Hoarding: Buried Alive - General Discussion

[AZChristian]

11 minutes ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

Looks like (from the Google) that Floyd has become a self-professed preacher and demi-god and is clearly completely off whatever rocker he might have had to start with. Poor Charlie and Lily. 

I wish the accompanying article had included an update on what happened to Charlie and Lily.

[PamelaMaeSnap]

Damn, he’s even worse than I thought. Though it shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’m sure his Boys who posted responses are very Proud of him. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

I saw the amazing (not in a good way amazing) rerun of Rhonda, who was forcibly cleaned up by the city only a year ago, and has managed to again fill the entire yard, her house plus basement (where her dog lives), and the camper.   Everything roach infested.    Her daughter (she has two but I don't know if the second came back for the show) was so heartbreaking, thinking that someday her mother will clean up, and stay that way.  She's the one that manages to gross Dr. Becky out by announcing the dog's pee pads are actually free, and are cadaver pads from the funeral home.    I'm betting the dog wasn't the only one using them either, since her plumbing in the house, and camper (where she slept) was inaccessible.       The highlight for me was when she went over to the taxidermy deer head she found in the trash and reclaimed, and was petting it as if it was alive.   At the end it was sitting on the sofa in the living room.      

She made the other hoarders on here look almost normal.   

As usual on this show, the living, dining and kitchen was cleaned up, and the bedroom too I think.   My guess is she filled everything up in a year again.  I bet she either went out and gathered more junk or found somewhere to stash the part she cleaned up in storage or somewhere.  

[mmecorday]

Quote

They're re-running Sherry.  I can't look away.  This is truly the most despicable person EVER on one of these shows.

Sherry's episode was on tonight. She wasn't really a hoarder -- she was too lazy to clean her house. She sat around all day long in that filthy recliner and drank diet Pepsi. She didn't properly dispose of her insulin syringes -- she just threw them on the floor. The bathrooms were piled high with soiled maxi pads. The place was crawling with roaches, so much so that the exterminators were grossed out by their sheer numbers. She said one day her children stopped taking the trash out and that's why the house was messy. She couldn't possibly do it because she had 13 disabilities. One of them had to be severe depression. What a nasty broad.

[ItsHelloPattiagain]

19 hours ago, mmecorday said:

They're re-running Sherry.  I can't look away.  This is truly the most despicable person EVER on one of these shows.

Ugh, she still remains one of my least favorite people on this show. I felt so sorry for her children, particularly the girl. 

[auntjess]

Watching Mary, the retired lawyer and nasty bitch. 
Her rowhouse may be condemned, and she deserves it.

[CrazyInAlabama]

Mary's house was trashed by her, it was condemned, and she abandoned the house, and moved to Florida.  Her sister lived in Florida, but at the early parts of the episode, the sister said Mary was not going to move in with her.   It wouldn't be the first time that a hoarder moved in with a relative, or assisted living, and went back to hoarding.    My guess is Mary moved into a condo in Florida, and hoarded it out very quickly, but then that's just a guess based on watching both Hoarder shows for years.

I had to comment on the episode of the woman in Colorado Springs (Vickie).   She hoarded out her own basement, all of the empty bedrooms, and I bet if there was an attic she trashed that too, plus her son's basement across the street, and two gigantic storage units, plus a closed grocery store (9,000 sq. ft.) in a part of downtown Colorado Springs that I wouldn't go to even in daylight.      (I lived in that town for a long time, and parts of downtown are very dangerous, and I'm not talking just shady, but dangerous).     She admitted that she spent $5,000 a year on storage and rental fees for her hoard, plus buying multiples of many items that she didn't even use.     

Their adult children all knew too, and the husband was devastated when he found out everyone knew, and kept it a secret.       They did clean out her house, but they didn't show the son's basement getting cleaned out. and I bet that the one storage unit she kept for seasonal items, is probably morphed into others by now.    Vickie was so proud that her hoard was clean, and not vermin infested, but her lying, and roping her adult kids into storing stuff in their homes, and lying to the husband (Jeff, I think).      I'm betting that the mother told the adult liars she raised that if they told the father, he would have another heart attack, and it would be their fault.  

If the husband was smart, he would divorce her, and start over.     She will never stop hoarding. 

