Hoarding: Buried Alive - General Discussion

[DC Gal in VA]

On TLC right now: Hoarding:Buried Alive, Season 4, Episode 4 (originally aired in 2012). A married couple. Wife is a hoarder on steroids who has been hiding her hoard (and the mounting costs of storing them) from her husband, Jeff, in various places for years AND has roped her grown children into hiding what they know from their dad. BTW, poor Jeff has already had a heart attack and has high blood pressure. God Bless this man for putting up with and still loving, barely, this woman.

Definitely want to say more on this episode later.

[JudyObscure]

We just watched that one, too.  I thought it was one of the best episodes, no horrible piles of used adult diapers and serious mental illness, just a straight ahead, hard core hoarder.  About half way in, I was all for Jeff leaving her, but she really did seem to turn around and it had a fairly happy ending.  I liked seeing the dark haired psychologist, Julie again, she seems to get good results in spite of being soft as a marshmallow.

Questions my husband and I had:  How does someone like Jeff put up with it for 26 years?  How does she pay $264  a month for storage units and he doesn't know?  Where do the hoarders get the money for their constant shopping?  Why is eveyr generation getting so much fatter than their parents?

[DC Gal in VA]

14 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

We just watched that one, too.  I thought it was one of the best episodes, no horrible piles of used adult diapers and serious mental illness, just a straight ahead, hard core hoarder.  About half way in, I was all for Jeff leaving her, but she really did seem to turn around and it had a fairly happy ending.  I liked seeing the dark haired psychologist, Julie again, she seems to get good results in spite of being soft as a marshmallow.

Questions my husband and I had:  How does someone like Jeff put up with it for 26 years?  How does she pay $264  a month for storage units and he doesn't know?  Where do the hoarders get the money for their constant shopping?  Why is eveyr generation getting so much fatter than their parents?

Hi JudyObscure. She definitely was the cleanest hoarder I've ever seen! Heh heh, maybe she knew that even understanding hubby would have had his limits if he had to put up with the filth, stench, cockroaches and, finding the occasional mummified family pet who everyone thought ran away by the usual hoarder. 😏

Not only how did she pay for and hide the increasing costs of the storage units, but what about that 9,000 square foot commercial space she was leasing? Did they ever say how much that cost per month and how did hubby miss it?

Edited February 19, 2019 by DC Gal in VA
Effing Autocorrect!

[CrazyInAlabama]

That was a former grocery store or clothes store in downtown Colorado Springs, and judging from the area, was probably empty for a long time before she rented it.    I'm betting it didn't cost much more than the storage units did, because that is a terrible area of town.   You notice that there weren't any glass doors or windows that a regular storefront would have?   That's the part of town it's in.    She's lucky she survived that place.   

I guess she handled the household bills, and he never saw the checking account.    Did they ever say that the son's basement mom had hoarded out was cleared out?     

Edited February 19, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[Minivanessa]

On one of the episodes TLC (re)ran yesterday, there was one of my pet peeve scenes from this series. IIRC they did it a lot, and it always bugged me: Cleaning Out The Hoarded Toxic Nasty Refrigerator.

In that episode, the the hoarder's fridge was full of nasty nasty old rotten food *and* the hoarder had already acquired a new fridge which was somewhere on the property. In the opening scenes a friend/relative was scolding the hoarder, saying yeah, and how do we know the new fridge won't end up like this? then, later in the episode during the cleanup, they show these young guys who work for some pest control or clearance company, emptying that toxic fridge with *bare hands*(!!!!) and literally vomiting because the smell is so bad. The guy didn't stop after he vomited, he just kept reaching in and yanking rotten stuff out, some of which had become almost glued to the fridge shelves and sides with hardened ooze. With his bare hands.

In the final shots of the cleaned up house? There is a new fridge in the kitchen. (The old one had the freezer on top; the new one was a side by side, so yes I'm sure the fridge was replaced.) I was stunned that TLC would have those guys rummaging around in that toxic fridge with bare hands, no masks, no hazmat suits, and all for the camera because the fridge wasn't even kept.

This contrasts with something I always appreciated in How Clean is Your House?, the Brit TV series with Kim and Aggie. Sure, they had a schtick where Aggie would don a white lab coat and take swabs of various household surfaces, and later we'd be presented with the lab analyses of the micro-nasties living in the house. It was a little schticky and a little serious. But, where they got dead serious and didn't screw around? Was when fridges and freezers were full of nasty rotten former food. They treated those, IMO appropriately, as biohazards. They were sealed up and professionally disposed of; people in hazmat suits hauled them off. NOBODY stuck their hands in there and emptied the nasties into regular trash bags. They did clean up some grungy fridges, but they had their limits. Good for them!

And yesterday, after that Hoarding: Buried Alive episode, TLC ran another episode, with those young guys cleaning out another really really nasty fridge. With bare hands. 

I just can't with that.

[DC Gal in VA]

10 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

That was a former grocery store or clothes store in downtown Colorado Springs, and judging from the area, was probably empty for a long time before she rented it.    I'm betting it didn't cost much more than the storage units did, because that is a terrible area of town.   You notice that there weren't any glass doors or windows that a regular storefront would have?   That's the part of town it's in.    She's lucky she survived that place.   

I guess she handled the household bills, and he never saw the checking account.    Did they ever say that the son's basement mom had hoarded out was cleared out?     

Thanks. I recall from another post from you that you are familiar with that area. Probably because I live in the Washington, D.C-Metropolitan area, the idea that one could cheaply rent any space, let alone a 9,000 square foot one, really threw me off. Heck, you would definitely pay more for just 900 square feet, or much less, than she did for that storefront space even if it was located in the most dangerous, drug infested, gang banging area you could find here.

[DC Gal in VA]

1 hour ago, Jeeves said:

On one of the episodes TLC (re)ran yesterday, there was one of my pet peeve scenes from this series. IIRC they did it a lot, and it always bugged me: Cleaning Out The Hoarded Toxic Nasty Refrigerator.

In that episode, the the hoarder's fridge was full of nasty nasty old rotten food *and* the hoarder had already acquired a new fridge which was somewhere on the property. In the opening scenes a friend/relative was scolding the hoarder, saying yeah, and how do we know the new fridge won't end up like this? then, later in the episode during the cleanup, they show these young guys who work for some pest control or clearance company, emptying that toxic fridge with *bare hands*(!!!!) and literally vomiting because the smell is so bad. The guy didn't stop after he vomited, he just kept reaching in and yanking rotten stuff out, some of which had become almost glued to the fridge shelves and sides with hardened ooze. With his bare hands.

