty intact and they stopped bothering me.

still, i have a gigantic box of old hardcore/punk show posters from Philly circa 95-99.

You're not even close, don't worry about it until you start saving things like special kinds of band-aids, shampoo, stickers, or plastic forks "just in case they stop making them"

i have to say, i was VERY impressed with the amount of stuff that the mom on the 2nd episode had. wow.

was that the thrift store shopper? she def had a major problem. the other dude was just lazy and out of shape and had an obscenely disgusting bathroom/shitpile

yeah i just watched that one. the thrift store lady made me cringe, the guy just needed some life coaching.

this week's is too sad with the schizophrenia and cats ;_;

Last week's guy looks totally like Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/744/rob1r.jpg
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/5239/rob2.jpg
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/5149/screenshothig.png

i would like a support group for only children of hoarders, pls

There already is one: http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php

What would happen if Extreme Home Makeovers took on Hoarders?

you get Clean House on the Style Network - hoarders sell all their junk at a garage sale, which pays for the clutter-free makeover!

Of course on Clean House they always present the homeowners as having a "clutter problem" instead of being hoarders, although that doesn't explain why some of the people start decompensating at the idea of getting rid of some of their disney collectibles or whatever the junk it is that week. And to be fair, I think some couples go on that show so the wife can get rid of all of her husband's stuff.

omg my favorite part of the Children of Hoarders website is the "non-clutter gift ideas"
um, been there.

oh god, this poor gay boy. he is making me so sad.

i know this is awful, and i felt really bad for him too, but sometimes when i was watching him i thought of david cross doing one of his mr.show characters. and i kept thinking that morrissey could write a really good song about him.

that whole episode was heavy though. ouch. those cats...

"Mr. Doctorow said he didn’t write the novel as social commentary. Still, it’s hard not to notice that the Collyers’ literal demise as a result of unchecked materialism presents a timely cautionary tale, given Americans’ tendency toward over-consumption and the spread of storage units to contain all that stuff. In fact, last month, the A&E channel introduced a reality series called “Hoarders” that profiles people whose lives have been damaged by the same extreme version of accumulation that afflicted the Collyers. Mr. Doctorow said he was not aware of the series, but added: “That’s a good sign. I’m on to something here.”

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1400064945.jpg

http://www.ralphmag.org/FR/junk-collyer781x591.gif

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/05/14/books/collyer-house-480.jpg

kinda like the u.k. cover better though

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n61/n306145.jpg

i'll spare this thread the picture of langley collyer's decomposed body in the kitchen. you can thank me later!

I had nightmares about cat corpses thanks to the cat hoarding old lady.

OK, I watched an episode of this show and now I seriously need a support group. I spent most of the episode I watched (with Kerrylea and Lauren) wanting to just SHAKE THE SHIT out of both of them. No sympathy, just fury. And then I felt terrible because I know this is a mental illness and that given a choice, it is unlikely that either of the women would chose to live the way that they do. But their childish irrationality just made me nuts. It's like my inability to feel any sympathy for this particular disease is its own similarly irrational mental illness.

I also get annoyed at the disconnect between their claims that they value all of this stuff, and then their treatment of all of these "valuables" as straight up garbage. If you really love all of your broken dog toys and old electric bills, buy some attractive boxes from the Container Store. It's like, I could probably deal with a hoarder who hoarded things in a more aesthetically pleasing or organized fashion, but just throwing everything into huge piles of trash is beyond my comprehension. Obviously.

Gah. I don't think I can watch this show any more! I don't like feeling so negatively towards other suffering human beings!

i kinda feel like i get more bummed out with each new episode. it's a dark pit of a show. but, um, i like it! hahaha, oh god, i dunno...

the "normal" boyfriend in the condo, oh god, what is HIS problem???? some seriously deep denial and depression going on with these spouses. they need their own show.

oh yeah i got really mad at kerrylea and the other girl's boyfriend. he seemed so miserable. and kerrylea was definitely a child.

the "normal" boyfriend in the condo, oh god, what is HIS problem???? some seriously deep denial and depression going on with these spouses. they need their own show.

― scott seward, Friday, September 18, 2009 3:59 PM

same with 'intervention'. both series could spin-off with 'enablers'.