 I bet the son's basement was never emptied either.  The son should sell his house, and make sure the contract says that everything conveys, and let someone else get rid of Mommy Dearest's hoard.   Give the new buyer $10k or $20k credit for clean out costs, and get his balls back from Mommy's purse.  I would love to see that lying cretin's face when her 'collectibles' and 'treasures' were hauled away, and she was told that it was going right to the dump, and if she came on the new owner's property she would be arrested.  

Edited December 18, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[JudyObscure]

10 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

a closed grocery store (9,000 sq. ft.) in a part of downtown Colorado Springs that I wouldn't go to even in daylight. 

Where are thieves when you need them?

[CrazyInAlabama]

The stuff that woman had in storage, and the old grocery store, looked like it was old, and anything electric wouldn't be sellable (or stealable), and nothing looked particularly nice.    That woman (Vicky?) was so proud that she was a clean hoarder, just because she was also a lying b-word who trashed her house, her son's basement, and lied to her husband, and spent thousands on storage units, the store, and buying massive amounts of garbage doesn't make her anything by a liar.     

Edited December 18, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[auntjess]

In Mary's case, I'd think she;s exposing her clients' personal information to any passer by, 
 

 

[CrazyInAlabama]

They're having a Hoarding: Buried Alive, Last Chance marathon on Discovery Life (DISLIFE) on Christmas day.   They show a lot of the original episode, then at the end to see what the place looks like now.    Ronda from Dallas is on now (2 p.m. Central), from 2010 originally, and follow up was 2015. 

Follow up in 2015 was funny, the woman now has six cats, and thinks she's never been a hoarder, and needs to clean out a few boxes and items in the back yard.  Camera crew shows the back yard that barely has room to walk through.    She says her bedroom needs a little work, and it's packed with only a little space to use part of the mattress.   Living room has a central area that's cleared, but most of the sides have boxes, and bookcases filling the area.    She can only use one bathroom, the other one is now storage.     Another failed clean up. 

They're having the follow up of Michelle, the one in Washington state with rats everywhere, where two brothers bought her house at auction.     Then the brothers agree she can buy the house back for what they paid for it, but she has to keep the house clean (doesn't happen), and she never got a mortgage, or even attempted to, so she's going to be evicted.   Her first episode was 2013, and the follow up is 2015.  

Edited December 26, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[auntjess]

On 1/3/2019 at 10:44 AM, JudyObscure said:

I just watched Maggie in Chicago.  A pleasant looking woman with well done hair and an embarrassed smile as her teenage son Justin talks about how he has a serious lung condition and the slightest bump on the chest could kill him.  She has piled up the whole house, including his room,  with chairs teetering on top of wobbly, ten foot high stacks.  Her older son comes to visit and talks about how dangerous it is for his little brother.  Maggie giggles and says, "But you can sort of see my point of view can't you?"  He says, "No.  It all looks like junk to me."  Maggie's eyes fill with tears and she looks really hurt for the first time. He's dissing her stuff.

I just saw a rerun of this, and can't figure out why neither of the older daughters took the brother to live with them  Also, why the show people didn't report her to CPS.  I hated her as much as I've hated any, and hope the son survived to adulthood.  (Show was 2011.)
 

[LuciaMia]

Theyre reshowing Wayne ("Youll Never Get Out Alive"), the former Principal who was so traumatized by an anonymous letter from a student that it turned him into a hermit in his hoarded-up home. Ive seen in before and theres just something so phony about his whole aspect.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm watching the rerun of Rhonda of Franklin, TN (filmed in 2013) who has hoarded her house so full, that only her dog lives in it.  Dog uses pee pads, that are actually used by the local funeral home under cadavers.    My guess is judging from Dr. Becky's fact that she's figured out the dog isn't the only one who pees on the pads.   I bet Rhonda gets them out of the dumpster too. 

Rhonda lives in a hoarded full camper behind the house.    Rhonda Cutler, is BSC (first word Bat, last word Crazy), and I feel so sorry for her daughter.   The daughter is another one that thinks that if she tries hard enough, and goes on this TV show to be abused by her mother again, that the mother will change.    The city forced a clean up a year before this was filmed, and Rhonda claims the city is going to condemn her house.    Why don't the authorities ever carry through, and actually do this?     Rhonda, like all hoarders, just loves the attention, and getting her a** kissed by everyone.   It took her one year to fill up the outside, and add more to the inside, she's hopeless.   She's one of the happy ones, until she gets crossed.  