In the final shots of the cleaned up house? There is a new fridge in the kitchen. (The old one had the freezer on top; the new one was a side by side, so yes I'm sure the fridge was replaced.) I was stunned that TLC would have those guys rummaging around in that toxic fridge with bare hands, no masks, no hazmat suits, and all for the camera because the fridge wasn't even kept.

This contrasts with something I always appreciated in How Clean is Your House?, the Brit TV series with Kim and Aggie. Sure, they had a schtick where Aggie would don a white lab coat and take swabs of various household surfaces, and later we'd be presented with the lab analyses of the micro-nasties living in the house. It was a little schticky and a little serious. But, where they got dead serious and didn't screw around? Was when fridges and freezers were full of nasty rotten former food. They treated those, IMO appropriately, as biohazards. They were sealed up and professionally disposed of; people in hazmat suits hauled them off. NOBODY stuck their hands in there and emptied the nasties into regular trash bags. They did clean up some grungy fridges, but they had their limits. Good for them!

And yesterday, after that Hoarding: Buried Alive episode, TLC ran another episode, with those young guys cleaning out another really really nasty fridge. With bare hands. 

I just can't with that.

You know Jeeves you are obviously a much braver person than I am since I usually turn my head when those scenes pop up. I am way too busy not watching and waiting for those scenes to be over to notice that the workers aren't even wearing gloves when they're cleaning out the refrigerators!☺  Funny thing is that I do notice when people aren't wearing gloves, face masks or anything else when handling their nasty "precious treasures" in the rest of the house or apartment.

I think the scene you are referencing is from one of the episodes shown yesterday with the woman whose 17 year old son had to move out when he was 12 and go live with his grandmother who lived near by because her hoard left him no place to live in the house. As I recall, it wasn't just the stuff in the refrigerator, it was also piles and piles of rusted cans of food and packages of unrefrigerated meat she decided to hang on to. I really disliked this woman in particular because, as her own brother said, she was always making herself out to be the victim. Really liked her son, a very insightful young man, who correctly observed that that she had chosen her hoard over him.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I don't know why they clean the fridges out, in many situations like that they just seal it, and haul it out closed to a haz mat location, and bury it or something similar.       

The 17 year old was very smart to stay at grandma's, because you know that woman will always choose her hoard over him.    Look at how she reacted to him moving next door to grandma's when he was twelve, when she hoarded his room full the second he left.   Plus, after the clean up (I suspect it's usually going into storage sheds, not the dump) when the same nasty bedding and mattresses were on the bunk beds that said everything about how little she cared about him.    

Very few hoarders actually clean up and stay that way, and since the episodes we're older (the filming dates on the end of the episodes were 2012 mostly yesterday), I'm sure all of the houses are just as bad within a year or two.

I can't forgive the people who inflict their hoard on children and animals.      

Why do I have the suspicion that the remarkably clean after scenes are followed by the hoarder running down to Chucky's Self Storage, (hope there really isn't one by that name) and bringing all of their garbage back a car load at a time?    I do not believe that one hoarder show cleans every single place out to the bare floor in every room, and the other one can't get people to get rid of more than half of their junk.    

They're showing Gary, the one near Denver (I think) who had a wife disappear over 30 years ago, leaving him with two kids who haven't seen him in years, and the inside and outside of his home is awful.      He was sleeping outside, and the narrator said it was 20 degrees at night, and it's simply not true, there are lots of nights near there that are way below 20 degrees, and some days the high isn't much more than that.     

The episode before that was Kay, who lived near Houston, and had the stunning roach problem.   Since she kept talking about the HOA or management people foreclosing, I'm betting it was the house in the Woodlands, which has very strict enforcement.    I think it may have been the house that had some workers get sick, but at least it was a false positive for hantavirus.      I can't believe that the house cleaned up so nicely.   I wonder how the legal issues worked out?   

Edited February 24, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[Minivanessa]

On 2/19/2019 at 8:10 AM, CrazyInAlabama said:

The episode before that was Kay, who lived near Houston, and had the stunning roach problem.   Since she kept talking about the HOA or management people foreclosing, I'm betting it was the house in the Woodlands, which has very strict enforcement.    I think it may have been the house that had some workers get sick, but at least it was a false positive for hantavirus.      I can't believe that the house cleaned up so nicely.   I wonder how the legal issues worked out?   

Ooh, TLC had a marathon yesterday that included Kay's episode. I hadn't seen it for years and surprised myself by actually watching all of it. The therapist (Julie IIRC) said late in the episode that Kay was living in a fantasy world. That was just so striking from all we saw during that episode. That was a nice house, but apparently for 18 (!) years following her husband's death she hadn't lifted a finger to clean up or throw out anything. 

The main expression on Kay's face throughout the show, no matter the situation, was this kind of creepy smile. Like, she was being pleasant on the surface but was just checked out and avoiding engaging with anything except on her own terms. A few examples:

• When the pest control guys explained to her, nicely, that her house was the absolute worst case of infestation they had ever seen, she was all, well that's your opinion. The senior guy of the team tried again, told this was the worst he'd seen in 20 years and the house wasn't safe? Made not a dent in her attitude.
• Her daughter - obviously shaken to the core - showed Kay the dead/mummified copperhead snake (deadly poisonous if you didn't know that) they found IN HER BEDROOM when shoveling through the piles of books and trash. And Kay responded with some nonsense about, oh you're just getting dramatic over something the cat must have brought in. I'm just staring at the TV thinking WTAF????
• After the cleanup, it was discovered that there was some structural damage to the house, including a rotting area of the floor near the front door. Kay and her daughter and some repair guy were there looking at it. In the course of the conversation Kay allowed as how she couldn't afford to fix everything right then. And disclosed she'd spent $1200 on season tickets to the Houston Symphony. And typically, her daughter was just flummoxed and frustrated, and of course Kay was totally impervious to any criticism.

Kay's bedroom was literally heaped and stuffed with books. That pile had to be years in the making. From what I could see, they were those mass market paperback romance novels that were (and I assume still are) pumped out in big numbers every month. We saw Kay lying on her bed reading one of them before the cleanup. IMO that is so consistent with her living a fantasy life. I can imagine it; she comes home, feeds the cat, and flops down on her bed to lose herself in the current romance novel. And, from what we saw, just tossed the book on the ever-growing book mountain when she was done with it.

I wonder whatever happened to her.

