Anyone watch the TV show Hoarding?
 

There are several TV programs about hoarding and animal hoarding. I think it would be great to talk about this because it affects so many people, especially women. Hoarding always occurs after a significant loss, and it’s not the person’s fault, they cannot help what they are doing and it’s only because they are suffering extreme depression and loss. This depression, in turn, keeps them from getting a real handle on the situation. Also, because have gotten use to the smells and inconvenience of their environment, they really don’t see it for what it is, but they do feel great shame and this prevents them from letting people be close to them. They use material possessions to build walls, in order, to protect themselves from being hurt. It’s kind of like collecting gone wild! They probably were shamed as children as a means of discipline and this isn’t a good way to discipline children because it produces feelings of worthlessness, yet we always want to return to a familiar feeling, especially after a significant loss, so we manage to produce that feeling in ourselves. Another thing, I learned from watching the program is that many hoarders are perfectionists! Hard to believe, but because they have such high standards and can’t get anything perfect, they have given up, and also, what a great way to shame themselves.

I know I have a little problem with hoarding it’s very difficult for me to toss out something I think will be usable in the future, also it was very hard for me to get rid of my diseased parents’ things, even though I didn’t want them, there definitely was an emotion attached to certain items. I had to tell myself giving up the item wasn't giving up the memory. I think the program has actually helped me in dealing with my problem and has reduced the anxiety I experience when I have to get rid of something.

The animal hoarding shows are especially hard to watch, the animals are seriously being abused and the people are in such denial. Of course, for a serious hoarder even having a couple of pets can be a bad idea. I saw a program the other night where the house was so filthy and there were cock roaches in the dog’s food, and poor dog seemed so sad when he wanted to eat, and just ran away from his food. Anyway, for anyone who suspects that they might have a problem, I hope you can watch the program and tackle your problem before it becomes overwhelming.

My mom is obsessed with the hoarding shows. And those that I have watched are very depressing and pitiful. I cannot get angry at the person, since there's usually a trigger for the behavior.
Speaking from experience, I know how panic-stricken you can feel when deemed that there is no control in your life. And in order to create some type of control, one latches on to something so drastic (I.e. hoarding, drugs, cutting, alcohol, etc.).
With the animal hoarding I think it's different than any other type of abuse. With animal abuse (with regards to puppymills/byb/greeders) I think there is a malicious intent to cause harm all for the sake of money. Yet with animal hoarding, it's done with the hope of good intentions.
If you listen to them, they usually say,
"He needed me.." or "I wanted to give him a good home..."

I know I could easily fall into the animal hoarding trap. When I go into the Humane Society, I want to rescue all of them. Especially since I consider Gizmo to be my therapy many times.

Nancy, know that the positions from your family do not hold any memories, only you do. And spreading those memories doesn't require any physical object. Giving something up that was theirs only makes the person that receives it honored to have such a wonderful item with them. I know for a fact that if I kept something that was my grandma's that she deemed unimportant for me to have, that she's be crossing her arms and shaking her figer at me somewhere up in heaven! :p

And I'm rambling...

I watch the hoarder programs. My Mother in law is a hoarder and hers is because she gets a high to saving money and buying things. She did experience loss because a few years ago she divirced. She doesnt live in filth but she just has tons of stuff and shes got 2 garages at the apt she lives in filled with stuff when she really cant afford to pay extra for the garages. Shes not the type of person you can say anything to so her sons say nothing about it. But then she will try to bring the tremendous amounts of things she buys over to our house and the other Sons house which fires me up because we have space problems and I dont want the clutter or overabundance. Shes the type of person that instead of buying my daughter a pair of shoes she will bring over 2 garbage bags full of shoes and then I am livid. My Husband aND i HAVE GOTTEN IN MANY ARGUMENTS OVER THE YEARS BECAUSE OF THIS. aNYWAY SO NOW HE TELLS HER WHEN SHE DOES IT. Not all hoarders live in filth. It is likie those shows on saving money where those women fill up their garage or bedroom with things they have couponed for and saved alot of money getting. I really think it is dangerous to show programs like that on tv because it gives the impression it is okay and normal

Yes, I agree, I kept one small box of things and I look at them ever now and then, they don't hold as much power as they once did.

Omgosh! I love those hoarding shows!!! Never seen the animal ones...that would make me sick...but I love the people ones...where they have a TON of stuff. There was a show on in England called "How Clean Is Your House" with Kim & Aggie. I've watched every episode!


I think I might need to slightly start hoarding...if that's possible :p
I'm always getting rid of things and then months later thinking of a use for it :rolleyes:

..I LOVE HOW CLEAN IS YOUR HOUSE!!!!

