MICHAEL: When we purchased
the Julian Price house, they told us that we'd
not only get the house, but that we were going to
get the house and the order. MATT: I don't mean
to be really blunt. This is no longer your home. All the stuff must
leave this house. These are brand new. Brand new. You've essentially undone
everything that's been done. SANDRA: No! No! MATT: For the first time ever,
I may have a sheriff remove the hoarder from the site. Whoa. I help people, and
I'm not helping her. That's why we're both being
pushed past our breaking point. Stop talking! I'm not! I'm done. EARL: You understand-- Earl, stop it! Leave me alone! [theme music] I'm Sandra Cowart, and
I'm an interior designer. [classical music] The Julian Price Hillside
Manor, I would say, is the perfect house. The style is English
Tudor, Greek revival. It has 9,000 square
feet, four floors. We used to drive
by every Sunday, and I would say to my husband,
honey, a little house like that, some day, is what I want. [bluesy music] I'm Walter. Sandra is my sister. There's a lot of
junk in that house. Things she collected,
things she picked up off the side of the road. It was incredible to have
the privilege of living here, but there were many adaptations
that were necessary. In other words, if you were
on this end of the house and you needed the Scotch
tape or the scissors, you'd have to go comparable to
the fifth house down the street to get it. So you learn very
quickly to have many, many, many phone books,
lots of scissors, and tape. I mean, just the
fundamental things. [guitar music] I'm Earl. I'm Sandra's brother. Her hoarding has
pretty well been danced around, shall I say. We've tried to
address it with her, and she would tend to
change the subject. If you look up,
you see the ceiling, which is a plaster motif. We've tried to
talk to her about it. That she's, you know, a hoarder. SANDRA: These were all foreign
Italian, imported fixtures. EARL: I don't think she
tends to really want to admit that she has that issue. [music - "the entertainer"] When Sandra first bought the
mansion, it was immaculate. [camera shutter] SANDRA: Because the house is
so well designed and perfectly set up, it's just so
healing to the body because of the feng shui of the energy. It was featured in several
articles in Greensboro. WALTER: I've seen it all
dressed up and looking pretty. The raw bones are
there for it to be a Downton Abbey of Greensboro. [camera shutter] [music - "the entertainer"] I opened Cowart
Designs here in 1975. One whole floor has
the studio part. EARL: At one point
in time, she was the prominent interior decorator
of Greenboro, North Carolina. She was the best. SANDRA: I had an
incredible career. I've been very privileged. The clients I've had
have been marvelous. I had folks waiting two years
to get me to do their home. She was on top of the world. SANDRA: In 1979,
somebody approached my husband, wanting to buy
the house and tear it down. And he says, well, if you
love me, you'll do it. And I went, whoa, whoa, whoa. If you love me, you
won't ask me to do it. So he left. EARL: When her husband
left her, I think that was the first big blow. Sandra started what
we call curb killing. She would go out and see
things that folks had put out to the street for the trash. And I'll have to
agree that, you know, sometimes, one man's trash
is another man's treasure. Well, Sandra seemed to find
a whole lot of treasures. You have every right to look
at all of this and say, my god, you're a hoarder. But the truth is I do not
perceive myself as a hoarder. It's because it's a
shop that the quantity is more than a house. EARL: There was a lawsuit
that was involved, and her business seemed
to go downhill from there. WALTER: The job didn't go well. She was sued, and then lost
some of that reputation. That was the
major blow, I think, that put her over the edge. I'm Wayne, and Sandra
is my older sister. I encouraged her, at the
time, to sell the home. She had enough net worth out
of it to buy her a nice home, paid for, but she wasn't
willing to part with it. [suspenseful music] EARL: The last I heard,
it was over $2.1 million that was owed on the note. It finally caught up with
her so that she could not make the payments on the house. I am Patrick Haywood,
a local attorney here in Greensboro,
North Carolina. The bank moved to foreclose, and
one of the defenses that she'd put forth was that the
bank did not actually have title to the property. EARL: Sandra believed that when
the federal government found bought out and paid for
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, she believed that her house
and her loan was paid for. PATRICK HAYWOOD: She's remained
there for about three years fighting the various
foreclosures, which is pretty extraordinary, actually. That's a heck of a fight. My goal is to have
the legal system invalidate the foreclosure. My name is Michael. I'm the new owner of
Julian Price house. Purchasing this home was
very, very complicated. PATRICK HAYWOOD:
The legal document that Michael signed
would require him to take the property as is, where is. He voluntarily accepted
the house, with the hoard, and the hoarder. A little risky, from a
lawyer's perspective. A whole lot risky, I'd say. SANDRA: If it gets
invalidated, then that puts me back as the
real owner of the house, which is what I want. WALTER: I think she is
ignoring the reality, believing that she can somehow
continue to live there. And it's just not possible. Now, that might make me cry. Um-- of course. You know, you don't
devote your whole life-- 42 years-- to something
without loving it. MICHAEL: We own the house. We have got to
empty the house out, so we issued notice
that she had 10 days to leave the property,
at which time the sheriff would lock her out. WALTER: When the day come
where the sheriff locked her out of the house,
she had her van set up for her to live in. And she is moved out,
and living in the van, and says that's where
she's going to stay. SANDRA: That's a good girl. Yeah. EARL: My two brothers and I have
sat down with her many times and tried to talk to
her about alternatives. She just totally refuses
to admit that she's going to not be living in that house. [melancholy music] WALTER: My worst fear-- she'll stay in that van and die. [somber music] MICHAEL: When we purchased
the Julian Price house, they told us that we'd
not only get the house, but that we were going to get
the house and the hoarder. [dramatic music] DR. ZASIO: So we've got quite
a big project on our hands. MATT: Yeah. I'm Dr. Robin Zasio. I'm a licensed
clinical psychologist, and I specialize in OCD
and hoarding behaviors. What are we looking at? Like, 31 rooms? 31-ish? I don't even really
know what I'm dealing with, because I can't
get into the entire half of the house. MATT: Right. My name is Matt Paxton. I'm an extreme
cleaning specialist. This is the biggest hoard, the
biggest house, the most stuff. It's just overwhelming. [dramatic music] So we've got a woman
who's lost her house. She's severely in
debt, and she's going to have to
watch all of her stuff come out and,
essentially, go somewhere. MATT: Correct. Mm. It's going to be
a tough situation. [dramatic music] I'm very nervous
with the situation. This is new to us. Usually, we're
warning the hoarder they could lose everything. The reality is she's
lost everything. She doesn't own
this stuff anymore. DR. ZASIO: Mm. Sometimes hoarding
gets very complicated. Yeah. And the reason
it gets complicated is because this hoarder has
delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, and I want
to make sure that we all understand it
can get to the point where you lose everything. And the people that
have bought the house are being nice, and
letting her have time. SANDRA: Well, the new owners
are here, Michael and Eric. Michael, how are you? Hey. Very good to meet you. Very good to meet you, too. MATT: So this is new for us. DR. ZASIO: Very new. And, you know, Matt
and I were talking a little bit earlier about
how this process is going to be so different for us. You guys-- probably
two of the nicest guys on the entire planet-- are going to let
her make decisions. MICHAEL: Correct. DR. ZASIO: You are
going to let her sell, and you're going to return the
money back from any proceeds. Yes. Correct. At this point, the
plan is to figure out what can be sold to raise
money for Sandra to live on. MICHAEL: I told her I would
get whatever resources I could to empty the house out,
and get her the money, and the contents
to get on her feet. Because she has nowhere to go. So where does she live now? She lives in her van. ERIC: She's out back, probably
sleeping in the van now. Why don't they take me to
see the house and you go meet? That sounds good. At this point, I
need to meet Sandra to find out what
her thoughts are, and have her give me
a tour of the home. SANDRA: Greetings. Hello, Sandra. Hope I didn't wake you. No, I'm just napping. I'm here to help. SANDRA: Good. And I'm wondering if we could
try to take a tour of the home, so I can see what we're in for. Sure. Oh my gosh, Sandra. SANDRA: Mm-hm. DR. ZASIO: Wow. You've got a lot of stuff. SANDRA: Yes. DR. ZASIO: Can I
just ask you, what happened to your living room? It was broken into
over, and over, and over. Mm-hm. And rampaged. DR. ZASIO: People with
hoarding behaviors, who are struggling with
acknowledging the problem, typically blame it
on someone else. I'm just going to challenge
you a little bit here. OK. You're sticking
to your story-- SANDRA: Yeah. DR. ZASIO: --that this
is not your doing, and that it's because
of thieves coming in and messing up your stuff. Right. It just looks like even
if people did mess it up, there's still far too
much stuff in this house. Not for a shop. Not for a store. She's just basically
saying that, I had a shop. I had to bring
all this stuff in, and I just have to relocate it. My question to you
is, for the things that you want to keep,
where's it going to go? To a warehouse. And you have a
warehouse set up? Yes. Well, I'm in negotiations
with the guy for a warehouse. DR. ZASIO: Sandra has
not yet faced reality. She thinks that once we
start pulling the stuff out, that she's going to be
able to hold onto it all. This information I absolutely
have to pass on to Matt. Can I get permission to maybe
wander throughout the house? - OK.