She lets them clear the outside of the house up (including the nest of black widows), but then her real attitude shows when they want to start on the inside.   Rhonda is totally unconnected with reality.    She doesn't need someone kissing up to her, she needs a locked ward.    

Her neighbor tells the truth, after the filming the neighbor saw Rhonda digging in the dumpster, and hauling stuff into the camper.     The house inside looks decent, but all of the furniture looks old, and lumpy.   I want to know why Rhonda has tarps on the windows, and curtains over all of the doorways?  The kitchen is OK, but it still looks full of stuff.    Notice they didn't show anything but the living/dining/and kitchen.  

Edited April 24, 2021 by CrazyInAlabama

[JudyObscure]

[I remember Rhonda and the pee pads.  Poor dog]

I'm watching Doug, "It's a Rat's Nest."  Nice looking older man engaged to a woman who has been living with her grown daughter.  Daughter, Suzanne, brings her mom to see the house Doug plans to share with her mom.  Of course it's floor to ceiling hoard and Doug is so incredibly mean to the nice daughter who only wants a safe place for her mom.  He even threatened to punch her after the mildest expression of shock. He says, "Suzanne doesn't know when to shut up."

This little house is right on the beach!  It could be a piece of heaven.

I've never seen anyone so good at denial.  Even though Suzanne broke her leg from Doug's hoard falling on her, and had to spend an extra month in the hospital because his house wasn't safe for her to return to, when the psychologist asks him if he feels his house is unsafe, he says no.  He also said he didn't feel responsibility for her accident.  I guess it was her fault for disturbing the tower of clutter as she walked by.

He's so nasty to Suzanne I'm surprised her mother stays with him.
 

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm still shocked at Sharon's house (in Arlington, VA), depending on who you're related to politically, or how much money you have, codes enforcement should have done something about her long before this show aired.     She's the one who was stealing from her neighbors, including the shocked neighbor who does the tour of the hoard, and recognizes items she had in her basement, for a charity donation.    Sharon's solution was clean some up, but put it in the back yard under tarps, in big piles.    

[chediavolo]

There’s hoarding of items, messy, very messy, ridiculously messy. To the other end of the spectrum of clearly mentally ill people who throw their garbage on the floor, never clean, don’t have a usable kitchen or bathroom so they P&S in a useless toilet or tub. Etc etc. I can’t imagine the stench. I can never get over how when they show relatives or even the professionals viewing the home they are usually nowhere near geared up. If I lived next door to one of the homes I’d be calling codes, social services, child welfare & animal welfare religiously. 
Just watched the show with the women identical twins whose trigger was losing their brother in Vietnam decades ago. Of course, I can’t understand the connection. I have personally lost a lot in my life and never once thought it would be ok to live in a bio hazard. These two were clearly mentally challenged, very low IQ,  should have been living in a mental health facility. Of course the care of the mentally ill in this country is deplorable. How did they have so much money, from retirement savings!, when it said they both worked in a bakery & were fired?  Also, were those poor cats just abandoned?😔 

Edited May 30, 2021 by chediavolo

[chediavolo]

Just watched the one with the Asian woman who spoke multiple languages & almost became a lawyer. I found her situation particularly sad because she was so intelligent but so very mentally ill. She was delusional. This show is do unsatisfying in that way. The expert said she was living in a fantasy world & she was worried about her. Then we never find out if this woman is getting help. She is able to buy back her house even though she was fired from her job. What bank gave her a loan?! And how Luis it going to take for her to turn that house back into a rats nest? I feel for these people for having such a hot illness but is is frustrating. And if one of them lived near me I’d be livid. How are these homes not condemned years prior? Or even able to carry insurance?! wtf ?! 
I bet her neighbors were real happy to see this delusional insane person was going to shit (literally because you know known of them have a usable bathroom) this place right back up pronto! 

[CrazyInAlabama]

If that's Michelle (?)from Washington state, it's actually worse.    They did do a follow up, and she never got a mortgage, and the brothers were finally going to have to foreclose and evict her.   They rented to her for two years, on the conditions that she gets a mortgage, and didn't rehoard   She was never a licensed attorney, because she never passed the bar exam.     She rehoarded the house, about a level 3 (out of 5 being the worst).     

