I'm watching Hoarders...

[HipChick]

on the DVR and suddenly have a need to do housework..:think:

[warrior1]

1. I've done that too

[GoCubsGo]

2. I get like that when I watch "How Clean is Your House?"

Looking at my house, I need to watch again tomorrow. Kim and Aggie would have a stroke if they saw my place. Well, not really, but the place could use a good scrubbing.

[HipChick]

3. I was eating a sandwich, when someone reached down and pulled out a dried out critter..

It was a dehydrated mouse..I'm not hungry anymore either..in fact, I need to go do my exercises to

[GoCubsGo]

29. I often have the same reaction

Especially when they go into some of those bathrooms. All the talk about "pee pee" and "poo poos" buts big damper on the appetite.

[Skittles]

9. I'm afraid those Brit gals will show up at my door

and stick their heads in my toilet :o

[texanwitch]

11. I learned from that show that you can use cheap cola to clean your toilets.

Just cheap store brand cola, really works.

[Skittles]

13. ? drink cheap cola and piss it clean?

or pour in bowl and flush? details please

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. Cola has phosphoric acid in it. That's why it cleans scale.

[redwitch]

37. LOL

You slacker!

[GoCubsGo]

28. I like vinegar and baking soda

That is another of their methods. The next time there is a single can of BigK cola on the scratch-and-dent rack at Kroger, I think I'm going to have to give the cola method a try.

Another thing they use is denture-cleaning tablets.

[texanwitch]

4. I watch Hoarders online.

I know two people who live like that.

We cleaned their houses but it didn't do anygood.

They trashed the houses up again.

[lazarus]

5. I come from a line of them

luckily, it's gotten better and better as each generation has tried to improve. I'm a bit of a backslider, though.

[texanwitch]

7. I will never clean their houses again.

I am not that neat to be honest.

These two people had their whole house filled up with junk, at least 3 ft high.

Only few things were any good.

I don't know where they got all the new junk from.

They need more help then we can give them.

[Lorien]

19. Mom mom's neighbor is like that. The stuff fills up his windows

and his house has been condemned several times. Each time his brother comes down, spends a week cleaning out the house, then gets the OK for his hoarder brother to move back in. Within a month or two it's wrecked once and the city comes back with their notices. The hoarder dumpster dives all over campus to get the stuff that he fills his home with. He needs mental health care more than he needs a maid. :-(

[murielm99]

42. We have a lady like that in our community.

Her house is like that. It has been condemned by the health department a few times.

The teachers in town cleaned it for her about fifteen years ago. My husband and I filled the back of our pickup twice and carted things away. She argued over every junky thing she had to give up. Then our church members cleaned for her about five years ago. We were worried that someone would steal from her or take advantage of her.

She used to have a shoe store. I can't begin to describe the shoe boxes stacked to the ceiling and the general creepiness. But the image in indelible in my memory. The shoe store was condemned permanently because the rats were as big as Shetland ponies and not the least bit shy. I was not the only person in town who ran screaming when they saw rats cavorting in the store windows. And there was a restaurant next door! I think the restaurant owners complaints did the trick in getting the place closed.

She has an old Buick that she fills to the brim with stuff, too. She leaves a small space on the drivers side so she can get in and out. She has been ticketed for obstructed driving.

This lady is our community's Miss Havisham. When she was young and nice looking, she had a fiance. The older people here remember him. Her daddy chased the fiance away. Daddy may have wanted her for himself. She changed after the fiance was gone.

She taught kindergarten for awhile. But mommy and daddy wanted her working in the store, so she quit teaching. She took care of mommy and daddy in their old age. Mommy lived to be 101 because she was so well cared for.

My mother is eighty, the same age as this poor woman. My mother has her hair done, she has friends, and she and my dad go out, even though my dad is in the early stages of dementia. This woman should have had the life my mother has had. I feel so sorry for her.

[Skittles]

12. I think the crucial questions are

do you have rotten food / dirty plates that lay around for days and, is your trash anywhere but the trash bin - being a slob is one thing; being filthy and unhygienic is the true indication of a problem

[lazarus]

22. actually

not all hoarders are unhygienic. We keep food trash where it belongs, it's just cluttered here. Not too bad, we're not hoarders by any means, just too much stuff in too little house.

On the show, most hoarders are wallowing in filth, but a few have simply let possessions take over.

[Skittles]

24. I'm a bit of a clutterer / packrat myself

my home is clean but in a constant state of disarray - I like to tell myself it's because I live in a small apartment but I wonder if I had a bigger place if the clutter would expand with increased space :o

[Wapsie B]

33. I can't imagine living like that, although I've got a pretty good idea.

O.M.G. Could not believe what my old house looked like the last time I was there.

[Robb]

6. I watch that with a bit of fear.

There was the one guy some episodes ago, talking about the beer bottles he was saving because he might someday decide to brew his own beer.

I've kept things with that kind of reasoning before. :D

[Corgigal]

8. Every time I watch that show

and they have small children living in those conditions I feel so bad for them. I can't imagine a child living like that.

[Skittles]

10. animals too

THEN I have to realize, wait, I feel bad for that HOARDER too. That program showed me that they are desperately unhappy, ill people :(

[HipChick]

14. They don't seem to follow up with long term help..

there's nothing to stop the problem from occurring again..

[wickerwoman]

18. They do with people who ask for it.

They help them find programs they can afford but don't force them to attend. I think 60-70% of them seek help after the show but a lot of them just say screw it and go out and buy more stuff.

