Hoards of Hoarders

I've long believed that nothing makes for a better Oprah or Dr. Phil episode than a good case of hoarding. Just like the proverbial car crash, I just can't look away. Now A&E has given me a gift -- an entire series about people with hoarding compulsions. It's a spin-off of the hit series "Intervention" and they just call it "Hoarders". I have to give them credit before I go on to describe the program -- compassionate professional organizers and psychotherapists are on hand throughout. They are rarely successful, but it's not for lack of trying.


There is a very sad component to the program, of course. People are so consumed with this compulsion that they lose loved ones who either turn their backs on them or are taken by Child or Adult Protective Services, or they are at risk of losing their homes, but they can't seem to give up the junk. Spoiled food is routinely uncovered under piles of garbage. Sometimes a cat carcass will be discovered. Last night, a woman lost her children, her home was rat-infested and she still couldn't let go of the crap. Her house looked good at the end of the show, but everything was in storage and, in the end, she never got her kids back because she hadn't truly let go of the stuff, and her husband filed for divorce. She fought for and won the right to keep a re-usuble Slurpee cup from 7-11. The entertainment factor for me comes from getting royally pissed -- watching this show feels almost interactive.


My grandmother was a hoarder. One of the sadder things that she held onto was an obsolete dictaphone she had purchased at a yard sale. She had visions of typing at home, just like so many people who don't want to get up and go to work but the very idea of getting some lawyer to talk into this ancient monstrosity was ridiculous. She had lots and lots of small appliances without electrical cords that she boasted she had aquired for a dollar. Cool Whip containers never got thrown out, and she loved her Cool Whip, so you can imagine. She saved all shopping bags, but never reused them. And she was always about fifteen years beyond trend, stocking up on used 8-Tracks, for example, long after anyone could use them, and declaring that surely they could be modified for use on a cassette player. She had expired food and she would cut away spoiled or moldy portions of cheese and produce rather than throw the food away, because that was "a sin". The dress she wore to my parents' wedding was still on a hook on the outside of her closet door (with a dozen other garments) when I was fifteen. Basically, there wasn't any place to sit down or set a plate of food, and visitors were told to go around back because there was too much junk up against the front door, but she couldn't part with her stuff. She and her mother (another hoarder) even stored things in their bath tubs and sited ever-changing reasons why a sponge bath would have to do (it was cold, they didn't feel well, etc.).


There was an irony to this. My grandmother loved my father to a fault. He was her only child and she had been a single mother with a great capacity for caring and affection. She wanted to protect him from things he didn't need protecting from, such as working "too hard," or "aggrevation" (a favorite word of hers). He found her hoarding very aggravating, however, and he worked hard to clear paths in her home or clean off chairs so that we could sit down. His frustration would become apparent, and our visits to Grandma's would be all about the two of them yelling, with Grandma blaming us kids for upsetting our father because she could not believe her hoarding was the cause or that her son could be upset with her. He did love her very much, and I think that made it all the harder.

Dad sometimes enabled Grandma in her hoarding. He would agree with her that some of her possessions were valuable. He'd get all proud of the antique "secretary" in her bedroom (a desk) and he'd declare that her Hummels were like money in the bank. These affirmations were fuel on the fire until she reached rock bottom -- she saw a mouse, didn't move from her recliner for a couple of days out of fear, and decided it was time to move out and she had to throw up her hands and let the stuff go.

Now, when I watch Hoarders, I tell my husband that we really need to take old clothes to the charity bins or I suggest that we take a box of books to the library or that we bring something to the curb on large item pick up day, and John laughs. We are not hoarders -- we just like to watch.