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm watching the biggest hoard on Discovery Life channel, and it's just reruns of the regular episodes.    Randy, moving into his own home, after 20 years in an apartment was awful.    They claim at the end he cleared out everything, but my guess is there is a very happy storage unit facility that has a bunch of newly rented storage units.    He collected CDs, vinyl records, framed pictures, and a lot of other collectibles from garage sales.     Poor Dr. Becky has to wade through his place, 4 feet off the floor.   His big mistake was going to the new house to see how full it is from his keep pile, and leaving his sisters and Dr. Becky to finish the apartment.    They cleaned it out to the carpet, and filled 30 yards of dumpsters.     He says he was happy, but his eyes say that he was lying.   

I had to laugh at the amount of stuff that the sisters, and Dr. Becky shoveled out of that apartment in a very short time.     I'm betting that Randy had his junk stashed.   I wish they had opened the garage door, and looked out back.    

Then, Gary from Colorado, who sleeps outside, because his house is packed, and so is his acreage.    He's one of those nasty hoarders, right from the first scene.  They get rid of virtually nothing from his massively hoarded home, and property.    I couldn't even watch past the first few scenes.    

 

[BooksRule]

I haven't watched this show in a long time, so I thought I would let today's marathon (on DLife, or whatever the channel is called) run in the background while I cleaned house.  I just saw the episode from 2010 with the woman who has OCD and had problems throwing anything away because she had to examine everything (read all the labels) and also clean anything that she was actually throwing away (such as the empty cat food cans). I had lots of sympathy for her because I know that she wasn't being lazy.  When OCD thoughts take hold, it's hard to overcome them (and I'm speaking from a person who gets 'stuck' sometimes due to my compulsion to make lists before I do anything and to do certain things a certain way or I can't do them at all).  Her husband seemed understanding and was really trying to help.  I would love to know how she's doing now.

Jeff, on the other hand, was a real jerk.  Him and his newspaper, magazine, and book hoarding. He was sarcastic, rude, and I wanted to smack that smirk off of his face more than once. I also know that he was so resistant to cleaning out his house that when they showed that perfectly clean (except for the overflowing bookcases) downstairs at the end, you just know that he had just moved the paper hoard upstairs (or into a storage unit).  We saw him go ballistic when the organizer started to fold one newspaper clipping. There was no way that he could have gotten rid of that hoard all by himself in two months.   I think that they should have just left him to his hoard.  He wasn't hurting anyone but himself.  

[JudyObscure]

I thought I had seen every episode but I now know I missed one of the best -- Laura in Vegas! Laura is blond, ex-model, works as an extra in movies, so of course she must be prepared with every sort of vintage clothing since the fig leaf. 

Yet, it was Laura's daughter Alicia  who stole the show -- a skinny woman with long black hair wearing a tiny dress and heels and sooo very dramatic. Between telling us, out of the blue, that she came in second in the Miss Nebraska contest, "I should have won," and reminding us that she was beautiful, she did cart wheels and splits and collapsed to the ground every few minutes to "rest." 

Her mother threw a loud jacket in the trash and Alicia pulled it out, put it on, and said she had to go show it to the workmen.  I'm sure she thought they would tell her she made every thing look good but she had to say that herself.  What the worker actually said was that Alicia was "forty-five going on four."

Alicia had her boyfriend with her.  I couldn't take anything the man said seriously because he had died blond hair with two inches of black roots.  He was gone by the time they did the revisit a few year later.  I was surprised that Laura's  house was still fairly cleaned up.  She had cleared a bare place in Alicia's old bedroom for which Alicia promptly changed into a skimpy little outfit to show us her yoga moves. Hee!

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm very suspicious of the cleaned out areas of the houses on this show.   The hoarders go from packed floor to ceiling, and not wanting to let go of anything, to cleaned out, and I suspect that there are a bunch of rented storage units or full garages, that we're never told about.    

[Taeolas]

Maybe I'm not as suspicious as you, but I don't tend to suspect the results. 

Unlike A&E's Hoarders, this show doesn't seem to have as set of a timeline. They have the setup, and they tend to have one or two "heavy cleaning" days to do as much of a purge as possible on camera. 

But the final wrap up is always weeks, if not months later, enough time for the hoarder to turn a corner if they are going to. And the end results are not always perfect; more than a few shows have had the wrap up show the place is as hoarded as it was before; or maybe it had a minimal cleaning. More shows seem to show more interim results; the hoard is shrinking and the hoarder does seem to be improving, but there is still a lot of work to do. 

Very few shows resulted in a fully clean/livable house. Those ones might have full attics/garages/storage units lurking elsewhere. 