I love Kim! She cracks me up! She's the blonde right???
Oh my goodness, loved, loved, loved that show!

Funny you bring this up. There were two animal cruelty seizures in my area over the weekend. Over 100 animals, including 39 dogs, 40 parakeets and the rest cats were taken in after complaints. Our animal control is overrun.

Some of the dogs were show dogs, and the original breeders are desperately trying to get them back. How they were sold to a hoarder, I don't know, but I admire the breeders' commitment to trying to rescue their dogs.

The only positive side to this is the community outpouring of support. Local pet stores are soliciting donations and delivering food and supplies to animal control. Thousands of dollars have already been raised and donated in a real grass-roots effort.

I love this point, never really thought about this before, but I totally agree, at some point it is nuts to have such an accumulation of things. I watched the couponing show and I thought what if she ever has to move?

Sorry to hear about your MIL, that would drive me nuts.

Yeah the animal hoarding shows are really sad. They always find dead animals in all the filth, like how do you not know that? Those programs I have a harder time understanding. They say they love their pets, but part of loving is taking care of something, not just petting it.

Yes, Kim is the blonde English lady and Aggie is the short brown haired Scottish lady.

I watch it with a notepad so I can write down the ingredients to all the cleaning concoctions they use. Although, their idea of a "little elbow grease" and mine are ALOT different...lol

I love that show! Kim was always my favorite. Even though, being a family of Scots, Aggie was a fellow kilt wearer.

But I love their natural cleaners. Like the tooth paste in order to clean the little nook and crannies in your fridge. Or the bicarbonate with water to get stains off of carpets and sofas...

Ahh! Love them!

Yorkie owner, Scottish....wonder what else we have in common :D

I almost typed "Aggie is the short brown haired Scottish lady"...that sounds just like my Dad!

Do you go to the local Highland festivals, like the St. Andrew's Society one at Greenmeade, or the one at Alma College? I had a tartan harness custom made for ZoE last summer for when we went the the St. Andrew's festival...sooo cute!

I used to compete in Highland dancing at St. Andrews! :p
Took home alot of medals for it, and now my knees are bottomed out. Still have all my kilts.

Oh godness, I didn't know dogs were welcomed. Guess I know where I'm going next summer.

Interesting that this came up. This Monday, I had Hoarders on as background noise, and I happened to notice that "1-800-GotJunk?" truck they always have. Well, I've been struggling to get rid of a bunch of furniture, etc, and having a devil of a time figuring out where it could go because some things are extremely heavy, broken, electronic, etc.

A little lightbulb in my head went off, and I went to the site. They said that they will sort through your stuff and recycle appropriately, etc, and that they could do a same day visit. I signed up, and boom, my apartment is suddenly empty!

I asked the guys about Hoarders, and they said that some of their coworkers have been on the show, but that for the trash pickup, most of it is staged - ie, they throw the same bag onto the truck 10 times to get the perfect shot. That kind of bummed me out, but I guess that's the reality of reality television.

Anyway, my dad has some hoarding instincts, but I don't think I've inherited it. I can be lazy about getting rid of stuff, but I don't get confused about what is trash and what isn't.

The animal hording is sad because alot of times people get caught into it after rescuing animals it just gets out of control. Also what is too many animals for one person may not bed for another. For example I have 5 cats and 2 dogs and that could be considered hoarding if you are unable to clean up after and take care of that many. I didnt choose to have that many but I had a cat have kittens. Anyway they are all spayed now so no more cats

I love that show. It motivates me to clean and organize. I type that and then look around....ugh, looks like I need to watch it some more to get organized! :p

In the fall/late summer I was on a little organizing cleaning spree and even had GOT JUNK? come and haul some stuff away. It was a great feeling.

The lady from GOT JUNK? was actually on one of the episodes. She said it was so much worse than what the t.v. episode was able to show. She said she cried the whole way home. :( Thankfully, that particular episode had a happy ending. They were shown in a follow up program where the son had taken over where the show left off and totally cleaned everything up. It was amazing. (It was in Kokomo, IN.)

I've never seen one of the hoarding shows, but they are available on the Netflix Watch Instantly. I may check one out tonite.

That's very interesting! It's hard to imagine someone seeking out an unpleasant feeling, but that makes a lot of sense.

I'm glad that you feel the show has helped you. Sometimes I think those shows encourage voyeurism, and I feel vaguely guilty about watching them. It's nice to know that that it's affecting viewers positively as well.

I've never seen that show. What network is it on? I love shows like this. I used to watch Neat, Clean House and Clean Sweep.