- I'll be very careful. All right. - I'll be back.
- OK. OK. See you in two hours. Oh, jeez. [dramatic music] So she did work down
here at one point. Yeah, this is where
her clients came. MATT: She was a designer. A very successful
professional at one point. MICHAEL: This is
all just samples. People would come down here
and design their houses. I don't know if I can
squeeze through here. I'm wandering into room,
after room, after room. It's just getting worse
and worse as I go. And, suddenly, found
myself completely lost. Oh, roadblock. Complete roadblock. I'm going into the,
what, third floor now? It's like a magic castle. Like, everywhere I turn-- MICHAEL: The servants'
wing on the left. OK. There's a different door. Whoa. MICHAEL: There's three
bedrooms and one bath. That way? MICHAEL: Yes. Servants has a
bigger house than I do. [laughs] Yeah, I think this is it. Oh, no. It's a hallway that's
completely barricaded. Ow! [bleep] I have no
clue where I am, but I want to get out of here. Matt? MATT: Yo! Where are you? As I'm climbing up the
steps, I hear this little voice in the background. And Dr. Zasio is
actually lost upstairs. Thank god. Matt, I don't know how
you're going to do this. MATT: If you can
keep Sandra focused, I think we got a chance. OK, there's something
you guys need to know. She says that, right now, she
has three warehouses on hold. And it is her expectation
that it is going to be routed to these warehouses. Dr. Zasio's me that
Sandra has warehouses. Hey, Sandra. MATT: So I wanted to
confront Sandra very quickly. Our goals were to get
you in a safe place. Hopefully liquidate some of this
stuff, to make you some money. There's stuff we can sell,
right now, in this house. I am bringing an auctioneer
in to rely on him to tell me what can and can't be sold. We do need to empty the house. I mean, like it or not,
it's their house now. So here's my concern-- I'm hearing that there might
be a warehouse, or something? SANDRA: I have three on hold. DR. ZASIO: This is one
of the most common things that we see with people
who are struggling with hoarding behaviors. Rather than make decisions
and get their stuff in order, they just store it. The reality is they don't
go inside that warehouse and pull the stuff out. It goes there, lock is on the
door to be forever forgotten. We're not a moving company. I'm going to put my foot down. Absolutely no storage. I won't be moving anything. This is about
finding you housing, and making you some money. What's the most
important thing to you? I don't have a need
for housing at all. May we please take that off? No, I-- you do. You're living in
that van right there. You do have an issue. SANDRA: No. I'm going to live
in an Airstream. I will never-- hear my words-- I will never live
in a house again. I will never live in
an apartment, ever. DR. ZASIO: The bottom line
is one of the three goals that we have set,
she's indicated, I have no interest in. And that is finding her
a home or an apartment. She has emphatically
said, don't even go there with me, which
means she can't take anything, which means
everything goes. So whatever you can
fit in that Airstream? Oh, is it a 12 foot--
SANDRA: No. --or a 16 foot? 28. Great. And again, I'm going to
continue to bring you back. You should be focusing
on selling this stuff. I am. MATT: Not keeping it. I am. I'm just in a place where
I can't take the hoard-- you know. MATT: I got you.
SANDRA: You know what I'm say-- MATT: Totally. I'm worried about
her emotional stability when everything either
goes to auction, in a dumpster to be
thrown away, or recycled. I think she's going
to be devastated. SANDRA: [whimpers] [theme music] [guitar music] [beeping] Good morning, everybody. (IN UNISON) Good morning. All right, this
is a lot of people. Quite honestly, we
are in the biggest house I have ever cleaned. Never had this many dumpsters,
never had this many people. And I'm still a
little nervous, man. This house is massive. It's amazing. It's going to take over 1,000
man hours to empty this house. Legally speaking, Patrick,
what are we looking at? The ownership of the
property has changed hands. Sandra fought a valiant
fight with the bank for a number of years. Today, Michael and Eric are
the owners of the property. They are giving
her an opportunity to retrieve some
of her belongings, and have an opportunity
to sell some. But Sandra is an
invited guest today. That's the legal procedure. MATT: OK, so legally speaking-- I'm going to dumb that down-- this is no longer your home. We've gotta be really
clear on that, OK? This has been a 5,
10, 15-year process. And Sandra has passed up
many, many, many opportunities to get help, to find better
housing, to sell the house. And it's really
important for families to understand at some point,
if you don't accept that help, you will lose it all. And that's where Sandra is. And I don't mean to be really
blunt, but I have to be. All the stuff must
leave this house. I don't want it
to be that way. We understand that. But, as Patrick said,
we are at a crossroads. Yeah. I am here for you
every step of the way. I will say this. Everything I have,
somebody wants it. MATT: Her denial is bigger
than the Empire State building. What we can do is to
get her to understand, legally, she has no rights. That is my only window. That's why I've
continued to push. It's why I've got a lawyer. It's why I have a
sheriff on site. For the first time ever, I
may have a Sheriff remove the hoarder from the site. Because it might be
the best thing for her. All right, we ready to go, guys? (IN UNISON) Yes. All right, let's do it. Here we go. Thank you. [rock music] I'm blown away how
much stuff is happening, and how many guys
are rolling around. Just for scale, I
just want to stress, I've never seen anything
like this in my entire life. It's been a really good morning. We have taken 10
dumpsters out already. Sandra's actually
behaving pretty well. I'm hoping it
actually slows down. Because if it
doesn't, this is going to be a 100-dumpster house. There aren't even enough
dumpsters in North Carolina that we can get in
three days to do that. [dramatic music] SANDRA: Those are not trash. Those are brand new.