Oh yeah I wanted to shake the shit out of Will and Kerrylea's husband, too. Especially when Kerrylea flipped out about that stupid roll top desk and Geoff just sort of simpered about "oh yeah I told them to throw it out." Also they both suck for buying one or more houses with these women.

Agreeing to buy a second house so that your crazy hoarding wife can keep on hoarding out of some naive and mentally broken belief that a second house will somehow make it better is about the most enabling thing I can think of in this situation.

I think Kerrylea's husband is more of a hoarder than an enabler, but her case was more severe than his so he could use her as the excuse for all of the hoarding. He was also getting upset when the cleaners were trying to clear things out. Plus, I don't think someone who wasn't mentally ill in some way would think buying a second house would be a great solution to their problems.

I agree, Jenny -- I know it's not really fair to them because they were ill, but Kerrylea and Lauren were both so maddening.

My grandmother in law (can you even say this?) is someone who hoards. Won't say as bad as the ones in the doc, but not far off. She kept all her receipts. Which isn't that icky. What was icky? She still has the doopsuiker of my husband (given at birth, he's 36). I'm not sure if it crawled out of the cupboard by itself.

i thought kerrylea's husband wasn't a real hoarder but after so many years of her acting like a baby every time he tried to throw something out he had learned that allowing the hoarding is the path of least resistance. probably only someone with their own set of weird problems and doormat tendencies could be in a long-term relationship with these people though.

I really don't know how anyone could be around Kerrylea for more than an hour without wanting to smack her, the organizer who was trying to help her was a saint.

often it's the marriage itself that takes two borderline people and pushes them both over. they could keep things manageable when they were single, when it was all their own stuff. the second they begin living with crazy amounts of stuff that actually isn't theirs, all restraint with their own acquisitions vanish

compounded by the fact that sometimes it's just a late-life thing, you hit your weekly routine, some priorities fade and you just start living with it. 40 is a tipping year.

In my grandmother in law's case it was the war mostly. That's my excuse. She once served my husband GREEN stew.

Do I even want to know what a doopsuiker is?

I think part of my strong reaction is that I see some of these tendencies in my mom, who used to be a neat freak and now has a tough time letting go of things. I've retained her neat freakiness (hence my sincere horror at the state of the people's homes) and worry that I'll wake up one day to find that I've saved every Roman's and Vermont Country Store catalog that I've received for the past ten years. I'll be 40 in four years, so I guess we'll see then, now won't we??

(If I do turn out to be a hoarder, just burn it all down, okay? Unless it's cats. That would just be horrible.)

Doopsuiker. Literal translation is baptising sugar. It's a candy which is given to people visiting the mother and newborn baby.

OKAY. That's actually much better than what I had feared (which was, um, placental in nature) although it still does not seem like something I would want to keep for 36 years.

Last night's episode was one of the most depressing things I've seen for quite some time.

i watched about 10 min of this show but too close to home, too near the bone. for example, i once cleaned up a pile of unopened mail (including various unpaid bills) at my parents' house and underneath all of it was a winner's certificate from my dad's 7th grade chess tournament.

my dad's reaction: see? that's NOT all trash! you could have thrown something VALUABLE away. you have to be more careful!

btw the pile of mail filled the better part of the only open space in a spare bedroom
it was considered a success to have moved this pile from the living room to this extra bedroom (i didn't move it, but that's how they envision "cleaning")

CANNOT watch this show, it's way more depressing than junkies or trichotillomaniacs.

i gotta tell you, i think i've actually reached my limit with this show! it's so arduous. i thought i was hardcore, but A&E has proven that even I have limits! years ago, when my cable went out once all i got for three days was those dudes selling hunting knives on my t.v. i watched them for THREE days straight! like, HOURS of them. i will watch ANYTHING. i can watch 24 consecutive hours of msnbc prison programming! but this show has broken me...i kept thinking of excuses to do something else last night during the show. it's too excruciating. that little kid's bedroom...AAAAAAAHHH!

this week's was kind of boring. i think i'm getting used to it! i might become a hoarder myself.

i liked bill. he seemed like a nice guy.