[Minivanessa]

15 hours ago, Kyanight said:

This afternoon I watched an old episode with Mary whose home was about to be condemned.   They took 6 truck loads to the dump and gave up and Mary moved in with her sister down in Florida.  The city inspector condemned the house saying they just gave up - there was at least 4 more dumpsters with of crap left in the house.   https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/hoarding-buried-alive-mary-and-penny-video_n_1320610.html

No surprise there.  Mary wouldn't get rid of ANYTHING!  The very FIRST little tiny grocery store plastic bag of stuff they put in the dumpster she demanded they bring it back out.

(^^This, and my response below, have been moved over from the other hoarding show topic. My bad for not posting in the correct discussion.)

Oh man, Mary was a piece of work. What a hostile human unit. Totally impermeable. When the therapist (I think) started out by asking her how she'd feel about discarding some old computer stuff, her instant reaction was nasty. "Oh. So you're a computer expert?" I mean, the therapist was holding up a MOLDY hard drive and Mary instantly attacked her for daring to say that was not an operable thing because. Computer expertise. 

Mary was vicious to everyone including her sister. I remind myself, these people are mentally ill. But I just can't dredge up any sympathy in my heart for Mary. I've encountered vicious people like that, and I do all that's possible to keep them out of my life.

When I got past the viciousness, it was clear that Mary was living in a fantasy world. Sure, Mary, someday you were going to retrieve the incredibly valuable information that was stored on the moldy hard drive, and old floppy disks, and the rest of that ancient crusty computer stuff that for years had been decaying quietly away in that hellhole of a house. Classic hoarder fantasy stuff.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I can't believe friends or relatives are stupid enough to let a hoarder move in with them, and think the hoarder won't keep doing this in their house.      

They're showing the Buried Alive episode with Deborah, the former nurse who collects model horses.   I can't believe how much she spent on one model horse in particular.     She was paying many thousands more than they originally sold for, and there isn't anything that's all that expensive.    Her episode also shows Mary, lovely house from the outside, but not inside.     Mary has only lived in the house for five years, and it's not dirty, but full of junk.    Her seven year old daughter with asthma, is living in this dust bowl of junk also.     Mary seemed so nice at the beginning, until they tried to organize her stuff, and the fire works started.  

Edited February 25, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[Stillhere2.0]

On 5/19/2015 at 5:32 AM, Giant Misfit said:

Ugh. Yesterday I caught the rerun of the woman whose home was overrun by roaches. She claimed to be "disabled" and sat in a lounge chair in her living room surrounded by a mountain of trash -- comprised mostly of empty 12-pack containers of Pepsi. Her ex-husband allowed the kids to live in the filth because the wife would "lose her benefits" if he pressed for custody. So, instead they live in a home filled with roaches and a bathroom with a mountain of used sanitary pads piled high on the floor.

She was a loathsome beast.

I

I watched this repeat last night. I was waiting all episode for someone to ask the the kids dad WHY he left them there in that filth?  His ex-wife losing her benefits was no excuse for allowing his kids to live like that........

HE JUST DIDN'T CARE!!!!

or maybe the kids really didn't live with the mom and were only brought in for dramatic purposes?

[smartyshorts]

Thank the Non Specific Deity that someone else caught that mess with Sherry and her teenagers. So many questions about the Dad and all of Sherry's disabilities that made her have to LIE DOWN IN HER BED while dudes in hazmat suits SHOVELLED garbage from around her, and what exactly it was that caused her to be such a hateful b!$?h. But i was worried about those kids. It was so "normalized" for the daughter that she was fine with throwing trash on the floor because "i dont have a trashcan" or her apathetic.. " I was going to clean up, but i didnt know what to throw away" ( hint:Anything!!) she kept touching stuff to get those lazy sleepy roaches to start running around. Who is going to teach her how to take care of herself and her own home? 

[BookWoman56]

I happened to catch the "A VCR for Every Day of the Week" episode tonight in reruns, and I have rarely wanted so badly to be able to reach through my TV screen and slap multiple people. I sometimes feel sorry for hoarders when it's obvious they have some major mental illness going on, but not this time.

I don't think the father was mentally ill, at least not in any serious way, so much as just lazy. He was able to comprehend what he needed to do to avoid going to jail and possibly losing the house, but came off as he just didn't want to be bothered. Yes, there's obviously some underlying pathology or he wouldn't be a hoarder, but he seemed able to function reasonably well. He lost any sympathy I might have felt when I saw the 12 cats, all locked up in cages, and all yowling in desperation to get the fuck out of there. When the psychologist went in there and saw the first cat, she was taken aback but by the time she saw the cats in the basement, she was horrified. It was a "hell, yeah" moment for me when she decided to call the SPCA. And the father can go to hell with his comments that he feels betrayed by what she did. Psychologists and other health care professionals have an obligation to preserve patient confidentiality, BUT if they see something that indicates a child is being abused, they are obligated to notify the authorities. Those cats, while not human, were clearly being abused. I could understand putting the cats into cages on a very temporary basis, such as a trip to the vet, or even just to keep them confined for a few hours while strangers are tracking in and out of the house and constantly opening exterior doors to haul stuff off. But this was how those cats were living 24/7. No fucking excuse for that. 

The son was a piece of work, entirely too prone to confrontation and probably violence. Someone upthread mentioned possibly Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and maybe that is part of the problem. His speech patterns were odd, to put it mildly, and he seemed unwilling to accept the reality that the house was entirely unfit for a baby (or anyone else, for that matter). You could tell he was slightly willing to go along with cleaning out the house so the baby could live there, but he had no instinctive sense that it would have been  unsafe to bring a baby into the filth. He seemed volatile, and I would have been afraid to interact with him. 

The son's girlfriend was apparently as dumb as a box of rocks. First, why on earth would you ever have had sex with the son?  Nothing about the son was in any way attractive (physically, intellectually, or emotionally). And second, what kind of delusional world are you in, that you would think it okay to bring  your infant, who has spent 2 months or something in NICU, into that house without having all the junk cleaned out and then having the entire house scrubbed down with bleach or something to kill off all the bacteria, mold, and who knows what else is there? I have gone through the horrible experience of having a newborn in NICU (thankfully, only for 3 weeks and for what turned out to be something very minor, gastrointestinal bleeding caused by an allergy to the protein in milk, which was fixed by using a very expensive baby formula with the protein already broken down). As a parent, generally you can be in the NICU with your infant except during shift changes, so there's maybe a couple of hours a day total when you can't be there. And in fact, the NICU nurses encouraged me and other parents to be there as much as possible, because they said the infants whose parents spent a lot of time there were more likely to survive and do better than those whose parents didn't come very often. Now that might be because for infants who are unlikely to survive, the parents just can't deal with being there that  much, but certainly at the time my daughter was in the NICU, I spent every possible moment I could there. The girlfriend in this episode, though, seemed like she wasn't spending any huge amount of time at the hospital, and was way more wrapped up in trying to mollify the son. Wasted effort there. As for the stepmother, I suspect she would have been willing to have her stepdaughter and the infant come live with her but on the condition that the son not join them. The stepmother was also obviously appalled at the condition of the house, and I suspect the reason she didn't haul the stepdaughter out of there on the spot was fear of physical violence from the boyfriend. The girlfriend needs a serious reality check: how on earth do you think a guy who has let a house get so bad, and who contributed to the hoarding, will be able to help take care of an infant?