DR. ZASIO: Hold up, guys. SANDRA: Those chairs. MATT: Bring it over
here for me, please. Well, it's not moisture. It's actually mold
and this is wicker. Can't actually sell this,
and I can't donate it. SANDRA: OK. And I'm not asking you to. I'm telling you I want it. DR. ZASIO: We're not focused
on finding you a place to live. You said that's off the table,
so we're respecting that. SANDRA: Mm-hm. I think where we're
at now is to say you're holding onto things that
you don't have a place for. And you don't know that. I'm sorry. MATT: Sandra is a politician. She wants to make you
believe that her way is the way to do it. But then when you push
her on it-- well, give me the details of your plan-- it's empty. There are no details. You don't know what I have. You don't know the
parameters of what I have. So let's just have
a give point, OK? You give that one to me. SANDRA: So you are going to
have, by the end of Tuesday-- like, 3 o'clock,
3:00 PM Tuesday-- transportation to get all
of these things out of here that you're holding onto. You are going to
have secured that. Because, Michael, is there any
option for her to keep anything out of this house or on
the outside perimeters, or any option for
her to store it here? No. It needs to be gone. OK. MICHAEL: We need it
off the property. All right, so-- MATT: So then-- That hasn't been
the debate ever. SANDRA: OK. OK. So then I'm going to go
with what you're saying. Mm-hm. I'm going to--
you want to keep-- I'm going to keep my mouth shut. You want to keep it, great. I'm going to put it up in your
pile on the side of the yard. You've got until Tuesday at
3:00 to have someone pick it up. OK. If they don't, I'm tossing it. OK. Deal? Yeah. You cool with that? SANDRA: Yep. MICHAEL: OK with it.
- OK. MATT: All right.
- All right. Here. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Let's keep going. CREW: Show me. SANDRA: Down here,
everything is-- AUCTIONEER: Flip 'em over. Is there any stamps
on the bottom? Yeah, there's
numbers and stickers. Yeah, keep back. This is Evan. He runs EBTH, all right? Which is Everything
But The House. They are our auctioneer group. Do you notice they're
at every door? SANDRA: Uh-huh. MATT: OK. They know not what only
has value, but what sells. Uh-huh. And that's really
what's important. What sells is what's
going to pay your bills. So let me ask you this-- Yeah? SANDRA: Can we keep that chair? No. SANDRA: Yes, honey. No, because-- SANDRA: Why? It's broken up, first of all. You don't have space. SANDRA: That cushion,
that's a brand new cushion. And for many, many reasons-- We haven't even gotten
into the house yet, and she's already
putting a halt to things. SANDRA: Whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa. DR. ZASIO: There's a moldy
pillow, and a moldy bed frame, and she wants to keep it all. Now, that's gotta be kept. Are you planning on
having a baby anytime soon? SANDRA: I don't
put babies in it. I put design stuff in it. That's a keep-- that's a keep. MATT: A rusted-- SANDRA: Yes. MATT: --piss pot. You ought to see it
at an antique show. The auctioneer just
said, get rid of it. SANDRA: Well, she's not--
MATT: The auctioneer-- She's not.
MATT: The best auction-- She's not gonna
have to-- she's not gonna have to live with it.
- Time out. SANDRA: It's mine. The best auctioneer
in the country just said it can't be sold. SANDRA: I'm not
asking her to sell it. I'm asking to keep it. I think we're still forgetting
what the reality here is. Uh-huh. MATT: Your new chap-- look.
Look at me. SANDRA: I'm listening. MATT: Don't look
at nothing else. SANDRA: I'm listening.
- None of that stuff matters. So where do you live? Let's go back to that question. I'm gonna be living
all over this country. MATT: I might as well
be speaking French. So what are you going
to be living in? Uh, an Airs-- an Airstream.
- Look at me. Look at me. Everything I say to Sandra
just goes in one ear, and goes out the other. SANDRA: That's metal,
and that can be kept. If you're going to live in an
Airstream, you can keep about-- I don't know. I'm not putting-- Matt, listen, my
Airstream is full. Not a thing from this house
is going in the Airstream. MATT: OK. I just don't know
where to go with her. We pretty much keep
dancing around each other. We're saying the same thing. I've had the same conversation
for the third time now. DR. ZASIO: So why are we
keeping that huge chair? SANDRA: I do houses
all over the country-- DR. ZASIO: But what are you--
- --all over the world. DR. ZASIO: But where
is that going to go? Sandra's defense to holding
on to all of her stuff is that she has her own dreams,
but she has nowhere to take it. I'm talking about what is--
you wanted to keep that. Where is it going to go? SANDRA: It's going
to go in a room. In a corner. What rooms? With plants on it. What room? Where is that
going to be stored? If we have this-- In a warehouse. In a warehouse. Sandra's still not really
living in the real world. Have you secured
the warehouse? Already, yes. She's got all these
dreams, and she's saving all this furniture for her yard. How are you going to pay for it? It's done. And the reality is
she lives in a van. [guitar music] Sandra feels that
Bank of America never had clear lien
against the home. MICHAEL: In a conversation
with one of Sandra's brothers, it was brought to my
attention that she was considering continuing
her legal battle to regain possession of the house. She's still hoping that that
court ruling would be reversed. No. So-- We purchased the house legally,
and we're doing all of this to benefit her. We do not want to drag
our family through this. We do not want to incur
additional legal expenses. SANDRA: We want to
keep these crates. I'm going to pull the
plug on this entire process if she's going to go
ahead with the lawsuit. Give me that cushion. DR. ZASIO: Sandra, you
don't want that cushion. [dramatic music] I'm asking the bank to admit
they had no right to foreclose or sell the property. That's what I'm asking for. But if you win that,
you've essentially undone everything that's been done. We have a trial
in February 27. And I go to court Wednesday. You've just cost me
$200,000 in legal fees. For what? To defend myself. To hire an attorney
to now go to the bank and defend themselves. Only if you want to do that. So I would have bought a
house that I no longer own, that you've just
potentially taken back. We brought all of this
in here to help you-- Wait, wait, wait. --sold it for you
so you have money. SANDRA: He's trying to maneuver
me into positions that will keep him where he is right
now, with the house as his, and me out of here
in two more days. I guess I'm not-- we're
not saying it clear enough. Like, maybe it needs to
come out of your mouth. This has to end. We feel we need to
talk with our attorney first, before we go
any further with this. Just a few minutes ago,
I received a phone call from my clients,
actually, that there was a problem here at the property. Doesn't that open
up Pandora's box? Sandra asserts-- and
perhaps even believes-- that she, at some point, may
receive the property back. That can't be done. We are still owners of
this home, no matter what. Eric and Michael are
what are now called bona fide purchasers for value. Which means in North
Carolina, that they've taken the property, they've recorded
their deed, and once they did that, that cannot be reversed. The property is yours. OK. Y'all pan all those
bags over there, and see what went to the dumpsters. MATT: Right. SANDRA: And I guarantee
you, two thirds of what were in those dumpsters
are what I wanted to keep. MATT: Time out. I listened to you, now
you're going to listen to me. You lose everything in two days. I'm trying to maximize the value
of what's left in that house. You keep saying I'm
trying to skip around-- that is the fact of your life. You no longer own any of this. I brought in the top
experts in the country to handpick, as quickly as they
can, the stuff that we'll sell. Nick. NICK: Yeah? Look. NICK: Very unique. I'm doing it to
maximize your value. You-- your cash to help
you live beyond this. Considering everything that
was going on in the house, a lot of stuff in good shape. MATT: We fought for hoarders
for years to give them a choice. This hoarder doesn't
have a choice. She lost it. You've had five years to
deal with this problem, and you haven't taken it. Because I never expected
to lose the house. That's the problem. It was done illegally. MATT: She doesn't respect
the judge's decision. She doesn't respect my decision. She doesn't respect anybody's. I'm at a loss. I need to know what
Dr. Zasio wants to do. DR. ZASIO: At this
point, I called Michael into the situation. If he doesn't start to take
an active stance in making some decisions
about this process, then we're dead in the water. Because Sandra is
not listening to me, and she's not listening to Matt. Michael, the bottom
line is she doesn't understand that this
has been your gift to her to bring her here. And now what's
happening is we've gotten through a
lot of the outside, and now she's wanting to
look at every single item. And that is how we do
it in the real world. Careful. Breakables. But this is not
the real world. She is a guest on your
property, and her stuff now belongs to you. So if she keeps holding
up this process, we are not going to
get this job done. I wonder where they got this? This is fascinating. Where they got the
Christmas from. So you've got to
go in and tell Matt, I want her to touch
and feel every item, and let's just get
as far as we can. Or, Sandra, you are a
