have stuff you nee d. I mean, why throw away
a brand new thing? Because you don't have space. Debra, look at your boy. Look at what this
has done to him. (SHOUTING) You keep
saying no, no, no. If it's important to
me, that's what it is. 100% of everything
is important to you. I told her we need
to get out of here, otherwise you're just
going to die here. What the hell
is in the toilet? [bleep] This
smell is horrific. I mean, I'm getting
pretty nervous. We are going to need
Dr. Zasio in here. She needs to put
a mask on quickly. [music playing] All the problems,
this is the root. You wouldn't change
a thing, would you? You don't understand. You-- You don't understand because
this is normal for you. You've always lived like this. We're talking about two
separate things right now. We tried to help you. And you just wouldn't let us. It was over and over. And we'd just give up. She hates Phil and Todd. I never did ever like boys. You don't even know. You don't even know what
might be important to me. I'm Debra. And I'm a medical
lab technician. I have five kids,
four boys and a girl. I've worked third shift
for like 21 years. And I haven't been able to
keep a house for many years. I'm Raymond. Debra is my wife. The piles of
clothing in our room sometimes reach the ceiling. DEBRA: The things that I
kind of like to collect are mostly clothes. My hobby is kind of shopping. Debra is a shopaholic. Shopping makes me feel
good, just because I get out. It's like an adventure. This is a pretty belt.
What did you like about it? Um, I like the color. And I like the bling. RAYMOND: Sometimes Debra
will purchase things, and sort of sneak
them into the house where no one knows that
she did buy things. I think that's part of the
reason that she loses things. She's not too sure
where she hid it. I'm Derek. And Debra's my mom. She is constantly ordering
off the TV channels. Every single day, it's almost
like there's another package at the front door. I think she likes
the satisfaction of having something new. I have wasted a lot of
money, $30,000 or more. $30,000 is a low figure. Debra's credit card debt is
probably closer to $50,000. I would like to stay together
to help the children. I don't want my children
to have a broken home, even though, technically, it's
a broken home already. For security reasons,
I want to stay married. Do we really love each other? Probably not. Could we get back? I don't know. I'm Todd. And Debra is my mother. The guys in my family
banded together to clean up the downstairs,
and to clean up the kitchen. My dad got fed up with
it, and basically threw all of her stuff
in the living room. Debra likes the way we live. She sees value in
everything that we have. DEBRA: There might be something
in there that still might be important to me. I'm not sure of what it is. I don't think my mom realizes
what kind of a situation we're at, and what kind of
situation it poses on her kids. Living in my house, I
feel it's very depressing. TODD: It's definitely hard. There's definitely
not a lot of space. The other day I called my mom
the most selfish person I know. DEBRA: My son said I'm selfish. You know what? I don't believe it because I
gave everything to my kids. There's seven of us
that live in this house. She's the only one that's
happy about the way it is, while the six of us suffer. She doesn't mind paying
for what she wants. It's selfish. Time's running out. If Debra continues down the
path of being a hoarder, she's probably to lose
me and her family. I will seek a divorce. I am Patty. And in the Bible it says you
should confess your sins. And my first sin is hoarding. I have no idea what's in what
box, where, or anything else. It's just one big mass of stuff. I'm Chris. And Patty is my mom. i moved out at the age of 17. I just decided to get
out of that situation, and move on with my life. I'm Sean. And Patty is my mom. There is about four different
places in the living room that I slept over the years. For a period of time I
slept in the bath tub. I stayed living with her
there until I was 19. Then I finally moved out then. I told her, you need to get
out of here, and come with me, otherwise you're just
going to die here. I'm Cody. And Patty is my mother-in-law. The apartment was cluttered. But she said she was going
to do something about it. Then not doing it. Then everything just
blew up all at once. Sean and I had a few fights. And there was just a
breaking point where I decided I needed to move out. SEAN: Cody and I are
not living together now. Because dealing with Mom
and Cody simultaneously, it's kind of like being right
in the middle of a tug of war. CHRIS: When we were growing
up, this is what we lived with. I would blame this
whole hoarding thing on my dad's drinking. Shortly after we got married,
my husband started drinking. And somewhere around that
drinking, there was affairs. It was 1984 we moved in there. Then it was about a year after
that that the first affair happened. And that's when things
started going downhill. PATTY: There was this
hole inside of me, and this fear of another
affair, of his leaving me. So that's how my
hoarding started. To her, hoarding was-- there was protection
from the outside. When there was a wall of
boxes, it was another layer of protection. PATTY: Boxes got set
against the wall. I was like safe. When he left, that just
pretty much sealed it. I was worthless. And so my hoarding got bigger,
and, bigger and bigger. And to where I couldn't
stop the ball anymore. The first steps into the house
were just really overwhelming when I was there. There was never a point where
you had to climb over boxes to get into the house. When did it get this bad? I remember being able to walk. It doesn't even look like
the same house that-- when I left. We slept on two
couches along those walls at one point in time. You don't know that? I don't know. It was hard to face this. I'm angry at my mom for the
house being the way it is. I am pretty sure
you were still here when I slept in that. I was just trying to find
some space of my own. Oh, Jesus. Everything came in. And nothing went out. It's heart crushing. And what the hell
is in the toilet? I've thrown in the
towel a while ago. I realized this won't
ever get cleaned up. Hi, I'm Dr. Green. Oh, hi, Dr. Green. I'm Debbie.