That entire trio were just disgusting excuses for human beings. 

[DC Gal in VA]

2 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

I happened to catch the "A VCR for Every Day of the Week" episode tonight in reruns, and I have rarely wanted so badly to be able to reach through my TV screen and slap multiple people. I sometimes feel sorry for hoarders when it's obvious they have some major mental illness going on, but not this time.

I don't think the father was mentally ill, at least not in any serious way, so much as just lazy. He was able to comprehend what he needed to do to avoid going to jail and possibly losing the house, but came off as he just didn't want to be bothered. Yes, there's obviously some underlying pathology or he wouldn't be a hoarder, but he seemed able to function reasonably well. He lost any sympathy I might have felt when I saw the 12 cats, all locked up in cages, and all yowling in desperation to get the fuck out of there. When the psychologist went in there and saw the first cat, she was taken aback but by the time she saw the cats in the basement, she was horrified. It was a "hell, yeah" moment for me when she decided to call the SPCA. And the father can go to hell with his comments that he feels betrayed by what she did. Psychologists and other health care professionals have an obligation to preserve patient confidentiality, BUT if they see something that indicates a child is being abused, they are obligated to notify the authorities. Those cats, while not human, were clearly being abused. I could understand putting the cats into cages on a very temporary basis, such as a trip to the vet, or even just to keep them confined for a few hours while strangers are tracking in and out of the house and constantly opening exterior doors to haul stuff off. But this was how those cats were living 24/7. No fucking excuse for that. 

The son was a piece of work, entirely too prone to confrontation and probably violence. Someone upthread mentioned possibly Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and maybe that is part of the problem. His speech patterns were odd, to put it mildly, and he seemed unwilling to accept the reality that the house was entirely unfit for a baby (or anyone else, for that matter). You could tell he was slightly willing to go along with cleaning out the house so the baby could live there, but he had no instinctive sense that it would have been  unsafe to bring a baby into the filth. He seemed volatile, and I would have been afraid to interact with him. 

The son's girlfriend was apparently as dumb as a box of rocks. First, why on earth would you ever have had sex with the son?  Nothing about the son was in any way attractive (physically, intellectually, or emotionally). And second, what kind of delusional world are you in, that you would think it okay to bring  your infant, who has spent 2 months or something in NICU, into that house without having all the junk cleaned out and then having the entire house scrubbed down with bleach or something to kill off all the bacteria, mold, and who knows what else is there? I have gone through the horrible experience of having a newborn in NICU (thankfully, only for 3 weeks and for what turned out to be something very minor, gastrointestinal bleeding caused by an allergy to the protein in milk, which was fixed by using a very expensive baby formula with the protein already broken down). As a parent, generally you can be in the NICU with your infant except during shift changes, so there's maybe a couple of hours a day total when you can't be there. And in fact, the NICU nurses encouraged me and other parents to be there as much as possible, because they said the infants whose parents spent a lot of time there were more likely to survive and do better than those whose parents didn't come very often. Now that might be because for infants who are unlikely to survive, the parents just can't deal with being there that  much, but certainly at the time my daughter was in the NICU, I spent every possible moment I could there. The girlfriend in this episode, though, seemed like she wasn't spending any huge amount of time at the hospital, and was way more wrapped up in trying to mollify the son. Wasted effort there. As for the stepmother, I suspect she would have been willing to have her stepdaughter and the infant come live with her but on the condition that the son not join them. The stepmother was also obviously appalled at the condition of the house, and I suspect the reason she didn't haul the stepdaughter out of there on the spot was fear of physical violence from the boyfriend. The girlfriend needs a serious reality check: how on earth do you think a guy who has let a house get so bad, and who contributed to the hoarding, will be able to help take care of an infant?

That entire trio were just disgusting excuses for human beings. 

OMG, BookWoman56 I am watching this right now too! I will gladly join you in repeatedly smacking all of these numb nuts upside each of their stupid heads. I saw this one a while ago but can't remember what year this episode was shown and too tired right now to look that info up. Seriously, a VCR for every day of the week? Who the Hell wants a VCR these days anyway!?

I know this doesn't sound very politically correct to say it these days but sometimes people are just plain STUPID! Actually, in this case, it's hard to say which one is dumber but I'd have to put my money on the son's girlfriend. I cannot even conceive--pun intended--of sharing a cup of coffee with the son let alone dating him and having his baby.

And definitely, as you said, I have zero compassion for anyone whose behavior harms or negatively impacts the well being of either children or animals. I also feel so sorry for the neighbors as well. Can you imagine watching the biggest investment of your life losing value by the nanosecond? Can't stand these idiots.

[Minivanessa]

7 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

I happened to catch the "A VCR for Every Day of the Week" episode tonight in reruns, and I have rarely wanted so badly to be able to reach through my TV screen and slap multiple people. I sometimes feel sorry for hoarders when it's obvious they have some major mental illness going on, but not this time.

John Clements, the homeowner/father/junker, was in jail not long after the episode aired, on account of the condition of the house, according to this story from March 2014, updated in July 2014:  http://www.fox19.com/story/24944451/hoarder-in-court/

In March 2015 the judge was just over it. Said it was a waste of taxpayer money to fund yet a third attempt to clean up the place and verbally tore a strip - as the Brits would say - off Junker John Clements: https://local12.com/news/local/judge-speaks-frankly-to-hoarding-homeowner

I don't know if TLC aired any updates about these hoarders. 

[DC Gal in VA]

Hello all. Does anyone here remember this infuriating woman?

Her episode was shown recently but she annoyed me so much I had to turn it off. As you can see in the image above, there's an adorable dog next to her -- she has another one I believe -- which made me automatically hate her for keeping them in her filthy home. Of course she said how much she loves them and that they are like her children.😡

She lives in Ontario and the code enforcement officer assigned to her was annoying as well. He was so mild mannered and sweet talking her which really pissed me off even as he step over piles of dog poop and even pointed out a full bag of poop and asked her why she didn't throw it out. She mumbled something about not getting around to it. He was so laid back with no sense of urgency which he should have had because those poor dogs were at risk. Then, he actually left them there and said nothing about having them removed!