guest on this property, whatever Matt says goes. Dr. Zasio wants me to put
my foot down with Sandra. If you can't do it, then
this is going to slow us up, and we will hopefully
get to the second floor. MICHAEL: It's difficult for
me because I've never been put into the situation where I have
to choose someone's emotions-- the hoarder-- versus my own personal
family's interests-- the house and everything that
we have invested in this. See? Watch this. This is what I'm talking about. This is exactly what
I'm talking about. Look at the number of bags. MICHAEL: Yeah. DR. ZASIO: And that bag will
take her at least a 1/2 hour. And look, now she's got Eric
sucked in to looking at them, holding them, talking
to her about them. With the sales of your
items, we can get new ones. I need to keep what has value. Does that have value? Yes. I'm saying this to you--
and you're not the hoarder. Do you want your house? Yes. Or do you want the stuff? [dramatic music] She needs to understand
that you're in charge. Right now, she's in charge. Yeah. Here, more CDs. And if you need to change the
rules of the game, change them. Slide that over here a little. WALTER: It's tough love time. It's not easy. Listen-- And she's not
even related to me. No, but this is your house. I know. Mike has to decide, does
he want to placate Sandra, or does he want to
get his home back? He can't have both. If you don't set the
precedence now, before we get back tomorrow, we are toast. SANDRA: Oh, yes. That's keep. OK. [dramatic music] So we're all here
to support you. Mm-hm. Dr. Zasio's here. Let Matt run his crew. Your brothers are here. It's for you, all of this. So is-- MICHAEL: Let us empty the house. I need the house empty
so that we can move on. You need the house
empty so that you can have your money from the
auctions to get this done. The only way to do it is
to follow Matt's lead. So is-- number one, you know-- There's two options. You either have to let
us do this our way, or you can't be here. MATT: I have a solution. Before I do each room, she
gets five minutes, legit. Five minutes. You point-- keep, keep, keep,
keep-- and my guys tag it, and we pull it out. You're not getting
more than five minutes. It means you're going
to get a few things that are important to you. And when that five minute
stopwatch goes off, we walk out. And then my team
does what they do. The only answer is yes, or
this is going to go not well. I hope Sandra
can stay with us, and that she accepts the role
in this of taking a few-- just a few-- choice
mementos out of the house. OK. Let's try, Matt. [dramatic music] DR. ZASIO: Our initial plan was
for her to go through the room, and stay one room behind
the rest of the crew. And as they moved,
she would move. That's not what's happening. Oh, my god! Oh, my god. That wicker basket,
this wicker basket. Ugh. DR. ZASIO: What's
happening is Matt found her in the dumpster that
had completely been filled. SANDRA: This is my favorite bag. MATT: Sandra is hunched
over, picking things up off the floor of the dumpster. My guys don't even
see her in there. Sandra, you got to get
out of the dumpster. This is very, very unsafe. Get out.
Get out. Hang on. There's no niceness. There's no talking. This is a safety concern. She could get hit in
the head with a bag. I have to get her
out immediately. This stuff is not more
important than your life. Get out of the dumpster now. I'm just taking it
with me to the garage. I have 35 guys
throwing stuff in here. This is not safe. You are not allowed
in this area at all. You told me I could
go through this area. No, I didn't say that at all. You've made that up completely. When I have to stop
guys from cleaning because she's in a dumpster,
I lose 10 minutes of work. But I lose 10 minutes
of work times 40 guys. That's 400 minutes. You're not willing
to even try-- No! --to see it? I hear you. I'm trying to make this work. You've got to behave. OK. OK. I need you guys
to be bouncers. Keep-- stand in front
of those two doors. SANDRA: Oh, they've
waited their whole life. MATT: Put your hands up. Don't let her through. That sounds so silly,
but that's what I need. I put two of her brothers
right in front of her. I said, your job is to
stand in this doorway. Do not pass this doorway. Do not let her go. They said, absolutely. Five minutes later-- SANDRA: Here. Put this over there, too. MATT: She's got them
picking through boxes, putting stuff away. She can manipulate anyone
to do what she wants. WALTER: All right,
so this is all trash. SANDRA: No.
Wayne? WAYNE: Mm-hm? SANDRA: Can you set
this in the wagon? It's just heavy. I'm afraid I'll trip. WAYNE: It's a rock. SANDRA: Yeah, I know. You're really saving a rock? SANDRA: Ooh-ooh, that needs
to go with me to the car, to wash and use
to clean up with. All right. There's no way to save
everything in this house. And she's bound and determined
to try to save a piece of it, down to the last scrap of paper. Oh, oh, oh. Put this with a towel. Oh-- Things are going
from bad to worse. We started with getting
her to pull out things that were of value to her,
that could contribute to a new housing arrangement,
that sort of thing. We are, now, at the
extreme end, where she is just scooping up
everything on the floor, including visible trash. SANDRA: Go ahead and
throw that in there. I mean, we'll use it
for who knows what. [melancholy music] Sandra, I'm concerned
that you're going backwards, and not forwards. You went from being very
selective in the items, and it now seems like
everything he's handing you, you're just putting in the
box and not even looking at. I mean-- I have however long I
live to deal with this. I'm trying to appeal to her. I'm trying to give
her some support. But we're trying to help
you to start retraining your brain to think
differently now, rather than do it in the future. And you're not going
to have somebody to help you in the future. Uh, there is a bag,
Walter, of remotes out there on that credenza. She's stuck on all this
minutia in the first room, and not even moving
on to the next. SANDRA: Yeah, yeah. Just throw that back. Guys, I'm really worried
about what's going on here. I am, too. We're heading in the-- Opposite direction. Opposite direction. EARL: Right. This woman is headed
for a catastrophe and she doesn't see it. What is that piece of
paper you just put in there? Ah! Here's my-- here is my mascara. Do what now? That piece of paper
that you put in there-- what was that? It-- Explain to me what it was. We burn cow poop to keep the
bugs, and the mosquitoes away. And do you think
that's healthy? Yeah, it's healthy. Our hope was that
she'd move forward with her hoarding
problem, and it seems to be only getting worse. So what was the piece of paper-- SANDRA: Who knows what? WAYNE: --that you're
telling me about? Well, it doesn't matter. Paper-- trash is
trash, and it burns. And it burns. The mascara that
you picked up-- SANDRA: Yep, uh-huh. How old is that? It fell out of my pocket. I had it in my pocket today! OK? DR. ZASIO: We've got her
brother Walter, her brother Earl, her brother Wayne. We've got Michael. We've got Eric. We've got myself. We've got Matt, and 35 people
who are all trying to help her. And she's rejecting
every piece of it. Stop attacking me. Everybody's attacking me. Don't make me wrong. [dramatic music] There are 10 dumpsters out
there with at least $10,000 in each one. And I've let go-- I have been forced to let it go. You think they're
worth $10,000? The majority of it is trash. Huh. [dramatic music] It is clear that
I am not going to have any impact with her. She's saying, I'm perfectly
happy the way things are. I've made a choice
to live like this, and I have no desire to change. I am now officially
here for all of you. Right. And so I'm not
giving up on her, but I think at this point,
when I try to help her, it's agitating her. And I don't want
her more agitated. And if she's scooping up
garbage and putting it in a box, then so be it. It's keeping her off Matt's
back right now to try to do the job that we were hired for. But are we not creating
a worse issue with her? A little bit, but
here's the problem. The alternative is she gets
removed by the sheriff, and then y'all got
to deal with it. Then she has nothing. And she has nothing. The brothers are in
a bad situation, too. They love their sister,
but they've done everything they can to help her. For me, I need her
isolated in one corner. If that happens, then I get to
clear the rest of the house. ERIC: You're pulling away
her life, her belongings, and her memories. And that's what hurts,
is that it's not-- when she leaves from
this, it's all gone. Michael and Erica are
having a hard time with this. They are still very
emotionally attached to Sandra. She's an adult, and we're
treating her like a child. MATT: Correct. And that's very hard to face. I mean, nobody deserves that. I told Dr. Zasio, it's like
throwing your grandmother out of her house. This was only
going to go two ways. You guys either clean
it out without her here, or you clean it
out with her here. So, at least, she's able
to make some decisions. MATT: I mean, again, you-- just let me say this
for fifth time-- You guys are saints for
allowing her to do this. By you allowing us
to do this with her, you are giving her
more chance at money and any type of visual
assurance than any other option. So it's probably better
that she had people that care. DR. ZASIO: Exactly. SANDRA: Ugh. Here, I'll let you go first. For me. We don't know if
there's snakes-- DR. ZASIO: Watch your steps.