 

Anyways, the results ultimately usually do feel more 'real' than A&E's shows results. But I'm sure both shows are heavily scripted regardless. 

[auntjess]

I watched the reruns of the follow-up episodes on the worst hoarders, but weren't there updates on Louise later? 

[CrazyInAlabama]

 

I think they said on some other update, maybe not even on the show, she did have to leave her apartment, and moved into a friend's apartment, and kept hoarding, so lost the apartment.   

Here's an update from last year:

https://www.distractify.com/p/what-happened-louise-hoarders

 

Edited September 25, 2021 by CrazyInAlabama

[JudyObscure]

6 minutes ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

moved into a bedroom at a friend's place.  

Those are the most chilling words on TV. The real follow up shows should be devoted to saving those friends and relatives who took in the hoarders and are now buried under a mountain of thrift store bargains and adult diapers.

[enoughcats]

If Louise is the one who had some really nice things, just too many of them and was so upset that her hot tub was in such bad shape that it couldn't be donated to someone for therapy?

There was a followup showing her moved into an almost empty apartment with a huge pyramid outlines by (?) sticks and twine in the center for the something something something power of pyramids.  That she was in that room with the understanding that she was totally limited by what she could move into it.

[JudyObscure]

TLC is showing a few episodes today.  I feel like I need to watch them because. like so many shows I like, the re-runs will dwindle away until they're gone forever.  If only I still had a VHS player I could hoard them!

Today was a woman who had already been to jail four times for hoarding and still wouldn't part with anything. Then  a woman whose grown daughter had moved back in with her husband and child and were upset about the hoard, but I really didn't think they had the right to complain.  I was on the hoarder's side as Laura tried to throw out things that weren't hers.  Her mom had boxes never opened that she claims she was going to send to the Philippines. Um hum.

[SunnyBeBe]

Today I ran across one where the the first floor of the couple’s house is covered in sewage!  How do you clean that up?  Plus, mold 2 feet up the wall…..seems like a tear down to me.  

[SunnyBeBe]

43 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Today I ran across one where the the first floor of the couple’s house is covered in sewage!  How do you clean that up?  Plus, mold 2 feet up the wall…..seems like a tear down to me.  

Turns out they did salvage stuff and got it habitable!  Unreal.  Their dead cat skeleton was found behind the tv!  Cat had been sick, then disappeared 2 years previously and they didn’t know what happened to her!  At the end, it said the couple was selling the house and looking for a new one!  Yeah, right.  I doubt anyone wanted their *hitty house either. Lol. 

[JudyObscure]

Kaye  and her roaches,

This one is the woman who just happens to have a huge bowl of roaches in her kitchen.  She doesn't want to throw it out quite yet because "some of them are still alive." The exterminators come and freak out a little bit before gently telling her they've never seen anything like this.

She's not a hoarder though! She just doesn't like housework.  She's too much of an intellectual for such activities, she prefers to read.  Camera shows us her thousands of paperback romances.

Kaye says she  bathes by putting a towel in the microwave and then rubbing herself down with it, "every few days."  Umhum.

Her daughter, Shannon, is trying to help her and wants to throw out some spoiled food.  Kaye starts screaming at her in rage. 

Dr. Julie Pike arrives. I like her -- she has a soft manner over a steel core -- but she can't get a full sentence out without Kaye talking over her with excuses and lots of " I know, I know."

Her daughter walks up carrying a petrified copperhead snake they found in her bedroom and as soon as she sees it Kaye starts with the "I know, I know."

The junk removers are throwing up and crying from the roaches and the stink, but we can now see Kaye had a beautiful kitchen and the floor is rotten and caving in.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I think Kaye's house is the one where a cleaner got sick, and they suspected hantavirus at first, but fortunately it turned out not to be that disease.   I was shocked that the area she lived in didn't take more action to get that property cleaned up.   The house was a fire and health hazard, and you know Kaye didn't change. 

[JudyObscure]

I'm watching "Holding Mom Hostage," right now on TLC.   David just got carried away in a classic Hoarder-Hissy and pulled a tree house down on his head and almost on top of soft voiced Julie who is so not the person to handle him.

I don't remember this one and it's good.  He lives with his 94 year-old mother and his siblings are furious.

[mmecorday]

I watched that one too, @JudyObscure. David was also laboring under the delusion that his band was on the verge on having a hit song, despite the fact that their music sounded terrible. 