Also, there was something about her face that really ticked me off. She always seemed to have this smug smirk about the whole situation and her face looked more like a cartoon character to me than a real person.

Anyway, just wanted to know if anyone here knows the outcome of this case.

[Minivanessa]

47 minutes ago, DC Gal in VA said:

Hello all. Does anyone here remember this infuriating woman?

Her episode was shown recently but she annoyed me so much I had to turn it off. As you can see in the image above, there's an adorable dog next to her -- she has another one I believe -- which made me automatically hate her for keeping them in her filthy home. Of course she said how much she loves them and that they are like her children.😡

She lives in Ontario and the code enforcement officer assigned to her was annoying as well. He was so mild mannered and sweet talking her which really pissed me off even as he step over piles of dog poop and even pointed out a full bag of poop and asked her why she didn't throw it out. She mumbled something about not getting around to it. He was so laid back with no sense of urgency which he should have had because those poor dogs were at risk. Then, he actually left them there and said nothing about having them removed!

Also, there was something about her face that really ticked me off. She always seemed to have this smug smirk about the whole situation and her face looked more like a cartoon character to me than a real person.

Anyway, just wanted to know if anyone here knows the outcome of this case.

That was Beverly. She was discussed not too long ago on this thread. She died.

[DC Gal in VA]

1 hour ago, Jeeves said:

That was Beverly. She was discussed not too long ago on this thread. She died.

Hello Jeeves. Thank you for your response.  Wow, I did not know that she had died. I hate to say this but, to be honest, I just don't feel all that bad about hearing this. She was a detriment to her community but especially to those innocent dogs and I just can't muster any sympathy for any hoarder whose hoarding behavior brings harm to others.

She looked rather young to me; late thirties, maybe in her forties?

Do you know anything else about her demise of what happened to her dear dogs? I will skim through this topic as well.

Thanks again.

Edited to add: I read her obituary through this link https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/beverly-harris-obituary?pid=174250250&view=guestbook

People had so many wonderful things about her; not knocking them for what they had to say about but their comments left me a bit confused. I say this because I saw her treat a very dear friend horribly when she volunteered to come in and help her clean up. She was just so many levels of ungrateful and nasty to her. Oh well, I hope that those dogs found a happy and healthy home.

Edited March 25, 2019 by DC Gal in VA
Additional comments.

[Minivanessa]

@DC Gal in VA, thanks for the obit link. I also found Beverly annoying - but she said something about having never felt loved, during her episode, that resonated with me and made me feel some pity for her. OTOH I hated that she was one of those people who say (and probably truly believe) that they love their dogs, but don't give the dogs a decent clean place to live. And that sick hoarder behavior can just be so ugly to everyone in the vicinity.  But now Beverly's gone on, and maybe she's in a better place where she's feeling loved and not hoarding the place up. 

[DC Gal in VA]

16 minutes ago, Jeeves said:

@DC Gal in VA, thanks for the obit link. I also found Beverly annoying - but she said something about having never felt loved, during her episode, that resonated with me and made me feel some pity for her. OTOH I hated that she was one of those people who say (and probably truly believe) that they love their dogs, but don't give the dogs a decent clean place to live. And that sick hoarder behavior can just be so ugly to everyone in the vicinity.  But now Beverly's gone on, and maybe she's in a better place where she's feeling loved and not hoarding the place up. 

That's very compassionate of you to say about her; I know that I sound like an absolute meanie by contrast, LOL! When it comes to the loved ones of people like her, I always wonder if they feel love or, in this case, mourn the person that they used to be or the person that never existed but wish they were?

Edited March 25, 2019 by DC Gal in VA
Typo. Changed the word "high" to "you" LOL!

[Minivanessa]

5 minutes ago, DC Gal in VA said:

That's very compassionate of high to say about her; I know that I sound like an absolute meanie by contrast, LOL! When it comes to the loved ones of people like her, I always wonder if they feel love or, in this case, mourn the person that they used to be or the person that never existed but wish they were?

^^I've wondered the exact same thing.

[BookWoman56]

On 9/10/2018 at 11:34 AM, CrazyInAlabama said:

I'm watching the rerun of "It's Just Sex" with Herv and Janet who used their young sons death years ago as an excuse to neglect their other son, and trash their house.   This is the one where they were swingers, and Herv is still screwing his girlfriend Wendy.   Herv claims he and Wendy the Huge are just friends, but he invites her to clean the hoard, and shows her around his house, and discusses his sex life with the wife while standing on the bed.    Yes , Wendy is  the one that the narrator called the "elephant in the room", and the production crew showed a butt shot of her huge rear.   He claims he's no longer screwing Wendy, but he treats her way better, and talks to her much more intimately than his poor wife.    I did love when Dr. Becky was telling Wendy to leave, and she said she slept with Janet too.      The look on Dr. Becky's face is classic.   

If anyone thinks Herv and Wendy are over, they need to get a clue, it's obvious that the real relationship is Wendy and Herv, and Janet has been dumped years ago.     The poor son knew all of this, so he was living in a tent in the back yard because his parents are living with Wendy.     The son's friend in so nice, and helpful.     I can't believe the authorities let these people move back into a house that is falling down after the clean up.      Janet is fooling herself if she thinks anything will change.   

I disliked this couple, for a variety of reasons, but among them is that they may make other people think that most swingers are equally dysfunctional crappy human beings. As someone who has been in an open marriage and gone to actual swingers' clubs, I can say that this couple is in no way representative of the average couple who swings. Also, it ceases to be an open marriage or "swinging" when one spouse decides he/she is no longer comfortable with the arrangement. At that point, the couple needs to talk through options and the person who still wants an open marriage needs to decide if he/she is willing to give up sex on the side in order to maintain the marriage. If not, then the couple needs to split up rather than do this BS where Herv is having sex with Wendy and Janet is blaming Wendy for what Janet regards as Herv's infidelity. I disagreed with the psychologist when she commented that the state of the house reflected the state of their marriage; that's true to some extent, but it seems obvious that their marriage was already majorly fucked up well before Herv and Wendy became sex partners, and it sounds as if Janet was also having sex with Wendy. Maybe she just meant that she'd had a threesome with Herv and Janet; some of that situation was not entirely clear to me. But in any event, their marriage is not going to magically become wonderful just because Herv quits having sex with another woman for a while.