The main problem is two days is nowhere near enough time for most of these people. And their families get really high expectations and then get frustrated that the hoarder isn't moving faster. Then the hoarder digs in their heels and nothing is really accomplished. It should be like a two week show... one day one weekend and one day the next weekend so the family have time to sort through things between days. It's just too much work on most episodes.

[laundry_queen]

40. I agree, 2 days is too short

even for non-hoarders to declutter a house. Most of the time it's too intense for the hoarder and they just check out.

[wickerwoman]

17. Yeah, the saddest one is the one with two boys,

the younger one is about eleven... mom's a hoarder, dad's an alcoholic who tried to kill himself and they've already been removed by CPS once to god knows what foster hell. You just see in that kid's face "WTF life!" I felt so, so bad for those kids but what's the alternative?

[nolabear]

15. This is a form of OCD. It can sometimes be helped by a combination of SSRIs and therapy

but it's very difficult to cure, if "cure" is even the right word. Cleaning up w/o some seious work just doesn't work most of the time. It's tough because some otherwise very fine people are compelled to hoard things.

[Captain Hilts]

45. Folks with dementia often do it. I know several elderly folks that have done this. nt

[SeattleGirl]

16. I watched several episodes today; first time I'd ever watched

it. As soon as I can afford it, I'm calling 1-800-GOT JUNK.

I'm not so much of a hoarder as I am just flat lazy about getting rid of things. After 17 years in the same house, my basement needs some serious clearing out. :blush:

[Lorax]

20. I've done it too.

Every time I watch that show, I find myself getting up and doing housework before it's even over. I can't imagine the mental illness that would allow a person to live that way.

[texanwitch]

21. I am watching a show about hoarders on Discovery Health channel.

It is on now.

I couldn't live like that.

[qnr]

23. Yeah, I know how that goes. Every time my spouse puts Biggest Loser on, I get the urge to eat n/t

[City of Mills]

25. I always work out during the Biggest Loser

It's like a compulsion...if they can do it, so can I!

[distantearlywarning]

26. I am the same way.

Every time I see that show, I get an urge to go organize my basement or something.

I am the anti-hoarder - I get anxious when I have too much clutter (I feel trapped by stuff) and we have a mandatory purge every six months.

I would have a nervous breakdown if I had to spend more than an hour inside those people's homes. And I mean that literally. I would probably have a panic attack.

[carlyhippy]

27. I stayed up too late last night watching that show

I feel pretty fortunate that I don't have their condition, and feel bad for these poor people. I can't handle clutter, I am the opposite, a tosser-outer.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

31. My mother was like that.

I couldn't throw anything away until she died. I would go up there and get sick from all the dust and clutter, and the folks couldn't understand why.

I tried to clean out a bedroom that was 10 feet x 20 feet, and 5 feet deep in cardboard and junk. I climbed over the stuff and opened a window and tossed it out the window. That's one thousand cubic feet of crud in ONE room.
Then she woke up and came outside and started cursing at me, called me a nasty bitch, and told me "You'll never be half the woman your grandmother was".

:wtf:

She had no memory of it later. I figured out a couple of months later that she had dissociated and went into another personality. THat is scary.

She dragged 14 big trash sacks back from the curb and dragged them under the carport, that we had thrown out. This was a week after she had had one of her carotid arteries cleaned out in the hospital.

:wtf:

I've sent stuff to auction houses and taken countless boxes of stuff to resale shops.
And I'm still not through.

[Maraya1969]

32. What channel is it on? I can't find it.

[JonLP24]

34. A&E

I don't know what time or days but A&E is the channel. 100% sure.

[Z_I_Peevey]

35. Mondays on A&E at 10 p.m. EST

9 p.m. Central.

It's one of my few must-watch shows. Keeps my own hoarding tendencies in check, but some of the worst cases are pretty hard to watch.

[HipChick]

36. Watching new episode now..single father with kids

and what looks like generational hoarding..

[seaker]

38. Me too

And vacuuming..:hi:

[HipChick]

39. lol! I'm doing housework too..

[laundry_queen]

41. That's how I am.

Hoarders and How Clean is Your House? do it for me everytime. I am not the housekeeper my mother was, so I often need a little nudge. I like how Kim and Aggie use more natural cleaners. Hoarders is an interesting look to the psychology of things. I think Hoarders needs to have someone like Aggie take swabs and let them know what is growing in their houses. That one lady who hoarded food just made me want to gag. I couldn't imagine the pathogens floating around that place.

[cherish44]

43. Yeah hoarding is a very bizarre affliction

I watch the show every week. At least these two cases just had a lot of stuff. It's the ones that have garbage, rotten food, excrement and find dead cats under all the junk that are upsetting. I had a friend whose dad was a hoarder, he never threw away newspapers or magazines and after awhile they were stacked everywhere in the house. Eventually rather than clean it up, they just moved and left everything.

[Arugula Latte]

44. I have a great fear of the hoarding impulse.

I think my fear stems from seeing how my grandma hung onto everything (Depression mentality, which I do understand) and from seeing my husband's family, which has one full-on hoarder and several others on the hoarding spectrum. I try to regularly get rid of stuff, and when I start getting a problem area pile-up in my house it makes me anxious and I eventually tackle it. I watch "Hoarders" and "Clean House" and "Clean Sweep" and "Neat" and all those shows for inspiration. The problem of "clutter" and "stuff" in this society of plenty fascinates me.