I watched a few episodes of this show before the Superbowl. As you probably know, the show documents attempted interventions in the lives of people who suffer from compulsive hoarding. I found it somewhat disturbing (for example some of the homes have animal feces all over the floor) and frustrating (the hoarders' insistence that they must hang on to a scrap of paper despite impending eviction), but apparently the show is a big hit. The interventions often don't seem to be particularly successful, and some the "professional organizers" don't seem particularly well equipped to deal with these situations.

Has anyone else been watching this? The show claims that 3 million people have compulsive hoarding (not sure what geographic area this stat is for, but I assume most cases are much milder than those on this show).

I watch it sometimes. It seems after the first episode, they are all pretty much the same thing.

At least with Intervention, it seems to be somewhat different every episode.

There is no way 3 million people are anywhere near as bad as that. Maybe worldwide. I know I have some hoarding tendencies, and have seen it in my family. My grandmother saves pretty much everything, and when she moved 20 years ago, my grandfather had to make her throw a lot away. My dad was similar, and save weird things, hoping some day they could be used. Once he did find a use for something, he'd be so proud of himself. He had boxes full of old computer punchcards from his college days, and wanted to keep them on a move. I convinced him to save a small stack of them, and pitch the rest.

I have a closet that has all kinds of old and broken electronics, thinking maybe they will come in handy sometime. Sometimes they do. I don't let it get in the way of my daily living, though.

Can't see this lasting anywhere long term though. It's interesting to see how crazy they get, but pretty much every person on there is crazy in the same way and the houses look the same.

This show is awesome, for the most part. Most of these ppl are just bat**** crazy. Fun to see.

saw a good one last night....


2 decomposed (100% decomposed) cat carcasses found INSIDE THE HOUSE under crap...

Everyone should watch one or two episodes. I felt much better about my house keeping skills after watching the one with the woman who had food rotting all over her house. She had a couple of pumpkins rotting on the floor because they were "very nice pumpkins" before they rotted. I fail to see how she hadn't contracted serious food posioning. Those preservatives must work a lot better then we think.

Wife and I watched a few of them, and then decided to skip vacation and overhaul our house instead. We got rid of a ton of crap that we didn't use.

I saw a few from season 1 and season 2, and I have to say season 1 was better. I don't consider "hoarding" to be that you're incapable (physically/mentally) at maintaining your house and keep literal garbage (used diapers, etc) in huge piles around your house. When we saw some eps from season 1, it was more of, look at this wacky thing that's totally useless, I NEED TO KEEP IT. Season 2 was more people that were basically using their house to store stuff that they themselves didn't even want.

This sounds good, from the description alone. I haven't seen any episodes/previews yet, but I set up my PVR to tape the show next week while I'm away in Vegas. When is it usually on, Monday nights at 10:00pm?

I remember a few years ago when I was on vacation down in the states, our family tuned the television to the Animal Planet channel. I don't remember the exact show, but I think it was along the lines of Animal Cops: Houston. Anyway, it depicted a crew who got a call from someone about a house that contained a hoarder and her 30+ cats. Well sure enough, the crew goes in there and it's just a filthy mess as far as the eye can see. Tunnels built among the trash by the cats, house reeks of urine, old decaying food everywhere, just a total mess.

Anyways, I really enjoyed watching it, so I think I'll give this show a whirl, too.

They really just need to set a slow fire to the houses and let these people run in and save what they can. Its the only way some of them people could learn the difference between what is and isn't important.

Now THAT is an excellent idea!

Watched a couple episodes and mostly just found it depressing. The people hired to help seem more concerned with being nice and buddies with these people rather than helping them. Tough to change someone's life in a couple weeks though I suppose.

i watched a handful of eps. i agree that every ep is pretty similar, but it's kind of interesting to see how completely different people all follow the exact same textbook cycle of emotion/behavior while going through it

and it's not often you get to see stiff, squashed-flat cat carcasses on tv

I've seen alot of episodes and it's hillarious, sad, and enraging all at the same time.

What gets me is how many of the sick people are married to someoen who claims to be well.

There is no f'ing way you would let your spouse (usually wife) do that and just sit ideally by. The husbands are pretty clearly crazy too.

Plus I don't understand the kids who claim they want to help and feel so helpless and blah blah.

Why not be like "Hey, I'm sending ya'll to Florida for the weekend!" and whent hey get back all their **** is gone.

Yeah that wouldn't solve their mental problems but it would fix their house.

that would be awesome!

i've been in that situation before too--minus the crazy hoarding. ended up running back in 2x. I took money, drugs and my guitars.

i've definitely known several hoarders. one's an artist in SF, house is ridiculous. another doesn't keep a house like that-- but he does have warehouses full of STUFF. He actually gave away one of his warehouses to some people and 3 successful businesses were seeded from that place-all still in business. mostly, historical home restoration stuff. crazy.

I find this show fascinating because my mother-in-law hoards things. It's not close to the level of the people on the show, but it's WAY more than usual...it's the same pathology. The nonsensical reasoning used by the hoarders sounds all too familiar.

Also, I'm not so quick to judge the family members. Watching my inlaws, if you attempt to throw out something that is clearly useless, my mother-in-law will have an extreme emotional outburst, followed by buying more objects in the next week that immediately replaces or exceeds the volume of what was thrown away. I am talking about magazines from the 1980s...knick-knacks that cost $1 and on top of it are BROKEN...

In a lot of cases I think it eventually comes down to the spouse of the hoarder having to leave the marriage if the hoarding gets to be too much. You cannot help someone that does not want to be helped.

This sounds plausible in theory, but in reality it will result in a complete meltdown of the hoarder, followed by rapid reaccumulation of crap. The house will be re-filled faster than seems possible. The desire to stop has to come from internally, the people on the show have finally reached that point.

I watched this for the first time. Last night two new episodes. Yikes these houses are Junk piles and some living with kids

OMG, the farm wench and the rabbit nut made for an epic ep.

hahaha talk about inbred white trash lmao. That women and her family were nuts. I was surprised that the people from the show stopped animal control from coming in and saving all of those poor animals. That guy with the bunnies was funny as hell too.

Season finale. 2 words: rats, cats. Epic.

Thats a lot of rats

I love how like 350 more came crawling outta the walls after the crew had left.