Hoarders - General Discussion

[sainte-chapelle]

1 minute ago, Stevie Nicks said:

Me! Her husband lost his job, but she's still buying shit. Alright then. Poor man diagnosed with Parkinsons. I think she's going to be a challenge. 

I missed it..what is her trauma?

[satrunrose]

She's blaming it on the job loss (but I went to wipe down the counters and might have missed something).

Another one of the "I am a super generous person who is collecting my hoard for the good of others" type hoarders. Sigh, refugees want better than your icky hoard staff, Marjorie.

[CrazyInAlabama]

New episode, 3 July, "Marjorie", Sacramento, CA. Season 14, Episode 6.  At least she admits she's a hoarder, but admitting you shop garage, estate, and yard sales, and thrift stores, and too many books, doesn't mean you won't turn on the crew when they try to clean you junk out.   She's already said "overwhelmed", the classic excuse of a hoarder.   Irv is her husband, married 52 years.  They mostly sit on their bed, all day long.  It's funny Irv doesn't look like his old pictures, but Marjorie does, except with gray hair.   Fortunately, no children or pets in the hoard.   

Marjorie says she wants to clean up, but I'm doubting that. Irv and Marjorie say they need to clean up for safety in mobility, and so one of them won't get hurt and put in assisted living.  They say the authorities will step in, but I still doubt it will happen.  Irv has Parkinsons.  Dr. Tolin is the psychologist on this episode.   Cory is the cleaner.   Marjorie is already trying to keep everything.  

Irv is a total enabler, and making excuses for Marjorie's hoard.  Their friends are nice, but deluded if they think Marjorie will really cooperate and clean up. 

"Healthy Vegetable Jello Salad" is ridiculous.   Marjorie is a lost cause. 

Edited July 4, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[Elizzikra]

29 minutes ago, Stevie Nicks said:

Me! Her husband lost his job, but she's still buying shit. Alright then. Poor man diagnosed with Parkinsons. I think she's going to be a challenge. 

She is testing the patience of even the saintly Dr. Tolan. I don't predict a good outcome for her.

In other news... "vegetable jello salad???" Ew.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Elizzikra

[satrunrose]

Aww, there's a reason that Dr Tolin's my favourite (besides his blue eyes).

OMG the jello salad.

[Stevie Nicks]

My internet wigged out. Finally got it back up. I want to throat punch Marjorie. JFC woman. They're not going to get this done. Her husband seems like a nice guy. He deserves better. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

Marjorie's excuses are ridiculous.   She will never clean out anything.     Even if she agrees to let anything go, she'll rehoard immediately.    

Marjorie may be one of the most delusional, aggressive hoarders I've ever seen.  

If it wasn't to get two hours of film time, I suspect Cory and everyone would walk out.  Why is she keeping a giant bird cage?   Cory is losing it, but he'll never get through to Marjorie.  

Edited July 4, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[Stevie Nicks]

Cory is losing it. I don't blame him. 

[FormerMod-a1]

Wow, she got to Cory.  Cory!  She must be even more frustrating in person.  

[BradandJanet]

If Marjorie loses her house, she's going to blame Cory and the cleaning crew for not doing their job. There's no winning with her. Her husband gave up a long time ago.

[satrunrose]

6 minutes ago, aquarian1 said:

Wow, she got to Cory.  Cory!  She must be even more frustrating in person.  

I think she must be, it could be the editing, but Dr T came In much harder than usual and now seems to have disappeared (after Marjorie accused him of being insecure, to quote M. herself "Oh, Honey"). 

The always used salad bowl/dog bowl with the packing slip still inside was pretty spectacular, though.

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by satrunrose

[Stevie Nicks]

People are at her beck and call. Suuuure. Fucking delusional bitch. Fuck you Marjorie. Ugh. 

[LGraves65]

Oh kick Marjorie to the moon.

[FormerMod-a1]

This isn't just normal hoarding (frustrating) behavior.  She's got a whole other level of control going on here.  Many/most other hoarders get very difficult and manipulative to get their way, and throw tantrums.  We've all seen it.  But she's just got another layer of... something..  going on.  

[Stevie Nicks]

Exactly. There's way more going on here. She's off the rails. 

[Elizzikra]

If she passive-aggressively says "thank you" or "sir" one more time, I'm going to travel through my television and punch her myself. What a pill...

[Stevie Nicks]

I'd pay money to watch Marjorie get tied to a chair and have to watch all her crap being tossed. 

[BradandJanet]

There's a full bar cart in the living room. Now we know how Irv manages this craziness.

[satrunrose]

All I can say is Free Irv!