MICHAEL: --in there, do we? DR. ZASIO: We don't know
if there's snakes, no. We don't know what's in here. There could be people in here. DR. ZASIO: This is a maiden
voyage for all of us. [suspenseful music] All right, guys, so this
is an underground tunnel that you just got cleared away. Yeah. You've never been in here? Nope. DR. ZASIO: What is this tunnel? MICHAEL: There's
a legend that it was either for
prohibition, for liquor to be coming up to the house. Supposedly, it was
connected from the park into the basement. All right, who's going first? I think, Michael, you're
the brave one, right? ERIC: I think you
should go first. MICHAEL: He's braver than I am. ERIC: I think you
should go first. DR. ZASIO: Ah. Quite frankly, we're
all scared bleepless. Oh, my gosh, look at the mold. What is that? MICHAEL: That is growing. DR. ZASIO: It's dark. It's wet.
Don't touch that. Oh, that's all moisture. MICHAEL: Yeah. DR. ZASIO: And it has mold
that I have never seen in all the homes I've ever been with. [gasps] Wow. It looked like someone
had taken a stuffed animal and ripped out the insides, and
thrown it all over the walls. MICHAEL: Oh, my god. DR. ZASIO: Do you guys know
how long this tunnel is? MICHAEL: I heard it's
the length of the house, so this is a couple
hundred feet. ERIC: Oh, my gosh. MICHAEL: And there's
a corner that-- who's going to go first around? DR. ZASIO: I know. Well, I can tell
that Sandra's been down here, because I
don't think, 50 years ago, they had these plastic tubs. Wow. Everything you could
possibly think of was down in this
underground pathway. MICHAEL: Yeah. This is baby pools-- more baby pools. DR. ZASIO: Tires, hoses. Sinks. Look at-- look at
these shutters, you guys. Unbelievable. But it's incredibly,
incredibly dangerous. I think we should move out. MICHAEL: OK. ERIC: Right. [coughing] [dramatic music] MATT: That yard is full. SANDRA: I need-- She's stopping
every one of my guys. Listen, I need the croquet-- Michael and Eric, get in here. 15 of my guys walked
up, and they said, she won't let us work. She's parked her chair
right in the middle of our pathway of two
different rooms coming out. I don't want to hear it anymore.
- I don't care. MATT: I'm done.
Stop talking. I am not-- MATT: This is ridiculous. You know, I'm really
struggling with Sandra. It's one thing to
help this woman. It's another to completely
slow down a third of my crew, and not allow them
to do anything. She's slowing us down
from helping her. [bleep] this. I'm out of here. That's your choice. If you guys want me to
empty the house, I'll do it. If not, I won't. What is she stopping? She's stopping
every one of my guys. 15 guys just came to me
and said they can't work. I chose pieces
that I have been-- Stop.
SANDRA: I'm not talking to you. Y'all figure this out. I'm done. [dramatic music] I have got to have
that croquet set. Excuse me. Michael, Dr. Zasio,
y'all figure this out. SANDRA: Uh--
- Stop. SANDRA: Listen to me.
- Y'all figure this out. SANDRA: I'm not talking to you! I'm done. Matt's walking away. He says he's going to quit. And so I feel like it's
important to intervene, because we can't quit. Look, these are brand new. Brand new. Never been used. But I think it goes
back to the-- so what do you want with them? That's not his business. That's nobody's business-- No, no, no, I'm
asking you what-- - --but mine.
- Well, I'm asking you. Where do you want them? What do you want? I want them back there
to go to my warehouse. Here's the problem. I will speak for 30 seconds,
and I'll leave again. Here's the issue. We're at a volume in
the 3:00 pile that now, if she doesn't manage
to have it taken away, I don't have enough time by
dark to throw it all away. So then we need
to come to her and-- The pile is getting too big. Then we just have
to revise the plan so that she knows the rules. SANDRA: I need to keep that. This is brand new. Brand spanking new. This is ridiculous! Every item she
says is brand new. Every item is important. You go over there
and look at it. I don't care! I don't think
it's been opened. Matt, please stop yelling. I'm sure it's new. It's so important
that we remember that Sandra is mentally ill. We have to stay calm. We have to stay
patient, and continue to treat her with respect. MICHAEL: So I tried to talk
to Sandra about what exactly she was trying to achieve. Are you getting a U-Haul? Do you have a trailer coming in? How is it going to
get out of here? No. Uh, we have a crew
that's coming tomorrow. And we're planning,
tonight, the program. And that's how we'll do
it, and how it'll get done. I would not put money on these
people that are showing up, but Sandra's one of the
most persuasive people I've ever met. The problem is she's had
40 years to produce that, and she's never
been able to do it. Why are we to
believe that she'll do it by 9:00 AM tomorrow? [birds chirping] [guitar music] SANDRA: If you can go get
those glass things there? OK. And, uh-- and whatever's
heavier for the guys, we're going to empty everything
that's ours from here down. Is it empty? SANDRA: Take it to the street. [guitar music] We're getting the
stuff off the property. MATT: I got here
this morning and Miss Sandra had technically achieved
what we challenged her to do. Bring it on out to
the street, if you will. MATT: She did remove a lot
of stuff from the yard, and she put it right
on the property line. SANDRA: And don't let
anybody take it from you. Call me if you have a problem. MATT: The problem is
there were a lot of items in this pile on the street that
I know I saw in the dumpster when I left. Stick that right in that
sort of hole right there-- those chairs. MATT: She looks pretty tired. I think she stayed up all night,
pulling what she could out of the yard, into the street. Hey, guys. How are ya? OFFICER: Hey, ma'am, are you
the owner of all this stuff? This stuff. OFFICER: This is all
of your belongings? OK. Um, the reason is
you're not allowed to have stuff out on the street
impeding, blocking traffic. Block? They have taken 20-some
dumpsters of my good stuff-- OFFICER: OK. --to the dump. And what I'm doing is
getting what I can out here. OFFICER: Uh-huh. SANDRA: And as soon as
we get my stuff out here, then we're going to load it,
and take it to my warehouse. OFFICER: I mean, yeah, our thing
is, you know, there's a time limit for you to get this. It's got to be off the
street by the time-- by 5:00. MATT: So 5:01, it's
got to be gone. OFFICER: It's gone. The local police
came and said 5:01-- boom, that's the deadline. If this stuff isn't off
the street, it's gone. OFFICER: You just can't
be blocking the street. Doesn't matter what it is. Yeah, you can't just be
abandoning your trash in the street like this. SANDRA: Honey, we
haven't abandoned it. We're bringing it
out here to fit the-- OFFICER: I'm just saying
that past 5:00, it's going to be
considered abandoned, and we're going to
call Code Enforcement. MATT: The city is sending a
picker truck here to remove this stuff off the property. That's not an opinion. That's not negotiable. The truck is coming from
the city to remove it. This is now a trash
complaint from a neighbor. [somber music] I help people, and
I'm not helping her. And it's hard. And I know you want to. That's why we're both being
pushed past our breaking point. And it's so painful to watch. MATT: This is a hard
one for all of us. And let me assure you,
Dr. Zasio's a tough chick. Nothing breaks her. And for the first time in
seven years, I saw her broken. She's made a decision
to live on the street. She made a decision
to spend the night digging in the dumpster, which
you told her was off limits. She made a decision to pull
stuff out on the sidewalk. She's losing sight of
what even brought us here. And it's painful because
she's a human being, and her brain is
not allowing her to pick any kind of
reasonable, decent decisions. I'm a human being, and
I would never want this to happen to my grandmother. God, no. DR. ZASIO: She's ill. She's doing exactly what her