This is one of those episodes where I can feel only a slight amount of sympathy for the hoarders. Yes, it is a horrible thing to have your child die. I can envision being so out of it for a few weeks that stuff piles up because you just can't deal with it. But FFS, their other kid was 4 or something when the other child died, and if neither Herv nor Janet were even bothering to remove food scraps from the house, there is no way they were taking care of the 4-year-old adequately. I agree that the son's friend was incredibly nice; I'm happy for the son that he has a good friend because his parents are useless. I know that everybody grieves in different ways. But even in the midst of extreme grief for the loss of one child, shouldn't it register with you that you need to take care of your other child, or if you're unable to do so, that you need to get professional help to enable you to function well enough to take care of basic household maintenance? That couple, with their self-absorbed wallowing in grief for a dozen years or so, have left major psychological scars on their son who's still alive. And I seriously doubt their house will remain uncluttered for long unless both of them have some ongoing therapy. My gut feeling is that Herv managed at some point to work through the worst of his grief, and Janet didn't. Unless Janet has really done a 180 in terms of dealing with present reality effectively, Herv will hook back up with Wendy or someone else , and move out of the house and in with another woman at the earliest opportunity. 

[BookWoman56]

On 5/18/2015 at 10:55 PM, Beaner said:

I also caught the "last chance" episode with the woman whose name escapes me. She's the one who was a model back in the day, inherited a lot of money, had tons of clothes but wore pajamas in both episodes. It seems like many of the hoarders will clean if their backs are up against the wall, but this one wouldn't/couldn't do it & lost everything. What a sad waste.

On 5/19/2015 at 1:45 AM, lovesnark said:

Louise was her name. She's clearly so mentally ill and out of touch with anything related to reality that I wasn't surprised at all to see her fawning over her tons of clothes in her storage unit after she'd been evicted from the apartment she lived in. I've never seen any of the hoarders say their clothes tell them when they want to go out and that she takes several outfits out at a time because the others would be sad if they were left behind.

I'm glad she had a friend that owned an apartment building and was willing to let her rent a room. For someone like her, having concrete limits on what she could bring into her room, inspections and a contract is the only way for her to have a safe place to live without the possibility of her filling it with stuff. 

I saw this episode a few evenings ago, and Louse is one of the very few hoarders that I feel sorry for, without a ton of qualifiers. She obviously has some kind of mental illness or cognitive dysfunction going on where she's just not able to process reality. She reminded me a bit of someone I used to know, who at around age 18 had suffered traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident. If you talked to her for 5 minutes, you'd think she just had a bubbly personality; 10 minutes and you'd think she was slightly tipsy; 20 minutes, and you'd realize some of her cognitive functions were just not right. With Louise, it was like she just could not comprehend that it was better to select the stuff she wanted the most and get rid of the other things, rather than to sit there with all of her clothes and stuff intact until she was evicted  and as her friend kept telling her, all of her stuff would probably end up in dumpsters. I don't know if her mental problems began only after her parents died, but she's someone who would have been a lot better off if her parents had put the money into a trust and had some sort of conservator oversee her expenses and so forth. While that wouldn't have necessarily stopped the hoarding, it would have meant her rent and utilities would be paid and only the money left over each month after those basic needs had been taken care of could be spent on the stuff she's hoarding. 

Edited March 31, 2019 by BookWoman56

[Oosala]

On 3/18/2019 at 2:14 PM, smartyshorts said:

Thank the Non Specific Deity

Fucking awesome.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm watching the one with Karen, her husband died three years ago and she now has a house that is endangering her children.      The two boys are so cute, and lost, and she's a horrible excuse for a mother.     I'm glad the social worker from school called CPS, and they told her to leave the house, and clean everything up,  or they would take the boys.   Now if someone will rescue those poor animals, and then bulldoze that house, it will have a good start on her next hoard.      She just smiles through everything, like it's all a big joke.    I wish some relatives would step up, and let Karen go back to her pile of trash, and take the boys and the animals in to live a decent life.       And the kids, and Karen move to a hotel, leaving the animals behind in the trash pile? 

There is no way the house got like that in three years.   Another hoarder on this show that claims they started hoarding recently, and instead it's been years.     So CPS shows up on one day, and Dr. Becky shows up that afternoon, with a crew coming behind her?   

I'm hoping in the many years since this was filmed that the boys have escaped her, and never look back.  

Edited August 20, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[atlantaloves]

Crazy: Good post, and I think that horrible woman needs to be put in jail, she is a criminal. God that was a horrible story, three years my ass! I agree with you.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm making the huge mistake of watching a rerun called "Tiny Monsters" with  Sherry, the queen of the recliners who blamed everything on her kids.   She died a few years ago.   However, I still hate her guts.     I hate her husband even more, because he moved out,  and left those poor kids in that roach pile.  What a bunch of bull to say he deserted his kids to that hell hole because otherwise his loser ex wife or whatever her status, would have her benefits cut.    Look at the nasty, unhealthy teeth on those children.    They won't make thirty before they have to get dentures.  

 When the exterminators are complaining about the roaches, and other vermin, you know it's beyond belief how bad it is.   Thank heavens nobody ever invented smell-o-vision.     I'm sure the exterminators went to the nearest hot shower, and stood in there for a week, and burned their clothes after.   I can't believe the organizer, and junk people have to handle used sanitary pad, and hypodermics everywhere.  Why didn't they tape the appliances up, and take them to disposal closed?  

Sherry's the one when asked about her roach infested baskets, and if they can be trashed, answers "Sure, my mother can come out of her grave and make more".   Those baskets don't look home made, but cheapies from the hobby store.   I really wish the organizer or someone would kick that lazy jerk out of that recliner.   She sure moves fast when she gets insulted, and almost runs to her van.  

I can only hope the health department, and CPS showed up to monitor this pile of total c$*%.    Those poor children of hers never had a chance.    So the loser husband comes home, because it's now cleaner?    What a jerk he is.   You know Sherry started dumping trash all over again, most hoarders do.      My only regret is that Sherry didn't die sooner, and free her children from that filth, and vermin.     

Edited August 23, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

She died a few years ago. 

No loss there.

Wasn't she the one who decided to go lay in bed and do nothing while everyone cleaned around her?

The recliner with the mountains of empty Pepsi cases that surrounded it is forever burned in my memory.

[JudyObscure]

Sherry, if not number one, at least makes my top ten of despicable hoarders.  She wasn't about to clean because  the kids had made a little bit of the mess and she sure wasn't going to clean-up after anyone else, not even a little bit.  I bet she didn't change her kids diapers because it was their fault they were dirty.