Not only is the house physically impossible for a person with Parkinson's, there's no possible way that the empress of Passive Aggressivia is going to be able to bring the kind of patience and kindness you need to care for someone with a neuro-digenerative illness. 

Thank you

[Stevie Nicks]

Now she's got room in the kitchen and make dog bowl salad. 

[FormerMod-a1]

12 tons removed!

Dissatisfied with the cleanup?  Ha!  At least the surgery is keeping her from rehoarding (for now).  That said, I hope her recovery goes well.  

[CrazyInAlabama]

So, Marjorie has driven Cory over the edge, and now Dr. Tolin.  Marjorie looking at her living room full of outdated, crap furniture is showing how delusional she really is.  She's just plain mean.  I love seeing the her hardwood floors she claimed were so nice, and under the garbage they're totally ruined.   

The living room is still full of furniture that's useless.  The living needs 90% of the furniture gone.   The kitchen looks OK, but the dining room and other areas still have stuff piled up, and the other bedrooms were crammed full.   I feel so sorry for the house cleaners that have to clean up massive amounts of garbage in that kitchen. They didn't touch the upstairs, finish the garage, or clean out all of the donate.   They only got rid of three dumpsters, 12 tons is all.   

Epilogue- Marjorie Irv is more moblie.   Pierre, the friend says Irv is happy.   Marjorie is doing aftercare teletherapy, and had her hip surgery.   Marjorie got rid of nothing else, and is mad about the clean up. 

Marjorie is a lost cause, and they never should have tried with her.   I bet if she could she would drag all of the donate stuff right back in the house.    

Edited July 4, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[Elizzikra]

3 minutes ago, Stevie Nicks said:

Now she's got room in the kitchen and make dog bowl salad. 

And veggie jello!

 

3 minutes ago, aquarian1 said:

12 tons removed!

Dissatisfied with the cleanup?  Ha!  At least the surgery is keeping her from rehoarding (for now).  That said, I hope her recovery goes well.  

Marjorie strikes me as the type that has never been satisfied with anything, ever. She can fuck straight off with her "dissatisfied with the cleanup."

What was up with such nice appliances? That was a lovely six-burner stove, a pricey Bosch clothes washer and a very nice refrigerator.

[BradandJanet]

I bet the nurses in the hospital where Marjorie had her hip surgery were happy to see her go home. I can't imagine she did well with hospital rules. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

Just now, Elizzikra said:

Marjorie strikes me as the type that has never been satisfied with anything, ever. She can fuck straight off with her "dissatisfied with the cleanup."

What was up with such nice appliances? That was a lovely six-burner stove, a pricey Bosch clothes washer and a very nice refrigerator.

I'm sure the appliances were donated, or bought by the show.   They often con local suppliers into replacing appliances, bedding, etc. in return for a mention on the show, or local advertising.    If Irv was smart he would find a nice retirement home, and leave Marjorie to her beloved hoard.   

[JudyObscure]

 

I hope other hoarders weren't watching this and getting ideas. Marjorie's excuses were quick and creative.  The plans for making a healthy vegetable  aspic in the rust covered  fish mold, using dog dishes for salad, saving the entire hoard until you have a chance to donate it to the Bernese Mountain dogs who still live in the Alps.  She's the first to reduce Cory and Dr. Tolin to sarcasm and  near tears. 

Now we know why her husband was devastated over being forced into retirement at the early age of 75. He has to stay home with her.  All day. Every day.

Edited July 4, 2023 by JudyObscure

[enoughcats]

`Meanwhile, here's a newspaper article from Australia about someone who cleans up Hoards.

A slower approach

Is this common sense? Or is it something that might work long term?  

(Whatever happened to the British show?)

[Stevie Nicks]

6 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

 

Now we know why her husband was devastated over being forced into retirement at the early age of 75. He has to stay home with her.  All day. Every day.

From what I understood, he lost his job 11 years ago. And apparently never got another one. So he was 65 or so. 

[LeesburgLee]

At the end of the show, Irv had a talking head saying how happy he was with how much room they have now… and over his shoulder was a huge pile of what looked like clothes. That poor man.

Thank goodness they chose to have pets and not children. Given how she spoke to the crew and her friends, I can’t imagine how she would have spoken to children.

[JudyObscure]

4 hours ago, Stevie Nicks said:

From what I understood, he lost his job 11 years ago. And apparently never got another one. So he was 65 or so. 

Oh sorry, I didn't hear them say his age so I was just guessing.  I thought he looked like he was in his mid-eighties so I was subtracting 11 from that.  Probably being married to Marjorie has aged him prematurely.

ETA I just went back and watched the ending.  Wonder why they wanted five big pictures of Marilyn Monroe?  I see  giant pictures of her in everything from penthouses condos in Dubai to English cottages.  It's like a new religion of some sort.  I don't get it.