illness is telling her to do. And we have to keep cool. We have to keep calm and work
as a team to keep our cool, so that we can walk
away knowing we did everything we could
to help somebody who is pretty much helpless. How do you help a person
that won't accept any help? I wouldn't act the
way I acted yesterday. Dr. Zasio's brought up
a really good point. I was very immature
with Sandra yesterday, and she wanted to
really strongly empower me to be more mature today. I'm glad you're here. Nobody could have done
this job other than you. Nobody could have. There's no question about it. So I don't know. Maybe I was just trying
to isolate myself from her so I
wouldn't feel bad when I go home to my perfect life. Well, I think the
defensiveness of that anger is really a lot of hurt, of
not being able to help her, and wanting her-- Some. And then just that
frustration of-- I mean, some was-- DR. ZASIO: --wanting to
do something positive. Some was frustration,
some was immaturity, and some ways just
a breaking point. But, yeah. I mean, I can't-- I've never had
somebody I can't help. So I do apologize to you. I will go apologize to her. So we've made the decision
that I'm not going to interact with Sandra today. Dr. Zasio is going to
be my voice for me, and I'm just going to
focus on the cleaning. [suspenseful music] What we know is that
there's a very large pile of stuff on the
street that wasn't there last night when we left. Mm-hm. DR. ZASIO: And there's a
huge pile over there too. It's about double the stuff that
we saw when we left yesterday. No, it is not. That stuff is from-- we watched that stuff
go in the dumpsters. MICHAEL: I recognize one of
those boxes from the dumpster, as well. It was not. It was not. I took nothing
out of a dumpster. Nothing. You told me I could
take, out of the house-- Yeah. --what I wanted to keep. Yes, we all agreed upfront
that you could take the things out that would make you happy. How is it leaving today? We're on a clock. Yes. And the more I sit here,
the less I can get done. And this has happened
over, and over, and over. But you know that the city
is going to come pick this up off the street if it's here. You realize they're literally
going to come and take it as curbside trash if it's-- Where--
ERIC: Tonight. MICHAEL: That's what's
going to happen. We're taking it
as fast as we can. Leave us alone, so
we can get it done. DR. ZASIO: This is so
overwhelming for her. And the pressure she's under is
far too much for her to take, and she is resisting all help. SANDRA: OK, so
may we go to work? Yep. Because you're not going
to do a thing but rake on us all you can. And so there's no sense in
continuing that kind of crap. Go for it, my man. Oh, yes. [suspenseful music] At 3:00, I can't get
back in the house. And I've only gone
through the living room. I haven't gone through the
dining room, the kitchen-- nothing. So I'm still getting
the first opportunity that I was promised
to go through, and take special things
that I wanted to keep. Whoa. We need that. That goes to that gazebo. DR. ZASIO: At this point, I
can't help her psychologically. She wants no help at all. Listen to me, no more
talking to that staff. Do you understand? Or the psychiatrist. But what I don't
want to continue to do is to perpetuate the problem. We don't have time
to play their game. So I just need the
guidelines from you. Number one, are you comfortable
with her putting on the street whatever she wants and
continuing to pile that up, knowing that it's possible she
may not get that off the street by the end of the day? Here's the deal. If we don't get these desks out,
they're going in the dumpster. OK. All along, I did tell Sandra
that as part of this process, she could keep the
things that she wanted. And listen to me. This is a $6,000 desk-- $10,000 desk-- and it is
insane to let those get away. I totally understand
and agree that it's getting out of control. The pile's too big. We all believe
that it's not going to be removed by the time limit
that the city has given us. But we need to just deal with
that situation when it happens. Down there. Just wherever you
can put it, there. [somber music] Does anyone know what that-- Nobody needs to know. But they're saying
they need to-- You here. You're here. Sandra knows this is it. Well, get that out so we can
load them in here, and we will. I told y'all I needed to get
the stuff that we're trying to hold down there. MATT: She is in pure panic mode. I want you to show
me the desk you want. So you're going
to pass judgment on what I'm saying
has to be done, and what doesn't
have to be done? No, ma'am. Yes, you are. Right now, Sandra is acting
like a caged wild tiger. You will understand
when we get there, OK? She knows that it's
all over at 5:01. Call them back. We're losing time. No! We have to put the
desk in the truck. OK. Her window is getting
more and more narrow. Somebody came and asked me. And I said, absolutely,
do not load the truck. And they did it, anyway. And that doesn't work, because
now we're going to lose an hour piddling through this
stuff that shouldn't have been touched to start with. It's hard to believe that she
has not, even at this point, grasped the gravity
of the situation. Where are our helpers? Why is it that it's just the-- LUTHER: I'm right here. --three of us doing this? This is your sister, right? WAYNE: Right. Why don't you tell her
that most of this stuff is unnecessary? We have. She has no place to
store all of this stuff. No place at all. And to rent a warehouse for the
amount of stuff that she has, it might take two
warehouses per month. And she's barely
living day to day. Honey, we want to keep those. Oh, Jesus. She fights with me. If we all would come
together-- because it's already three of us in the back
who already decided that this is pointless to
enable her, and carry her things with
her for everywhere, when she has nowhere to
put it, or go with it. SANDRA: We're keeping those. Mm-hm. Thank you. If six people came to her
and said, sis, we love you. We're all here for you. WAYNE: And she's not listening. We got to do it today. We'll do it again. You know, this
is our stack here. WAYNE: I'll do it as
many times we need to. That's what I need to do. I hope it works, but
I'm not optimistic. We have the piece
that goes to it. Betty! Michael? Luther! Thank you, darling. Listen--
- Listen. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's time for you to listen, OK? I'm gonna get down on
my knees, because I'm trying to relate to you here. SANDRA: OK, good. What you need? We've been moving
stuff for three hours, without any definition
of what the value is or what you're
going to do with it. I'm not asking-- I'm not asking you to
tell me any of that. I can handle that. You got to let it go. You know, we're
here for you now. Listen to me. Your brother is here,
your other brother's here. Me and Kira's here. Mike's here. This is not you. This stuff is material stuff. This stuff is my
future, my lifetime-- LUTHER: No, it's not --my money to live on. It's your past. SANDRA: To live on.
LUTHER: About your money. SANDRA: OK, stop. Everything that you're
going to make money off-- SANDRA: OK, stop.
- --is in the pods already. SANDRA: Nothing else. The rest of this stuff is not
worth any money, Miss Sandra. SANDRA: Luther, I don't
want to hear it again. Not another word.
We're done. LUTHER: I know you don't, but
these items are not you life. If you hold on to this stuff--
SANDRA: That's it. That's it. That's it. [suspenseful music] Sandra, could I have just a
moment of your time, please? Sure. OK. Michael called me
this morning and let me know about this--
the pile of stuff that you've got out
here in the street. What do you intend
to do with that pile? We're taking that pile
to my warehouse, thank you. OK. Very much. All right, when is
it going to be gone? This afternoon. OK. I just want-- I
need to let you know that Michael's permit
for the street closing expires today at 5:00 I have been informed of that.
MARK: OK. Thank you.