I do watch the animal and clutter Hoarders shows. I get so upset seeing the poor animals that are suffering and there are some that have passed. I don't understand people. Maybe there needs to be stricter laws and harsher consequences for these people.

My dh teases me because we have 2 Labs, 2 Morkies and now a Yorkie. I love my dogs but this is my limit I swear! The Labs are 6 1/2 and almost 5. The Morkies are 3 1/2 and the Yorkie will be 6 months old on the 30th. I love my Labs but there's just something special about these little ones. :)

I've ended up catching this show a few times. Usually I just watch it for 10-15 mins or so. The other night, I caught the whole thing. It was pretty heartbreaking. The woman who hoarded was actually a psychologist, but she couldn't step outside herself and see her own symptoms. She was prob desensitized over time. There were bugs everywhere....worst I've seen when I've caught parts of this show.

It seems like so many times, the hoarding is triggered by a major loss or a death. I remember hearing that hoarding is one of the toughest things to treat/heal...but I can't remember why they said that. Maybe bc the disorder doesn't have as many treatment options (ie, like there are many treatment options for substances)...?

The one I caught a couple weeks ago (about 15mins of it) actually showed....omg this is horrible...3 dead cats who had been trapped in some of the piles of stuff. It appears they got trapped and starved there. That was too much for me to see :(.

I've watched several episodes and had to give them up because I would have bad dreams of mice running everywhere. I think because the last episode I watched was about a lady who had tons of mice in her house literally hundreds.

My DH noticed every time I would watch an episode the next day I would start throwing stuff away and cleaning out cabinets. Maybe I have hoarderphobia? :confused: Is there a such thing?

My heart breaks for each and everyone of them.

Yes, I think the animal hoarding shows are pretty good about not giving a specific number, but leave it up to the person and their finances and time as to what they can handle. When you are having a tough time paying for food, and are no longer speaking vet care regularly, you know you have a problem. For some people that's just one pet.

I'm sure some people them for all sorts of reasons. I heard about the disease in psychology classes. My professor had a client that would save all of her feces. She'd line it up in little baggies on her wall. She was the type of hoarder who couldn't get rid of something that most of us think of garbage, and that's what I thought hoarding was really about. I think there are probably lots of different classifications if you studied it. Look at the Beanie Babies rage a few years ago, how many people still have those and can't quite get rid of them, but don't really want them either.

The one who was the psychologist just about killed me. I can't believe she didn't seek help earlier, and her poor son, that broke my heart. I'm having a hard time believing she was a psychologist. I know we can't often see problems in ourselves, but it’s so obvious her son was depressed. Did he even have a job? Anyway, that the one where he showed a dog food bowl full of roaches and the dog whined and walked away. Maybe it's like Quicksilver says they retake many times to get some shots, but the bugs did seem to be everywhere.

It's probably not the best show to watch before sleeping. I did see a hoarding show with a man and rats, and he insisted that every rat found a home before he'd let them take them. They were really great for finding homes for all the rats.


I kind of know what you mean, my heart breaks for them, but I'm also repulsed by them and I don't want to be anything like them, so it motivates me to get rid of stuff. I do think there ares some people who really have a problem with any clutter and throw away perfectly good things because they have no use for it today, and don't want a junk drawer even. For example I know someone who will throw out "cable connecters" because they don't need them today, and don't want them junking up the house.

My teen-ager is obsessed with this show! I will admit that there is nothing like an episode of Hoarding to motivate me to clean out the garage; empty a closet, whatever.

The animal hoarding shows are harder to watch. The people seem to start with good intentions but cannot admit when things swing wildly out of control.

I feel SO SORRY for the children that have to live in this filth exhibted by every kind of hoarder depicted.

Well if there is I have it too. My mom is a hoarder and you cannot get her to throw stuff away. Good thing is she's not filthy she just has junk and every piece of homework since our kindergarten class. And I refuse to let her bring stuff into my house.

I catch myself saving a lot of stuff. When I start seeing piles of clutter I panic and start throwing things away. Now the only things I can't throw away are clothes. They have to be torn or unwashable. I can easily donate my kids clothes but not mine :shocked7q

question
 

What network is "How Clean Is Your House?" on?

BBC, at least it used to be when I watched it. Used to be on at 5:00 every week day.

Oh, my gosh! I watched part of one of those shows and went and cleaned out my Utility Porch and hall closet! Makes you not want to have ANY clutter. This old lady in the show I watched part of was sitting in a room surrounded by stacks of trash and junk! She could not walk through the room unimpeded but had to climb over stuff! It was sickening and sad but I couldn't stand to watch any more.