Edited July 4, 2023 by JudyObscure

[Gravity Check]

I come from a very stubborn family, and it is my lifelong goal not to be that way. Marjorie pushed every button I have, and then some. I echo the wanting to throat punch her.

At this point, seeing my sweet Dr. Tolin go mano-a-mano with her is the only enjoyment I'm getting from this episode.

Hateful woman. Just hateful.

[CrazyInAlabama]

A poster on reddit, Hoarders TV series Marjorie thread says they worked retail with Marjorie in the 1990's, the poster said Marjorie was a hoarder then who boasted about having books piled to the ceiling in their home.   Poster thinks they moved to a larger home for her hoard about that time.  Irv isn't the husband's real name, and losing his job had nothing to do with hoarding.    

Irv should have left when he fell, broke some bones, and had to drag himself out the slider to the patio for the EMS to help him. 

[JudyObscure]

42 minutes ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

Irv should have left when he fell, broke some bones, and had to drag himself out the slider to the patio for the EMS to help him. 

Poor guy.  Irv is so scared of her he can't eat an orange slice without apologizing for starting ahead of her.  He'll stay with her through the end and who knows, she may make a good bossy nurse.  I think she's probably okay with him, as long as he accepts,  to quote Irv, "She likes to be in control."

[Maisiesmom]

I watched this last night-man, Marjorie is a major control freak! I felt sorry for her husband, you know the one she doesn't "give a rats ass" about his opinions (or him either). That man needs to grow some balls, but she would probably take them from him and put them in her pocket so she could control him even more! She was bossy, rude, and stubborn as a mule. I felt the Docs and Cory's frustration with her (and loved it when Cory went off on her hee hee) Love me some Cory. All she wanted was for the crew to churn her stuff for her-she really didn't care about safety or cleaning. Now I might be wrong, but if Irv has fallen twice and suffered broken bones, wouldn't the authorities be contacted about the dangerous situation with shit piled up everywhere? My hubs has fallen a few times and even though no bones were broken both the police and the EMTS came to the house because he had to be transported to the hospital. (I am not a hoarder but the hubs has those tendencies and I won't let him do that to me or my house) I bet she was a real handful after her surgery, too. What I did worry about was her snapping and hitting someone with her big stick! She will never clean up or change-too set in her ways.

[suzeecat]

Are all hoarders mean?  It sure seems like it. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

Yes, they all turn mean, except a few show how nasty and mean they are from the first scene.  Some seem nice at the beginning, but almost all turn openly hostile when someone wants to throw their vermin ruined garbage out.  

Edited July 6, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[Hedgehog2022]

OMG! This woman was awful. She was dominate and her husband was submissive. This guy needs a way out of that mess...she could care less about him. They need to have social services come in and get "Irv" the help he needs to be able to deal with his Parkinson's. Living with her and her hoard is just going to make it so much worse for him. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Hedgehog2022

[Elizzikra]

17 hours ago, suzeecat said:

Are all hoarders mean?  It sure seems like it. 

I think some of them are kind and some are mean, probably about in relation to the percentages in the general population. We see them at their worst. From their perspective, they spend four days being constantly threatened and having to be on the defensive (from their perspective). They are often filled with shame though few necessarily show it. I think it comes out as anger and general assholery. 

I remember one woman (though not which show she was actually on). She was a widow with two teenaged boys and a dog. Her house was a disaster and the school social worker was trying to help her keep custody. She had long blond hair and she was the most obviously severely clinically depressed person I have ever seen. I don't remember her ever getting angry; she was just so incredibly sad. 

[satrunrose]

I think it does depend a bit. Darlene a few weeks ago could be really aggressive (yelling at just about everybody) but she struck me more as incredibly exhausting, needy and demanding rather than nasty like Marjory. 

[BradandJanet]

Is there a "good cop" "bad cop" dynamic between the psychologist/ head of the cleaning crew and the angry children/siblings of the hoarder? If so, I wonder how effective it is in getting the hoarder's cooperation--at least for the initial clean out. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

I think the staff guilt the friends and adult children into helping with the clean out by promising that this will improve things, but it doesn't.   It's all to get 2 hours of show, minus commercials.    I hate the way the psychologists will keep trying to get the helpers to ignore the verbal abuse from hoarders to keep them filming.  

[JunkFoodTV]

Was this the end of the season? Our year of one shit storm after another??? The hell....😡

[Elizzikra]

48 minutes ago, JunkFoodTV said:

Was this the end of the season? Our year of one shit storm after another??? The hell....😡

Is it? It doesn't seem like there were that many episodes???

