I heard shrieks coming from the living room a couple of days ago and wandered in to see people watching an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. Only the subject of the show was not wading through heirlooms, garage sale bargains, sentimental matchbooks, or stacks of National Geographic. This woman was sitting in a chair surrounded by real garbage: empty soda bottles, pizza boxes, used syringes from insulin shots, rotten food and cockroaches everywhere. Her two children live with her. I would not call this hoarding; I would call it not over the top, but under the bottom.
Now, I know I am not a neat housekeeper. (I would be neater if I could use a gun or whip on the people who live with me.) And I have kept old pizza boxes – tore in half and rolled to help get fires going. Yes, I have collars from deceased dogs in my drawers. I have saved other things that could bring me close to classification in some sort of nutcase state, but while I may trip over the occasionally not-supposed-to-be-in-the-middle-of-the-floor item, I have not had to wade through two feet of garbage with my own two feet, while stepping on many multi-footed scurrying creatures.
I sense a tingle of feeling bad about remarking on this because I have always been vocal about people whose houses look like model homes. I do feel bad for this woman because she is more than quirky; I think she is mentally ill because living in filth voluntarily is, well, not right. I don’t think she should be on a show that investigates hoarding.
In the small town where my mother grew up, there was a school teacher who was a hoarder. She was very intelligent and kept herself very clean, but her house, at the time of her death, was nothing more than paths through stacks of stuff. When men came to clean it out, they just grabbed stuff – until one book opened up and a couple of $20 bills floated out. Then they went from toting out junk to looking for buried treasure and they got quite a haul.
I realize that I watched the first few shows on hoarding because, like many others, I am a gawker at the unusual. It was a look not only at an extreme form of housekeeping, but a peek into someone’s mind and the thin line that separates us at times. As someone who can make up a story about just any object and tie it up with some heartfelt tugging string, I can see how someone could keep a hell of a lot of stuff.
The shock value of the actual garbage house captured my attention for a while, but it was really more like staring at a three-headed bunny. You can’t believe it. When you do realize what you are seeing and you believe it, it’s time to look away.
But I know myself and who knows what I will gawk at next and that’s why the networks put on the shows they do.
I stopped watching Hoarders because I would find myself yelling at the TV “Just pick the stuff up!” After the hour I would be so frustrated and then I would feel really bad because I had no empathy.
I have a friend who is a professional organizer. She was contracted to go in and help a woman pack for a move. She was a hoarder. Oh my. She worked for two months with the woman and her family to sort and toss and thankfully documented everything with written word and with photos. She made lists of what the woman agreed to throw away and made her sign each list. They got her moved. A month later the lady sued her in civil court saying she had stolen her stuff, lost two irreplaceable boxes of stuff (she didn’t remember what was in them) and forced her to dispose of her wealth. My friend showed up in court with her documents, signed statements from the woman’s former neighbors, and all her photos. The judge took one look at them and said that the woman should thank my friend and get herself into counseling and then dismissed the case. The woman never relented and my friend had to end up getting a restraining order, which the woman violated. The police put her in a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed and she is now getting help. But I hear she has made her room into a mini-hoarder house. It is definitely an illness.
But then my daughter-in-law’s mother had to build a barn to keep all her “stuff”. She at least keeps it out of the house.