MARK: All right. If it's not removed by 5:00-- Honey, you don't have
to tell me but one time. I haven't told you-- I hear it. MARK: OK. I hear it. MARK: All right. MICHAEL: But, Miss Sandra,
if it's not gone by 5:00-- SANDRA: I know that, Michael! I've been told that
over and over and over! No, no, no. The city-- listen. I know that! But they're going
to come take it. SANDRA: I know that! - OK.
- OK. As long as you're aware. I've been told
that four times! I know that. I know that. Y'all just-- OK. I can't get a damn thing done
because everybody's telling me what to do. A lot of what you're
collecting here, again, is not worth collecting. I'd rather you spend your
time getting situated with-- I am situated. OK. Period. Where can we take this stuff? It's going to be a
safety issue because it's in the middle of the street. [suspenseful music] So we're going to
have to get that out. [suspenseful music] So I don't know what-- if she
has a plan to get rid of that or not, but it has to
be gone by 5:00 today. So what I'm prepared to do
is have Street Ops come over and actually clean it up
if it's not done by 4:00. OK. That way, at 5:00, it
ensures that it's all clean. [suspenseful music] This aggravation,
I don't need. OK? You don't need
any of this stuff. This is a chain dragging
you down, not lifting you up. SANDRA: In your opinion. In your opinion. So everybody here is
wrong, and you're right? [sigh] We feel like that
this is doing nothing but condoning her problem. It's allowing her to
continue hoarding, like she's done for so many years. So we can throw that container
away with the sand in it? No. EARL: Why not? Can we-- can we
throw the sand away? No. EARL: You don't want to
throw any of this away. Why are you wasting
your effort when you could let these folks that
are here to help you carry this stuff out of your past? If they want to
help me, then they can help me get all of
this out into the street, and loaded and delivered. I won't let the
crew continue to work if you can't explain to
us what we're doing it for and why is it necessary. You can't tell us why
you need this here. Leave now. Leave now. Please, explain to me
why you need this thing. Leave now! The angrier Sandra gets--
if you noticed throughout the process, she was a sweet,
innocent, little southern belle on the first day. And now she's just
a mean old bulldog, and she's going
right at everybody. And she's screaming at
anyone, because she's feeling more backed into a corner. Do you understand? EARL: Sandra, these
people have your best interests at heart, hon. KIRA: How are you
gonna move it all? WAYNE: Why you being
so rude to 'em? You want me to
leave, Miss Sandra? Yeah, If you're gonna-- if
you're gonna preach all day, I don't want to hear it. OK, Miss Sandra. I'll do just that. WAYNE: Luther, I want
to thank you for-- Thank you.
No problem. WAYNE: --for what
you've done today. Thank you for coming. She flat out fired
her crew that's volunteering to help her. We have to remember
she's very ill. She's not accepting our help. She has no concept of what
we're trying to do to help her. And all she does is
see us as the enemy. Call me when
you're all right, OK? I'm all right already. I'll be checking on you. SANDRA: OK. LUTHER: When things
don't go Sandra's way, Sandra tends to push
people away that are actually there for her. So I'm kind of used to it. It's about the third time
she's told me to leave before. SANDRA: Yo, yo, yo. I want those chairs. Listen to me. Help us get loaded in
here what we can load, OK? OK. Let's see a little team work. DR. ZASIO: We have to continue
to try to support her. Because at the end of the
day, 50 years of stuff is being taken away from her. We need to get her
focused on getting the stuff out of the street
that she thinks is of most value to her. Otherwise, the city's going to
come through and take it out. Understanding that
you're enabling her by continuing to work
for her and putting her stuff out there,
who's going to continue to enable her right now? I'm going to go ask her if I
can start loading this truck. No more stuff needs to be-- SANDRA: I need to get
this stuff off the street. Thank you. [engine stalling] SANDRA: Now, Jeanine can come
with us if you want her to. Uh-oh. [bleep] Oh, Jesus. God, come on. [engine stalling] Where do you pop the hood? KIRA: Right here. Right there? KIRA: Mm-hm. SANDRA: I have to jump
the truck because I drained the battery last night. I couldn't figure out how
to cut the lights off. MATT: She stayed up all night
because she still believes she can get it out of here. But, now, the truck broke down. Now her crew's not as strong as
maybe she thought it would be. Things are starting to really,
really mount up on her, and she's just now
realizing this ain't going to turn in her favor. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Oh, me. [beeping] [suspenseful music] They just said if we want to
get that stuff on that truck, we have, like, 20 minutes. We got 20 minutes to get
that stuff off the curb. What we need is help
getting more stuff out there. We have till 5:00. I will throw some
of my guys at this. If she actually
will load the truck, I'll give you some of my guys. - If she'll load the truck.
- OK. - That's not a big deal.
- Sandra? - Yes.
- Right, right. The Planning
Department is out there-- you know, Code Enforcement. Uh-huh. There's a misunderstanding
as to the timeline, OK? Sandra? The street has to
be clean at 5:00. So they're going to bring
the grabber truck at 3:30. They said 5:00. No, the street has
to be clear by 5:00. So the city-- we have no
control over the city. The city is the-- the supervisor's out there now. All right, let
me go talk to him. OK. Now, look, can I
talk just a second? Come with me as I go. Sandra. Earl. The street has to be cleared. They told me 5:00. EARL: OK. I'm telling you what's
going to happen, though. [bleep]. - Sandra?
- Yeah. Earl-- EARL: You do realize
they're coming in an hour. - SANDRA: Dammit! [thud] OK. MATT: It's just incredibly
said that everything this woman has worked for
is going to be thrown away. So you understand-- Earl, stop it! OK. Now! I am not a friggin' idiot, and
I understand every bit of it! Leave me alone! I was told, by their contract,
I have until 3:00 to get the stuff out of the house. And that I have from 3:00 to
5:00 to get it off the street. [dramatic music] What time is it now? CITY OFFICIAL: It's 2:35. I have 25 minutes
to get the rest of the stuff out of the house,
and that's all I can get. Best thing to do is to let her
stay in her own little world. When it happens, it'll happen. That's it. SANDRA: All right,
come on, guys. OK, come on. She had a crew of six
people, who were one-by-one taking the stuff out of
the house, off of the yard, into the street. We've got 30 minutes to
get all of this to the street and what's back here
at this back door. But, as the time ticked
away, you could tell she was getting more and more frazzled. MIKE: No, you got
30 minutes to get all this to the street and,
all the stuff on the truck. SANDRA: Stop it. No. No! No! Listen to me! MIKE: No, I won't. Whoa. - I'm done, Sandra.
- Good. I'm done. SANDRA: Bye. It got to the point where
if they even said anything, she would blow up and fire them. KIRA: You're right. We're out here
trying to help her. I understand that we have--
we're pressed for time. If she wants to kiss
her ass, go ahead. Screw it. I'm through. But the way she came off at me,
I just did not appreciate it. Look, I don't mean
to be rude, but-- [dramatic music] So sit down. SANDRA: Yeah. That doesn't all
fit in Kirby's truck. SANDRA: We were just going
to make several trips. OK. To where? We had all tried all day long. Everyone asked, where
is this location? My buddy's place
that he's allowed me to put this stuff there. DR. ZASIO: Once
again, she will not tell us where that location is. I don't think there is one. I think she is just in fight
or flight mode right now. All this stuff that
you have, there's no way you're going to
have enough time to get it off the property by 5:00 PM. We were warning Sandra all
day, hey, it's getting close. And she was not
focusing on the reality of, hey, the stuff in the
street has to get somewhere. MATT: I will offer to
load the truck that she has there that is inoperable. And whatever's left over
is going to have to go. And I can't guarantee
that the truck will hold everything that she's pulled. Oh, it won't. And it's not anything in the
yard, or anything back there. It would just be
what's on the street. DR. ZASIO: Right. 86 on the U-Haul. If she wants anything, we'd
better load it on that truck, and on that trailer. What time is it? MATT: It's 3:30. We got 30 minutes before
the city gets here. [sighs] You're half an hour
from losing everything. So where is it going? In my space. Where-- what is the space? [sighs] How do I know that we have
the right to put it there? Please, give me a
phone number of someone at that location so I can
verify that it's there. My phone is dead, and I
don't know his number by heart. EARL: Here's what I think-- I don't think she has permission
of the warehouse to take it to. No. I know, that's why I asked. Why do you think I asked? Yeah, I don't think she does. Ugh, this is so sad. MICHAEL: I think
around 4:00 or 5:00 PM, we're going to see a
garbage truck here, and a nuclear meltdown. Been jumping it
for 10 minutes, trying to charge
it up off my truck. The starter will
not even engage yet. So I think the battery
has just not got enough amps in it to pull it. City is here. We can't remove that truck. It's slowly charging,
so the city can't get into this space to take it. The brother's going to
offer to take a load. Then when she
leaves, my guys will throw everything in the dumpster
to get it off the street. So do we literally need
to tell her, you gotta go? You need to load
the truck and go. - It's time to go.
- OK. OK? MICHAEL: We always
understood that this was her home for 41 years. She always knew that we
wanted it to be our home. But having to actually
come to that moment, it was sad to tell her
that she had to leave. We have no more time
with the city, Sandra. ERIC: It's all done. So whatever we can
get on that truck-- Yeah. --it's time to go. Sandra, are you listening? I hear every word you say. OK. All right, then. So that means we
got about 10 minutes. What you want to put on it? [dramatic music] - Go ahead, see what--
- Let's just get it-- See what you-- see what you can get in there. This needs to go. Get the grocery bags. [grunts] Put 'em in. [suspenseful music] Come on. Come on. Y'all, come on. [suspenseful music] [groans] [engine starts] Oh, man. All right. Sandra? Yeah. Why don't you drive this out? We'll load up the pink chairs. What else? [dramatic music] Can we lay 'em on top? We've got two more. [grunts] Is that the last piece? No, no, no. We got two more, guys. MATT: We're done.
That's it. We gotta go. That's it. It's time to go. [somber music] Thanks, guys. We emptied a 10,000
square foot home, and she's got, like,
this much stuff. And it's just--
it's heartbreaking. It's really sad to watch. Come on, help hold me up. [laughs] I wish we could've done more. Oh, yeah, this is it. This is it. She just was never well
enough to make the decision. She could have been doing
this for five years. Lordy, lordy, miss 40. DR. ZASIO: I have
worked with hundreds and hundreds of
people struggling with hoarding disorder. And this was, by far, one
of the most painful cases. I'm too sad about
the things we lost. And I think that's just the
beginning, because I hadn't really felt that way, per se. She literally has nothing. MICHAEL: We tried. To watch her
drive off was really hard, because it was like-- that was it. That was the final chapter. [sorrowful music] It was an awful thing to watch. Couches, pictures,
vases-- picking them up and dropping them into
trucks, and smashing them. [sobs] I didn't want
it to go this way. MATT: This woman had everything. I mean, she-- she
lost it all today. [somber music] This was really, really bad. Because her
disorder, ultimately, brought this incredibly
tragic situation to an even more catastrophic end. MICHAEL: Seeing the house
cleared out is a bit scary. There's a vibe in here still,
because I think everything that just went down-- it's uncomfortable
at this point. But we're hoping, as we just
continue with the renovations, it'll start to feel like a home. MATT: I do believe
the real Sandra will find joy in Michael
and Eric raising their daughters in this house. SANDRA: My life has been
such an adventure so far, and I'll be all right. DR. ZASIO: It's so surprising
that she was smiling and saying, I'll be just fine. Don't you worry about me. And I hope that she will. [melancholy music] Sandra received some
counseling after the show, and participated in
that for a little while. We hoped that Sandra
would stop hoarding, but that has not happened. She's continued to hoard. After the show, Sandra
lived in her camper-- her Airstream-- for several
months at a friend's house, until she was asked to leave. And she moved from
place to place. She was living behind an
abandoned house in her car. And it was getting
very cold, and it got very desperate for her. We arranged to get
her into a room, and it meets the basic
needs of her survival. Sandra wants to live a
very private life now. People have noticed
her from the show. People have helped her
because of the show. But I don't think she'll stand
on a street corner and say, here I am. So she wants to remain
living her life out of the spotlight, if possible. One of the things
that I was really hoping is that she would come
back for an update, because that is a chapter of the
story that will never go away. There isn't a day that goes by
that I don't think about her in some way, shape, or form. [uplifting music] In February of 2015 was when I
first inquired about the house. I have an email that I
started looking into it. And then it took 18
months to purchase, so that brought us into 2016. And then you guys were
here 2 and 1/2 years ago, so it's been almost four years. Once we got into the house,
and it was emptied out, we realized the quality,
and the caliber of the home that we purchased. While the disease took over,
what she did was actually protect the house again. She left it all original
to the way it was built. I do believe her
intentions really were, from a
historic perspective, to protect the house. SANDRA: That's a keep. That's a keep. MATT: A rusted-- SANDRA: Yes.
MATT: --piss pot? The auctioneer--
- She's not-- MATT: The best auction-- She's not going to
have to live with it. It's mine.
- Time out. The best auctioneer
in the country just said it can't be sold. SANDRA: I'm not
asking her to sell it. I'm asking to keep it. One thing that Sandra
said that is difficult is that she always felt there
were millions of dollars worth of stuff in the house. And there probably was, right? To the extent that
there was probably a million objects in here. And at a garage sale, maybe
they were all worth a dollar. And conceptually,
I think that's what people with hoarders
struggle with-- is they see, like, the
value in everything, and they can't get rid of it. AUCTIONEER: Flip 'em over. Is there any stamps
on the bottom? Yeah, there's-- Yeah, keep that. I mean, you have to imagine
living here for 41 years alone, wandering around here by
yourself, day in and day out. Yes, you have friends,
and people come and go. But I'm just saying, to
have spent your entire adult life here, and then to have it
taken away, is heartbreaking. But there's more to her that
I wish the world could see. That was always very important
to me to try and tell people. She was just going
through a tough time. So I understand that's
really what transpired. But she was also being
pushed to something that she didn't want to deal
with for many, many years. What you saw was
really happening, but that happens to all
of us in different forms. I mean, I think, everybody
gets pushed to their limits in certain forms. We've been moving
stuff for three hours without any definition
of what the value is or what you're
going to do with it. I'm not asking-- I'm not asking you to
tell me any of that. You've got to
let it go, though. You know, we are here--
we're here for you now. Listen to me. [somber music] Luther really captivated
us and, I think, the world with his kind
and motivating personality. He was truly a person of
quality that could have done amazing things in this world. But what an amazing guy. And he really touched
a lot of hearts. LUTHER: I'll be checking on you ERIC: He wanted
the best for her. It was very challenging because
we wanted to be delicate. We wanted to make
sure that she felt comfortable in this
process, and knew that we were there for her. We really established a
relationship with her. And, especially, I
connected with her, just on a different level. [guitar music] It's always kind
of been my dream that she would just walk up
and, you know, come see us and we could show her. And to see her excited,
not sad, to know that we're building our family in here. We're raising our family here. Daddy, I see-- ERIC: Maybe, one
day, that'll happen. I'd like to thank Sandra
for giving us a place to raise our family, and
make memories, and find joy around every corner in
the beautiful architecture in this home-- to give us something that has
really and truly just brought us happiness in our lives. And, um, I don't think I can
thank her enough for that. [uplifting music] MICHAEL: If she could see
the kids running around, I think she'd see that the
house is supporting life again. [squealing]