I haven't seen it in years, but as I remember, it was after the therapist said, "But it's your house," that she huffed off. I wanted someone to follow her to the truck and say, "Your kids are working in school for seven hours a day, do you work for seven hours cleaning each day?  Seven minutes?  Do you think your mother wanted her baskets to be swarming with roaches?  Maybe she'll come out of her grave and whip your behind. Could you have a least put a waste basket next to your recliner and tossed your needles in it?  Was that too much trouble?  What do you do all day?  How do you get food?  You had the energy to make these kids why don't you summon as much energy to raise them?  Why are you such a a lazy waste of space?"  I mean as long as she was mad anyway.

It's clear that some of the hoarders are mentally ill and think their stuff will keep them safe, but it's also pretty obvious when some are just lazy and think they deserve to be waited on.

[enoughcats]

"are just lazy and think they deserved to be waited on"

translation:

Have gotten good at playing the system.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I don't believe that on this series almost all of the hoarders clean everything up.   I suspect like the lady today who owned both sides of a duplex, that virtually everything went in the other side.    The rest of them probably have a garage or storage units they rented so their places look empty. 

Why is everyone on this show "Overwhelmed"?   Never have a drinking game using that word during a hoarder show.  

They're showing the classic rerun "My Teeth Are Lost in the Pile", with Lynn who lost her dentures in the hoard (squeamish people need to skip the next sentence).

Spoiler

When the cleaners find her dentures, she picks them up and pops them right in her mouth. 

Edited August 23, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[CrazyInAlabama]

Rerun of "Worst I've Ever Seen" with Caryn, where she is out of the home, and has 90 days to get the disgusting garbage pile of a home cleaned out or the city will condemn and bulldoze it.       If Caryn attaches so much value to her jewelry from her parents, then why is it in piles of mold and garbage in her dump of a home?   When the organizer says it's the most mold and rotten garbage she's ever seen, that's saying something. 

Theresa is the one who had an adult daughter who was in an abusive relationship, and wants the place cleaned up so daughter, and granddaughter can move in.   I can tell you now, someone who is a professional thrift store shopper, and has trashed a house, and the acre or so around it, will never clean up.    If these houses are cleaned out, then they simply moved the stuff to other storage, and probably moved it right back.      The daughter finally got a clue, and found her own place.    I'm sure the house was full again in no time. 

I hate how people like Theresa say everything they own can be sold, and everything is collectible, or vintage, and will bring a lot of money, and they're deluded.   Even when an appraiser looks at the used clothes, and tells her it's not vintage, or valuable, she doesn't believe it.  

Edited August 28, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[atlantaloves]

I'll tell you one word I am sick of hearing on these shows, the word CLUTTER...it isn't clutter when it is trash covered with rat poop and piss and dog poop and God knows what else folks. Oh, have you all ever noticed that in every single show there is always a lone lamp shade among all the valuable clutter? What is it with the lamp shades, they all have them!

[CrazyInAlabama]

The word I'm sick of on this show is "overwhelmed", it's used constantly on both hoarder shows, and 600 lb.     If you have a drink at each mention, you'll be drunk before half way through an episode.

Beverly's episode is on, and I can't stand her.   Her friend comes over to help her clean, and she won't let her touch anything.   That was after the friend had come over and helped her a few years before.    That poor officer that had to deal with her, and her hostile delusions had my sympathy.    I love the city forcibly cleaned up the yard, and wish more places did that.    I know it will upset the hoarder, but neighbors shouldn't have to live next to a yard full of garbage, and vermin.    Her poor dogs that she claimed to love looked so unhealthy.     I wonder if her parents had any money left after bailing her out time after time.      It does warm up in Canada, so having the outdoors as her refrigerator isn't going to work year round.     She may have said she wanted help, but she didn't love anything but her hoard.     Delusional to the end wasn't she?   I felt sorry for the dogs, and the neighbors, but not the friends that put up with her nastiness, and the parents that enabled her.   

I love Dr. Becky talking to Beverly as if she was a rational human being, and not just a passive-aggressive leach on her parents, and cruel by keeping her dogs in that pile of garbage house.     And a note to the late Beverly, yes the city can condemn your property, bulldoze it, and the SPCA can take the dogs for their own safety.   If Beverly valued and cared for her dogs, then she would have them in a clean, healthy environment.     

The Beverly attempt at clean up is ridiculous, where they get the giant moving pod for her valuable stuff.    I love that the two adorable constables came to help clean, and both look about two seconds from losing their lunch.   I also like the older constable that said the house wasn't even safe to clean the upstairs, and should be bulldozed.   Beverly is so ungrateful, and deluded.   I was done with her when she started going through the dumpster, and claiming broken items, and pile of dog feces were all things to keep.    So was Beverly a smoker?  Because she got upset when they tried to throw away her favorite ashtray.    

I can't believe the nice young officer actually drank coffee at Beverly's house on the revisit.    In the two years she lived after this, I'm positive that she made the house just as bad.   You notice the revisit didn't show the downstairs she was sleeping in,.   That kitchen was still disgusting after, and I'm sure the constable stopped checking up, she hoarded the place full again.  

Edited August 30, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[ChristmasJones]

Just watched a rerun of the episode called "Tiny Monsters" - which featured the she-beast Sherri who sat in her recliner blaming her kids for the mess while she filled the house with empty Pepsi bottles and used insulin syringes. Her house was infested with millions of roaches and black widow spiders. 

She was such a nasty bitch to everyone in this episode. An organizer said she wanted to save some baskets but since there was such an insect infestation in the house, they were destroyed and needed to be tossed out. Sherri replies "yeah,, I guess my mother can come back out of the grave and make some more" in a drippingly sarcastic tone. UH, she is horrid!!

The father also completely sucks for leaving the kids there. The oldest daughter was going to be turning 18 a few months after they filmed- I hope she has moved far, far away. She seemed like a really nice kid given the hell she was living in.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, ChristmasJones said:

UH, she is horrid!!

She was! Read upthread a little...Sherri is probably hoarding Pepsi cases in Hell now. 

[ChristmasJones]

2 hours ago, Giant Misfit said:

She was! Read upthread a little...Sherri is probably hoarding Pepsi cases in Hell now. 

Did she die?  I scrolled back a bit....

[Guest]

@ChristmasJones

Here's the post:

On 8/21/2019 at 8:48 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

I'm making the huge mistake of watching a rerun called "Tiny Monsters" with  Sherry, the queen of the recliners who blamed everything on her kids.   She died a few years ago.   However, I still hate her guts.     I hate her husband even more, because he moved out,  and left those poor kids in that roach pile.  What a bunch of bull to say he deserted his kids to that hell hole because otherwise his loser ex wife or whatever her status, would have her benefits cut.    Look at the nasty, unhealthy teeth on those children.    They won't make thirty before they have to get dentures.  

