I Like to Watch - Hoarders

A new TV reality show was introduced on A&E late last year. The show named Hoarders, documents a mental disorder that afflicts several million people in the United States. The hoarding disorder is fairly easy to spot - the inside of the afflicted person's home is piled high with trash. The hoarder cannot bring themselves to throw anything away, even items that have no apparent value. The show has become so popular, that the TLC channel just began airing their version named Buried Alive.

After watching the show, I realized that I have come across hoarders but did not know it was a mental disorder. My first exposure to a hoarder was while I worked for the local cable company as a service technician. I would regularly enter the homes of customers to diagnose and resolve problems with their cable service. One home located in a fairly affluent part of the county stuck in my memory. After answering the door an elderly lady escorted me to her TV set. The path routed through a maze of stacked newspaper in what was once her living room. The stacks were at least 6 foot high. My immediate thought was why someone would save every newspaper over many years? Did she think she would eventually get around to reading every word?

After watching the Hoarders TV show, I now understand the hoarder doesn't necessarily expect to use the junk they collect. Instead, they associate a memory to the junk and fear they will forget the memory if they dispose of the trash. The loss of a loved one sometime brings the hoarding tendency to the surface. The Hoarders show typically follows the hoarder as they receive help to clean out their home. In nearly every case, the hoarder is brought to a near nervous breakdown as they see worthless junk thrown out.

I have met other hoarders in the past, but one possible hoarding home has remained a vivid memory. I don't know if the person was actually a hoarder, or simple a incredibly slovenly person. Regardless, the smell of this one house remains as fresh today as it was back then. Again, I was working for the cable company and knocked on the front door of my next service call. A woman answered, I identified myself and why I was there. She stepped out onto the front porch and quizzed me on why I would need inside her home. After convincing her that I needed to see the problem before I could begin work, she reluctantly allowed me to enter.

Upon my first step into the home, I was hit with an incredible stench of rotten food and dog crap. I was led to the TV, which was located in what I would describe as a Den. Aside from the clutter, I began to notice what the clutter actually consisted of. Much was old paper plates or fast food containers strewn on the floor - many molding from the food remnants. The carpet looked as if it had never been vacuumed - it was covered with old food, dirt and dog crap. What! Dog crap? Yes, not only was there dog crap, I then noticed the windows that opened to their backyard. There were 2, and each were opened a couple feet with the open door of a dog kennel facing the backyard and set up on bricks so that the bottom of the window matched the bottom of the kennel. These home owners had solved the pesky problem of always needed to get up to let the dogs in or out. They just let them come and go from their kennel to the backyard. Since the floor of each kennel was made of the same wire fencing material as the walls and roof, the dogs would simply take a dump in the kennel instead of going outside. The carpeted area under the kennels has several inches of dog crap piled up.

As I diagnosed the cable problem, I reached for the TV remote control. It sat on a table next to a couple of recliners, a lamp with no shade, and a screened window. Next to the remote was a flyswatter. It seemed the residents would turn the light on in the evening as they watched TV. Since the rear windows were essentially open to the outdoors, moths and other insects would be attracted to the lamp. The flyswatter would be used to kill the insects. The result was thousands of smashed bugs on the lamp, table and floor around the recliners.

I quickly finished my cable work and left the residence which was just a few minutes from where I lived. Even though it was the middle of the work day, I immediately went home and took a shower to remove the stench from my skin and clothes. The memory of the home and the smell still lingers.

Were these people hoarders? Maybe. Or maybe they were just the grossest people to ever walk the earth. The state of the home resembles the homes covered by Hoarders, the TV show that did chronicle one home so gross that 2 dead, decomposed cats were found under the trash in a living room. Or the lady that could not get into her bathroom because of the trash, so started using adult diapers which she stacked on the bathroom floor - for years! The one thing I do know is that I would rather watch it on TV than visit it in real life.