Anyone See Hoarders on A&E?

This is our new favorite show. Last week, there was a woman in Louisiana who had 8000 pounds of trash/junk/raw garbage removed from her home! The workers evenfound 2 flattened long-dead cats under the debris! She appeared only slightly thankful of the housecleaning, and was mildly appreciative of the large stuffedchair the cleaning crew chipped in to buy her. She appeared numb, cold-hearted, and oblivious. Maybe she was on meds who knows. Her adult son had moved faraway a few years prior, and returned to help the cleaning and categorization process along with his sister who still lived locally. He found stuff buried underthe junk just as he left it! Amazing show.<br>

It's generally a mental disorder of some type. My mother-in-law has been hoarding more and more over the past ten years. She's been diagnosed withdementia and Alzheimer's, and the hoarding is a result of that. My father-in-law feels helpless, as trying to throw out *anything* (e.g. the container somedoughnuts came in) results in a big fight. My wife and sisters have cleaned out the place a couple of times, resulting in major fights and hard feelings (onesister is of the opinion of "just let Mom do what she wants to do!" That'd be easier to accept if their dad wasn't pleading for help everytime we talk to him). My father-in-law sneaks extra things in our bags when he can (eight bottles of dishwashing soap for the two of them? ten boxes ofgrapenuts? etc., etc.) just to get them out of the house. It's a sad situation.<br><br>So yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this. We don't get cable, but it'd certainly be fun and interesting to see the show. At the sametime, your description of "appeared numb, cold-hearted, and oblivious" just tugs at my heart and given my experience with my mother-in-law, it may behard for me to watch.<br><br>Jeff

it fascinates me as well, it hit home not too long ago however when the leader of our local club was found in his house full of hotwheels he apparently passedfrom heat stroke or heart attack, he was missing for a bout a month so it wasn't a great relief to find out what happened, he had been crawling in the backwindow for months over some homemade stairs he made out of cinder blocks, he hadn't had water for a month or two, it took 5 hours for the police and medicsto pull enough stuff out of the way to get to him from the front door, it was literally stacked from floor to ceiling, it took two days to salvage what wasleft in the front yard and load into a pod, and he has a storage building full of stuff too, it had no ryhme or reason either, he'd go to a store and haveto buy something, whether it was a good car or not, he was a great guy out in public too, you'd have never thought that was going on at all, and his housewas steadily falling apart , all the eaves were gone, it was a sad deal once we all j=knew what was going on, i gauranty there is some cool stuff left in theretoo, i read one story on hwc where he got into a tiff with someone and ended up sending him and his kids carded real rider stuff for months, the superfinrturbine in my avatar is his from a meeting of redline people house he went to.