 

[CrazyInAlabama]

There were only six episodes, including two from Canada.   The copyright date on Majorie's episode was 2022, and it was only episode 6 of season 14.  My cable guide called all of them season 13 with consecutive numbers from last season. 

They were all filmed in 2022, but may have been filmed even earlier since that may be when the episode was edited, and finished for airing.   

[Mojeaux]

2 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

There were only six episodes, including two from Canada.   The copyright date on Majorie's episode was 2022, and it was only episode 6 of season 14.  My cable guide called all of them season 13 with consecutive numbers from last season. 

They were all filmed in 2022, but may have been filmed even earlier since that may be when the episode was edited, and finished for airing.   

Yes, my cable did the same thing, season 13, with episode numbers continuing. I'm also confused.

[Hedgehog2022]

On 6/27/2023 at 9:25 AM, BradandJanet said:

Our hoarder, Roz, certainly raised kind, patient daughters.

I had to laugh at Roz's boyfriend's excitement of finally being able to spend the night with her. Maybe she'll slip back into her plastic belly dancing costume, which, interestingly, had provided a barrier against some water damage while lost in the hoard. 

ETA: No mater how much cleaning these super-hoarded houses go through, I wouldn't spend the night in any of them. Who knows what's lurking in the walls? 

Right? She had rodent feces in her dining room and more than likely in her kitchen...had to have them in there. She was another hoarder that became difficult and obstinate once the clean up started. She tried repeatedly to exert control over the direction of the clean up and argued with various people including her daughters. She didn't seem to care about the health of her granddaughter. So many of these hoarders seem to be selfish and self absorbed. They don't really care about their friends and relatives...it's all about themselves and their hoard. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Hedgehog2022

[CrazyInAlabama]

With Roz, I couldn't believe the granddaughter was walking around in the hoard, with the health issues she has, and the dire consequences if she would get an infection.  

I've thought this show was ending long before this season, whether it's an extension of season 13, or actually a shortened season 14.     It keeps coming back.    I've always objected to some of the hoarders they manage to film, almost all have had repeated clean ups, and rehoard. 

In my opnion, the hoarders have zero intention of cleaning up, or staying that way.    Most are too delusional to even show on TV. It's not help they get, but exploitation to get film on TV.  The hoarders just want to make a show of clearing out, just enough to get the authorities off their back.  

The guilt trip on the relatives and friends to get them to help and be filmed is awful.   It's anything that the producers can do to get a two hour block of film minus commercials, and to get ratings.    The cleanups are seldom complete, and the hoarders always fill the house and yard up as soon as they can.   

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[azprimadonna]

I came in to see if any of you were able to find any more episodes after Marjorie.  I have a feeling this might be "it" for this show in general.  Many of us have expressed that their methods (three-day clean, intense psychological pressure on the hoarder, toxic family members, etc.) may not be very therapeutic at best and damaging at the worst.  We can see it doesn't work based on the fact that all of them re-hoarded or wouldn't allow the team to work at all.  

[JudyObscure]

I can't find an answer on whether or not Marjorie was the last episode ever, but I was reminded that it has already "ended" several times and then came back like those mysterious hoards that "just get out of hand."  The original show ended in 2013, then Lifetime picked it up as "Hoarders, Secrets of the Hoard," and then it was restarted by A&E a few times.

It has yet to be renewed for a season 14, but I expect it all depends on how desperate A&E gets for ratings and how well this last season did.

I loved the show so much the first few years, it was just everything that fascinated me about people and their stuff, but even I have grown a little bit bored with it.  In the beginning I hoped to see houses completely emptied of excess  clutter and the owners happy in a clean organized space.  But now I know the houses rarely get to that point of cleanliness and the hoarders themselves almost never get cured and can't wait to re-hoard so they'll feel safe and secure again.

[CrazyInAlabama]

Hoarders, from either show didn't really clean up, even if the crew managed to totally strip a house in the main living areas.   They still have living rooms like Marjorie's, half full of unused furniture, and boxes, and many rooms that were never touched.   

Part of aftercare is working with a local organizer, almost no one ever does, and I'm sure it's just churning instead of clean outs.       Even when a home looks pretty clean, I'm betting that like Andy (the one in San Diego who was taking over his mother's home), that massive amounts of junk is boxed up and stored, and only a few rooms are clear.   

I remember the woman who owned the seasonal motel, the main floor of her house looked good, but the basement was full of water, and the hotel rooms were barely touched, except one or two rooms.    She rehoarded immediately, instead of cleaning out and selling the motel.    

On one of the early episodes, a woman went into  assisted living, and it was a constant battle to keep her from hoarding her room there.   Hoarding doesn't change, especially the level of hoarding we see on the show. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama