OMG! Clean your freaking house!

Man, that's sad. Most of those hoarders I feel are like that because of emotional and mental problems. But that family just sounds argumentative and lazy.

I've seen this show a couple of times and I just can't believe people can let their homes get so dirty. This is their sanctuary, where they go to relax after a hard days work. How can anyone relax in a mess like that. It's filthy, unsanitary and very lazy. I can understand wanting to keep things, but do you have to keep that bag of potato chips that was opened two years ago or that loaf of bread that's nothing but a bag of mold. It is so disgusting!! I have a little bit of experience with some hoarders, but I better not discuss it here. The situation has improved a lot and I'm very happy with the progress.

My boyfriend's last wife started as a slob (according to him), but after going through the dining room (she ran away and left everything behind), I started to see hoarding issues. Neither of them really changed the cat boxes; after four years and the addition of a puppy, the house smelled HORRIBLE. Urine and feces not just soaked the carpeting, it stained the hardwood underneath. In some places, the wood was stained BLACK. I could barely get around the dining room! It took me the better part of a year to get that one room clear (I have multiple sclerosis, so I get tired easily). I threw out SO much stuff that had her name on it (I don't care if someone steals her identity!), plus anything that Jim (my boyfriend) and I didn't want. I spent countless hours shampooing the carpet, but it always came up dirty. I think hoarding is an illness. In this case, I think that neither of them truly cared enough to want to live in a nice home. We've moved; and I'm starting to put my foot down about the dog not being house trained as well as he should be because I refuse to ever be forced to live like that again.

I used to have a friend whose parents hoarded so so bad that it was shocking. This was years ago and long before this show. I don't think they were quite as bad as what you describe but they were pretty bad. I honestly just don't understand it. My own mom was somewhat of a hoarder but not as bad as what is on this show. Still, she was pretty bad...saved every stupid plastic margarine container...just in case. she had years worth of magazines because they "might" have articles that will be useful at some point and if not...might be worth something some day. Why she cared about their possible future worth is beyond me as she would never have sold any of these items. She hung on to literally everything. When she passed, we found bills from the 60s. Still...not as bad as what you describe here.

I do not believe on keeping staff you won't need for a year after that just get rid of it...when I moved out to my new place I found out most of the staff I was keeping belonged to my children I called them to come and get them...well they came and sort it out most of it when to the bin...at the end of the day I don't keep what I don't need and that goes for relationships to friends as well if not useful get rid of it.

I don't have any experience with hoarders to that extent. My mom I consider a hoarder but with just having to much stuff in a small place. If it wasn't for my dad I'm so afraid of what it could become. I'm a clean freak to the point people say I have OCD (Obessive compulisive Disorder) so living the way these people you mention above I would die. I have watched this show before and I just can't understand how people can live day in and day out, not cleaning. For me they are pigs with alot of mental issues. To live where you have your dog pooping in your house for eleven years, its beyond crazy. Just the though of going into one of these homes you have to wonder where the heck do I start to clean. I also can't believe how many people live this way when you can actually have a show on for an hour showing two different cases. Its alarming and disgusting.

My exes parents had a disgusting house. They were not hoarders just pigs. I hated going there. They had a dog who would poop on the floor and no one would clean it for day's. They had food sitting out on the counter that would grow mold and stuff crusted onto the counters. The smell was horrible. There was no where to sit cause there was garbage everywhere and newspapers all over the couches and chairs. I coudnt go there when I was pregnant cause I would walk in and emediately through up with the smell. Then we went camping once and they had a trailer that was the same. We were supposed to stay with them in it and they had been camping for a few weeks already. When I walked in I almost passed out with the smell. I was so happy I brought my tent. I set that up instead of sleeping in there.

thankfully no. my mom is a bit of a hoarder but nowhere near that extent. she throws out garbage and we have yearly garage sales but she tends to keep everything because she may need it some day. i find that people who grew up poor tend to be like that quite a bit. i have gone into houses that are quite messy and have several days of dishes laying around but i think that is more laziness than anything.

My husband has me watch that show at times. I tend to hoard. I am not sure why, though it could be because of many possessions and people I have lost throughout my life. I used to know people who were not hoarders, but were very filthy. They knew and didn’t care. I suppose it gets to a point where it all seems like too much and you just grow apathetic. It is the new normal, and you don’t even see it as a problem anymore. I have known people who have had a lot of stuff like that show, but the houses were not filthy because the moved the piles around and cleaned.

I don't understand it either. But it's a huge psychological disorder. I don't know what, but these people are in huge denial of hoarding and whatever other emotional problems they have that the hoarding stems from, and they addicted to hoarding, bargain-hunting, or saving stuff to an EXTREME level. I am a minimalist. I hate stuff. I hate stuff so much that I don't even like the thought of it sitting tucked away in a closet; I don't like saving Christmas ornaments year to year even though I will reuse them. I am perhaps on the opposite side of the spectrum. (Moderation is key, ugh!). I wonder what is going through their minds - what they are telling themselves to justify the situation. I witnessed a hoarder - one of my best friends' moms - and it was just insane. Boxes of stuff everywhere, dirty dishes, there was so much of everything - everywhere! My friend used to live with her mom until she turned 18 and got the heck out - she is a neat freak and her mom is a dirty hoarder. I hate to say it like that but it is. Me and this friend would sneak in the house and try to clean it for hours upon hours, throwing garbage bags and garbage bags away at a time, and we were throwing away expired food and old condiment packets like ketchup, mustard, etc - things that there is NO need for keeping. Her mom found out and FREAKED out and started taking these garbage bags out of the trash. It's disgusting and sad.... I couldn't live with it. This family also had a cat, and you would often see cat litter and cat poop all over the place.. She had a lot of stuff AND it was extremely dirty. These people should NOT have kids - I couldn't imagine growing up like that. What they need is therapy and a lot of it.

My mother in law could be one of those hoarders alright. Only, when me or my sister in law comes over to her house, we would be practically cleaning the house and get rid of all the things that are useless. Otherwise, she would just let it stay there.

Hoarders is scary, I don't know how anyone can live that way, but then again I don't know how anyone can wash their hands a 1000 times a day or smoke ciggerettes. I guess everyone had a nasty habit, some are just more gross then others.

PointlessQuestions, I can't imagine not throwing any thing away in 11 years. The smell had to have been tremendous. Never understood how people could live like that. My mothers grandparents house was like that. I remember going there as a kid and my dad would tell us now don't get lost because we may never find you again. The whole house was filled with crap and there was a tiny path through the whole house. You just had to stay on it. It was so bad that his wife had a small shack built out back and she lived there by herself. Her house was so tiny but very homey and clean. Feel bad for the poor dog. Hope somebody gets it the help it needs.

i never had experience like that,i can't imagine how can i live in that kind of house.Too scary to think,its very unhealthy for ourself,specially if there s children in the house.Someone should remind the hoarder about the consequences living in that kind of environtment,disgusting.

I'm a sentimental person and keep a lot of things along with being a casual housekeeper, but I wouldn't consider myself to be a hoarder. Due to some health problems I've had, my place isn't as organized as it once was, but I'm, currently, working on getting this done now. For the most part, I would be under the impression that it was really nobody else's business how tidy or untidy my home/anyone else's home is unless it was causing real problems for the neighbors such as an overpowering stench or if the environment were causing health problems for dependents living there. In short, I don't think it's our place to judge people to the point of tattling on them to some outside group of do-gooders. I know that I wouldn't like it if some people busted into my home and started telling me what to keep and what to throw away. Our homes should be our own to do with as we please whether we want to live in a downright Spartan manner or whether we have stacks of things like old newspapers, etc. here and there. I can't imagine living like that one family did for eleven years where they were so petty that they wouldn't lift a finger to even clean after themselves as they considered this to be the responsibility of another person in the house. To me that simply sounds lazy--and, likely, hostile as well. It seems to be that each person must resent having one or more of the others living in with him/her and are acting out by letting the place go to seed. They're cutting off their noses to spite their faces, imo. Perhaps, in the case of the foster mom with all of the animals around, she might have lived in a larger place at one time and had room to spread out and provide a normal environment for both the animals and people living there. I'm thinking of someone who might have, at one time, lived in a larger home with more room--both inside the house and on the grounds that went with it--but had, somehow, lost this and had to move everyone to a smaller place. The animals had become part of her family, so she didn't want to give any of them away and was simply keeping them all together until the time came that they would be living in a larger home with more grounds once more. It would be like a case of a family of ten (two parents, four kids, and all of the grandparents) once living in a five bedroom house and hard times forcing them to give it up and go to living in a two-bedroom apartment. They would, likely, all want to remain together, so they would be crowded into a small space and try to make the best of it--as in riding out the current events and hoping that things would change for the better. On the other hand, the foster mom might have simply been an animal horder who had always lived there and just kept taking in more and more animals without shouldering any real responsibility for them beyond caging them up and tying them up here and there in her home. Either way, this living arrangement really turned into something not very good for anybody. If I were called upon to help somebody to organize his/her personal space, I would do so in a way where the person made the choices, and I would just be there to help him/her to carry them out, though I wouldn't be above offering what I might see as helpful suggestions but wouldn't force those suggestions on him/her. I would also be sure that some person living in a Spartan environment wouldn't like it if I were to go to his/her place and force him/her to save, for example, all of his/her old newspapers and/or magazines and make one or more places for them in his/her personal space.

Kinda sorta. My daughter has way too many things she CAN'T throw out or donate. But let me state, she isn't like the hoarders on that show. But if given the chance etc she'd be one easily. Hopefully she keeps her head about her. Now my dads pole barn which our family recently cleaned out was the look of a hoarders. When we first started off you couldn't fit a bike in there. Luckily it is nearly empty now. He had everything from old pop cans to heavy duty forklifts & machinery that sat for 30 years. HAPPY POSTINGS FROM GRANDPA BOB!!~

My oldest female friend is a hoarder. She's not as bad as some that are on those shows but she's pretty bad. She shops too much and she'll take anything anyone wants to give her, even if she has no use for it. I remember going to visit her once and saw that a door was open to a room that she had always kept closed before. In that room was a massive pile of things, including 3 tricycles. She had two children but had 3 tricycles and those were the ones I could see. I'm sure there were others. In her living room she normally had piles of bags full of clothes that she always told me was laundry that had to be washed or laundry that was just washed and needed ironing. I'm talking at least 20 large lawn bags filled with clothes! Her house is a mess but you can walk through. Well, whenever I visited, there was at least a path through to rooms I might go into like the bathroom. The last time she and I got together, she didn't know that I was coming to Baltimore so, naturally, didn't have time to clean. I'm thinking she's a lot worse than even I know about because she did not want me coming to her house. She met me at a restaurant when I called her to let her know that my son and I were in town. When she and her husband came by here after Christmas, he was begging me not to give her anything that I wanted to get rid of, including food. He told me that she had cans, hundreds of cans of food in their kitchen that she never uses. She claims she gets them on sale really cheap so that's why there is so much but the truth is that she is a hoarder. I've thought about calling one of those shows to see if she'd be a candidate for a show but I know she'd never allow anyone like that into her home. It's bad enough that hoarding exists and that it is a mental disorder but when people won't even acknowledge that they have a problem, that makes it worse, mostly for those who have to live with them. It's so sad.

Ou r next door neighbor was a hoarder, but she wasn't any ways near what you described. She had cans and boxes of food stacked in half the dining room because there was no more room in her ample kitchen cabinets. The laundry room was half filled with dirty clothes. All closets were stuffed with clothes, most of which had never been worn. The spare bedroom was stacked with boxes of only God knows what, the pool table in the den had so many boxes under and on it that one could not see the table, and the back porch had empty boxes stacked to the ceiling with just a path too get out to the pool. All this did get cleaned out when the ho use caught on fire. Professionals came in to clean up the mess. They have filled 8 dumpsters with stuff and are still working on the house.

We watch the show from time to time--I like to think that the show's producers seek out the worst of the worst...but I actually think quite a few people live like that. I tend to save stuff that I don't really need to save--kids' project from pre-school, pamphlets from places we have visited--mostly because I enjoy scrapbooking, and these things end up in an album (or do eventually get tossed). So I can understand a bit of clutter. But how can you let your house get so dirty? It is so unsanitary to live that way--I am amazed that these types of people are not constantly ill. Especially if there are pets in the home--pets are wonderful, but if you don't clean up after them, you are risking serious illness to your family and the animals. It is sad to see people who have so little regard for themselves, the people they live with, and their possessions. Such a shame....

In my job, I run across them when I do home visits sometimes. Nothing quite as bad as you describe. I used to watch the show on TV but had to stop, as it just made me ill. Not for the people, for the animals. Call me callous, but that's where my heart is. I have seen some bad situations with raising rabbits in a home, etc. and reported it to the authorities, as animals cannot be kept like that. It is inhumane.