i gotta tell you, i think i've actually reached my limit with this show! it's so arduous

yeah there was a marathon of these on Saturday and 1.5 episodes was my threshhold. it was the first time I'd seen the show, watched the whole cat-lady episode but then I had to turn off the one with Kerrylea and Lauren halfway through. it's too much!

the part where they actually find the green tutu and then Kerrylea stops everything AGAIN wanting to look for a tiny piece of broken tile? omg

"we probably would have mistaken that for rubbish"

i sometimes get more frustrated at the therapists/organizers than the actual subjects. i know it's traumatic and counterproductive for them to just throw things out without asking and they're not supposed to be in control and stuff but sometimes i just want them to crack the whip! also 2 days is way too short for anything to happen anyway so the end is always disappointing.

i know it's traumatic and counterproductive for them to just throw things out without asking and they're not supposed to be in control and stuff but sometimes i just want them to crack the whip!

Yeah, I don't know if I'd have the patience to deal with someone who wanted to agonize over broken tile for two hours.

or an empty shampoo bottle

okay, the woman on the last episode ended up with, like, 1400 boxes of crap, but i missed where the hell she was keeping all this stuff. that house was sooooooo full, jeezuz. and all those unopened shopping bags!!! hubby can't take her credit card away?????? both people on the last episode lived in huge houses.

they just said "in storage" so i assumed she was renting space elsewhere

Yeah, it seems like the amount of time they give for the whole cleanup and learning new habits thing is just asking for failure. When you have people making decisions about individual things, and there are thousands and thousands of things in the house...it's just not going to happen. The horrible thing is that it's presented as an ultimatum, choose your family vs. your stuff, and for everyone who's watching it's totally OBVIOUS that the choice is your family...and yet it's not, it's a mental illness thing and it doesn't go by those rules, you can't FIX that in two days.

(Honestly I think I just watch this for the inspiration to clean. And because my roommate's obsessed, and hey, watching TV together is a social activity.)

man i don't think i could stand to watch this show. i know it's an illness (control-anxiety type of thing, rite?) so it's akin to telling a depressive to cheer up. but jesus i'd just want to throw them in jail (nicely) for a couple days and have a crew start loading up dumpsters.

i have known people with hoarding tendencies in the past and it is baffling.

Honestly I think I just watch this for the inspiration to clean.

coincidentally I had a stoop sale the same day I watched. and the next day too. felt good!

I can't really watch this, but at the same time I'm compelled to watch this repeatedly. Hoarding is probably THE most active DNA strand in my family* - my grandfather, mother, and brother all had/have this to some degree and it was pretty much the defining issue of my early life (parents separated because of it, mom still hoards and will not quit ever).

*my hoarding DNA is apparently limited to mp3s, avis, and effect pedals.

was Edward Gorey a hoarder?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mychatham/2347383043/in/set-72157604189279962/

nah, he just had lots of stuff and books. his house isn't really chaotic or messy. plus, its edward gorey's stuff, therefore it's COOL.

i just ordered the limited collector's edition of this show! 2 copies, one for watching, and one for you know just in case.

hahaha!

i just saw an episode the other night where a bunch of cleaners came across a decomposing pumpkin buried under trash on the floor of this woman's home and she made them stop before tossing it so she could say goodbye? and she didn't want them to toss out expired food because she said, "until the container starts to expand, the food is still good." O_O

the one with the older couple that were hoarding cats was pretty disturbing

the same woman, the cleaners found two cat skeletons buried in her trash. it seemed like they just died somewhere in the trash and were left where they expired. : /

that happened in this one too but they found a lot more skeletons, and mostly of kittens

>: (

are there gonna be any more episodes?? seen em all

the adventures of skittles the skeleton cat

oh there are more. i haven't seen "augustine."

That's a good one -- more dead kitties, though. :(

if she gets the whole episode to herself it must be good

This is interesting: http://www.mymothersgardenmovie.com/. Feature documentary about a hoarder, directed by her daughter. The mother is a very glamorous lady. I met her before a festival screening and was surprised when I realised who I had just been talking to a few minutes into the film. Totally worth checking out if you get the chance, although I don't expect anyone will now that it has finished its festival run.

"are there gonna be any more episodes?? seen em all"

Think new season starts next Monday, at least I thought I saw that in Entertainment Weekly.

this show is basically:

D:

i got bored of it. i started watching the episode about the beer can collector and the people with bedbugs and just figured i knew what would happen and turned it off. it's not exciting anymore.

oh that little kid last night. tearing my heart out. i hope somebody helps him...

not on the show, but

"There was so much garbage, it left about 2½ feet of space between the pile and the ceiling. Apparently there were tunnels and the residents had to crawl on top of the debris to get around,"

Um . . . has anyone seen the new ones? SIR PATRICK?! O_O

sir patrick was so creepy.

this is my 2nd favorite show after Intervention.

right now I'm watching a repeat - in anticipation of tonight's new episode - in which the crew has to remove the bathroom door because there is a pile of years' worth of shit-soiled adult diapers

CLASSIC

i just watched Sir Patrick a minute ago –- he is a .... hero? I had to turn it off b/c his mental illness made me squeam.

he was actually the most depressing person ever on the show that I've seen, precisely because his emotional issues were so up front, whereas the more typical hoarders are way more roundabout with theirs.

Oh man... I normally have a pretty strong stomach for this (my mom is a big time hoarder), but I just watched the episode with the woman who hoarded thousands of dolls and it's the creepiest thing I've seen in years. Worse than any horror movie.

some commentary here: http://thehairpin.com/2010/12/the-doll-hoarding-episode-of-hoarders/

I've only seen two episodes of this but are they always split between

A. A normal-ish person who just saves crap all over
B. Someone who's got mountains of crappy toilet paper or seven year old yogurts bursting all over.

Because I only wish this show was only the "B" people

I wonder what it says about Whiney when he considers half the people he sees on Hoarders to be normal.

Hoarding disorder is a variety of OCD, and OCD sufferers tend to get very, very good at hiding their rituals and their mental issues.

Let me tell you, after half my apt burned down and I had to move out in a day, I can def relate to a lot of these A peepz.

All the experts are so nice except for this one bald guy whos a condescending dick to everyone :(

You guys, I thought I had a strong constitution until I watched the rats/cats ep last night. The rats pouring out of the walls/mattress/every available surface the rats THE RATS. It was tougher to watch than almost anything I've ever seen.

2500 FREE ROAMING RATS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsITgqGQgj4

best show http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

thinkin about becoming a hoarder. maybe like 30 or 40 guinea pigz http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

if his FB is to be believed, there is an episode of this show filming down the street from my friend's house AS I TYPE THIS.

Is your friend local? GO CHECK THAT SHIT OUT!

He lives abt 60-70 miles north of me, actually, but I will be in that area tomorrow & may swing through if they are still filming.

For some fucked up reason I've been watching this show on Netflix and it's making me just as angry, especially people who cannot give a fuck about how badly they are hurting others, especially when those others are kids.

Like, spouses that are saying, "I can't live like this. I want to die" and the hoarding person is just like, "DON'T THROW OUT MY RAT URINE SOAKED PILE OF NEWSPAPERS." ARG.

I binge on this show a few episodes at a time and then don't watch it again for 10 or 12 months. I realize the compulsion to hoard is an illness, but about half the time on this show the hoarder in question is just a mean-ass person.

oof yeah there was one yesterday with a mom who got angry and screamed and threw knives at her daughters when she got angry, which was pretty much any time the daughters didn't do what she wanted. I was definitely advocating that her daughters got on with their own lives and let their mean ass mom live and die in her hoard.

There's one on now with a cat hoarder, and all of his cats are sick as fuck, and they keep finding dried up flat dead kittens in the layers of garbage in his house, and this dude I feel a lot of serious anger towards this poor, ill man.

So much so I can't formulate fully coherent sentences.

i watched one recently where the mom just sat on this trash throne all day drinking huge cups of soda and next to her throne were like 50 million empty soda bottles and i kinda thought that one would make a good one act play off-broadway. she never left that seat and her kids just tried to crawl through the wreckage. they could barely move inside the house. her daughter managed to cook in a kitchen that was knee deep in garbage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K61JHAU43zU

I've started to realize that I have a little of this problem, but only in my pantry and freezer. With other accumulated stuff, we're not so bad — we sold/gave away half of our books this past weekend.

xp
blehhh, I only posted that because I thought they found a cat but it wasn't in that clip.
back when I watched one season of that show :/