[JudyObscure]

 

Sherry

These weekday morning Buried Alive's are becoming addictive to me.  Why get up and clean my house when I can just sit here and feel superior by comparison?  I really don't feel superior to the clearly mentally ill, but today's woman is just plain lazy, literally hip deep in wet disgusting garbage.

Her daughter Ally is her fulltime maid, cook and McDonalds door-dasher.  Part of the trouble is, Ally is not too far from her raising, and says she can't take out any trash because she doesn't know what stuff to throw out.  As if that baked bean can full of roaches might be a keeper. 

Sherry says she can't do anything because she has 17 disabilities.  Strangely none of the 17 are visible and her ex says she doesn't have any trouble going shopping or on vacation.  

Sherry just sits in her recliner, tossing tissues and pop cans on the pile beside her. She also has diabetes and throws the needles out into the living room.

Sherry tells Dr. Julie that her house is a mess because her kids won't clean it.  Julie says softly, "But this is your house, you are responsible."  Boom! Sherry is shocked and upset at such a statement and tells Julie to leave because she's making her feel bad.  She then shuts out all Julies attempts to talk about it and finally Sherry interviews that Dr. Julie is the biggest [bleep] she's ever met.

The exterminators just came for what Sherry calls, "The roach infestication," They take one look, get in their truck and squeal off.

This is a classic episode, I hope someone else is watching it!

[AZChristian]

29 minutes ago, JudyObscure said:

This is a classic episode, I hope someone else is watching it!

I've seen it twice in the past.  What makes me sad is that it seems like the father let those kids live in that environment so Sherry (and the kids) could get benefits.  He didn't have to support them - we were.

She was a truly despicable human being.  She was able to get herself out to the car to pout very quickly with no limping or hesitation.

She reminds me of my late brother:  the more meds he took, the happier he was.  He was a true hypochondriac.  And died of side effects.

[mmecorday]

Quote

These weekday morning Buried Alive's are becoming addictive to me.

I know! And the episode you described is always a can't miss for me. If there's ever been a person on TV I've wanted to slap, it would be Sherry. A terrible mom, a lazy housekeeper, a self-pitying slob and a dead-eyed dope is what she is. My home might not be the tidiest abode on the block, but it's not a freakin' biohazard. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

Watching the Dale and little person daughter Jessica episode.     Dr. Becky keeps whining about Dale's sister, Sheila being mean to Dale.  Sister owns the house, so Becky can shut up.    In Sheila's place, I would have had the eviction documents in my pocket, and handed them to her on camera as proof of service.    

What a hoarder calls clean is ridiculous.   Sheila thinks seeing the floor is good. Jessica's room is changed, but still half full of piled up and boxed junk.  Dale and Jessica cleaned up a lot, but it's still way too much stuff.  Sheila decides that if Dale keeps cleaning out, she can stay.   This was aired in 2013, and I can only imagine what it looked like even six months later, and I bet it's not cleaned up any more. 

Edited February 16 by CrazyInAlabama

[JudyObscure]

On 2/16/2024 at 2:01 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

What a hoarder calls clean is ridiculous

Isn't that the truth?  I understand the therapists wanting to encourage the slightest bit of progress, but some of the "where are they now" shows and final reveals still look like one big unbearable mess to me.

[kassa]

Just watched the Cary (Elvis impersonator) episode and the man was melting down in such a visibly painful way there is no ethical reason why this continued. On Hoarders they've called off a cleanup for far less visibly disturbed people.  This man needed psychiatric help (including meds), not a therapist and an organizer, and he needed both immediately.  As in transport him to an inpatient facility right now.  

I used to think this show was less about the drama than Hoarders, but yikes. 

[JudyObscure]

Cary certainly was a sad man and the friends who thought they were doing "tough love" weren't helping.  I think they meant well, and I understand their frustration, having helped him clean out before.  I think if I had cleaned out a hoarder mess for someone who just turned around and trashed it again, I would have to just stay far away after that.

[enoughcats]

I was looking at satellite images of my home town. I was shocked to see a house with a hoarded up back yard.  No doubt it was a hoard.  The ownership has changed since my childhood, but it was a 'good' neighborhood back then. 

It's not that large a town, but the town is allowing the mess. 

We have to allow people to make their own mistakes, but when it destroys home values around them, somethings need to change. (Comparable to the squatter who moves in and takes over a house he doesn't own.)