 When the exterminators are complaining about the roaches, and other vermin, you know it's beyond belief how bad it is.   Thank heavens nobody ever invented smell-o-vision.     I'm sure the exterminators went to the nearest hot shower, and stood in there for a week, and burned their clothes after.   I can't believe the organizer, and junk people have to handle used sanitary pad, and hypodermics everywhere.  Why didn't they tape the appliances up, and take them to disposal closed?  

Sherry's the one when asked about her roach infested baskets, and if they can be trashed, answers "Sure, my mother can come out of her grave and make more".   Those baskets don't look home made, but cheapies from the hobby store.   I really wish the organizer or someone would kick that lazy jerk out of that recliner.   She sure moves fast when she gets insulted, and almost runs to her van.  

I can only hope the health department, and CPS showed up to monitor this pile of total c$*%.    Those poor children of hers never had a chance.    So the loser husband comes home, because it's now cleaner?    What a jerk he is.   You know Sherry started dumping trash all over again, most hoarders do.      My only regret is that Sherry didn't die sooner, and free her children from that filth, and vermin.     

[atlantaloves]

I'm with you gals, she is at the top of my list for nasty bitches....I hated her with a white hot passion. A total pig person. Glad she is dead. (yeah I said it)

[ItsHelloPattiagain]

Just binged a bunch of episodes and I'm glad I wasn't the only one that hated Sherri with a white hot passion (waves at atlantaloves). I wanted to slap her through the TV. 

And I had to come on and share with y'all. . . . I went to the doctor's office today and saw an actual hoarded vehicle in the parking lot. It was an older model SUV with a scooter lift on the back (covered with random stuff including a gas can which isn't a great idea in case somebody hits you). The entire car was stuffed to the roof with clothing, papers, plastic bags, stuffed animals, etc. There was room in the driver's seat but the passenger seat was filled with clothing, towels and papers. There were Post-It notes all over the inside of the windshield and hanging from the rear view mirror. 

And when I came back out, an older guy was coming from across the street at the hospital. He was changing shirts and grabbing random bags of stuff from inside the car so I really got a good look (while pretending to check my Facebook). I just couldn't look away. It's really strange seeing one in the wild lol. 

[Two Souls]

Does anyone know what ever happened to Marie who was a former model who said her”things” were her children and she had squandered a sizable inheritance and was two months from eviction.  She refused to deal with her hoard.  

[enoughcats]

5 hours ago, Two Souls said:

Marie

Are you thinking the woman in California who had really nice things that looked clean, except there were too many of them? Who had storage units with even more things, some duplicates in different sizes?  Who wanted to donate her hot tub to a worthy cause. but the tub was worthless?

I think they did a followup that showed the woman I mention  above having given up all her stuff and being allowed to live in an empty room where whe was sleeping under a pyramid? 

[atlantaloves]

Yep, you are right, they did do a followup and she was living in a room from a friend under her pyramid thing.  She was so crazy, poor thing. Remember all she wore were cute little cotton p.j.'s on camera? Who does that? A wacko, that's who. Better than looking at some two ton toothless Tessie who doesn't own a bra though. Snort. Sorry. Had to say it.🐽

[enoughcats]

1 hour ago, atlantaloves said:

Remember all she wore were cute little cotton p.j.'s on camera?

Dang.  I knew somewhere in my mind I had buried the inspiration for Villanelle

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/jodie-comer-killing-eve-season-2-1550161054.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=480:*

[atlantaloves]

Enoughcats: Oh my dear kitty kat, you are so funny, thank you.  I love Miss V. She is the goddess of all things evil. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

They showed the rerun of Michelle, she was from Takoma (I think), and had lost her house because of years of unpaid taxes, and the new landlords changed the locks.   The new landlords thought the house was abandoned, but the woman was still crawling in the window, and living on top of the hoard.    The episode was called "Full of Rats", and Michelle had millions of huge rats in the house, under the foundation and throughout her yard.     They cleared out the house.   

The investors let her move back in as long as she would get financing to buy it, but she never could.     They did a follow up in 2015, and she hadn't fully filled the house up, but the investors said she could keep renting it.    Good luck reselling that place.   I feel sorry for the neighbors, because you know those thousands of rats had to relocate somewhere.     

[Minivanessa]

Discovery Life has been showing a couple of repeat episodes of this series per day. Right now it's S3: E14, "Overwhelming Pile of Junk." Featuring Debbie in Iowa, who TBH I don't remember. And that loathsome asshole CHIP. Whose hoarding has filled up a large house and half a dozen trailers, forcing his four kids and his wife who has bad health problems, to live in 1600 Sq Ft which is a fraction of what the house could be if Self-centered Asshole Chip hadn't (a) spent all his money at thrift stores instead remodeling, and (b) hoarded the shit out of the place.

The onscreen guide says this episode is from March 23, 2011. I wonder whatever happened to Chip and his family. I was going to call him a toad, but that would be an insult to toads everywhere.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Jeeves
The hoarder was Chip; his wife was Dale.

[atlantaloves]

Yeah, I hated Chip too....hope his wife divorced his selfish ass and moved on! God! 

[Minivanessa]

Oh goody. Tonight's repeat on Discovery Life is S5:Ep3 - "Sleeping in a Dumpster." Featuring Laura, who's in I think NJ in her crapped-up trash-filled filthy hoarded house, and talks about wanting to sell the house so she can move to Arizona where all her relatives now live. She has these two adult sons who are mercilessly negative and can't speak without haranguing her - "It's all junk, it's all going straight to the dumpster, it's awful," and yada yada. 

At the cleanup her sons were totally into tossing stuff without even pretending to consult their mom despite all the things the coach and the therapist said about the rules for the cleanup. And of course Laura got upset because they "aren't looking through stuff."

And then, right at 44 minutes after the start of the show - a fire breaks out in the kitchen. 

I vaguely remember this episode from a long time ago. As horrible a mess as Laura's house was, and as sick and disordered her thinking was, I remember thinking, that poor woman has asshole sons whose only tool for any emotional situation is a sledgehammer. I hated those guys, as much as I could understand how appalled and disgusted they were at the conditions their mother was living in.

The episode isn't over yet. I'm hitting the post key while they're fighting the fire in the kitchen.

ETA: Well, okay at the end of the episode one of her sons showed up to see the house several weeks later, and the place was really cleaned up. He was nice to his mom, affectionate, and surprised her with delivery of a new mattress and box springs which she deeply needed. So, okay, I don't hate the sons so much anymore.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Jeeves