- Nice to meet you, Debbie. Nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Melva Green, a
board certified psychiatrist, specializing in anxiety
disorders and hoarding behaviors. What's the climate like? Do you guys get along? Whenever we try
cleaning, that's where the hostilities come out. What? You have to go through
every single, little thing. Because we've
tried helping help. We've tried saying,
this is the stuff that we've already gone through. And you say, oh, I'll go
through it, and you never do. You know what?
I don't remember those times. We know the end result is
nothing's going to change. So why put the effort
in to confront her, when we're just
wasting our energy? I think they
learned to be quiet. I think this is an issue
of learned helplessness. DEREK: You're in denial. If-- if I was in
denial, I would tell-- I am like literally
telling the truth. OK, why don't
you tell the truth, and say you like it like this. This is what you like. This is what you want. You wouldn't change
a thing, would you? MELVA GREEN: It's apparent
that she has much grander ideas about what she's done for them. I make sure you guys
have the stuff you need. MELVA GREEN: They
don't want the stuff. They're experiencing all of
her buying for them as hurt. And that's something
she hasn't been able to wrap her mind around. When you guys need
something I am there for you. I call up-- you
don't understand. You don't understand because
this is normal for you. You've always lived like this. We are talking about two
separate things right now. I don't understand if you
really understand that, Ray. Please settle down. Settle down, take your time. No, I think don't settle down. I think she's been
looking to say all of this for a long time. Debra's stuck. If she makes the choice
that her clothes are what's most important to her,
and not the relationship, the consequences are dire. Her children are fed up. When I was younger, I liked
you more than I did right now. Yes, because of your issues. And there is causes
to that problem. This is like the root of
everything, all the problems. This is the root. Everything comes back to this. RAYMOND: Obviously,
there's not enough room for two people in THIS bed. Not two people who
don't like each other. He's sleeping in a bedroom. Whereas the wife hasn't
been in a very long time. In the place of Debra,
are all of Debra's things on her side of the bed. So I just want to be clear
about which agenda we're on. Is it clean out the house
so Debra's junk isn't here? Or is it clean out the
house, and really do the work to mend your relationship? We don't know yet. MELVA GREEN: It's going to
be interesting to see if they actually want to work
on this marriage. Because that's a completely
different process as we go forward. OK, I'm going to make
it really simple. Do you want this to
be a marriage bedroom? If she cannot step
up and tackle this. She's going to lose her family. Oh my-- Jesus. Going into the house was
extremely different than when I was there before. I'm standing on 4 feet
of stuff, garbage. It was a kick to the chest. - Guys, how are ya?
- Good. Doing good. I'm Matt. My name is Matt Paxton. And I'm an extreme
cleaning specialist. All right, how bad
is it in there? It's bad. It's real bad. I'm trying to get
you into Patty's head. We all see how a hoarder
survives during the daytime. What I don't know is how a
hoarder survives at night. I've never experienced
that before. I'm going to spend
the night in there to see what it was like for
your mom to live in there. All right, good luck to you. Thank you, guys. I'll see you in the morning. All right. All right. This experience
is really new for me because I didn't have the crutch
of the hoarder being there. I had to figure
it out on my own. And I couldn't talk it
through with the hoarder. This house, man, as
soon as you walk in, you see the spider
webs immediately. And then it's just trash. I'm walking down the stairs. Whoa, [bleep] [bleep]. Holy [bleep]. I know there's spiders here. I know there's
snakes in this house. I know there's
rats in this house. But I don't see them. [buzzing] Oh, [bleep], the flies in here. Oh, my god. Oh, I'm sweating my balls off. So this is her bathroom. That's the toilet, man. Oh, my god. This is the bedroom. The smell is overwhelming. This is her bed. This is horrible. The smell is overwhelming. There's dog poop within
3 inches of my face. And it was disgusting. I can't imagine this being
the safe spot in your house. I mean, there's
your TV right there. She laid right here. Oh, the smell is horrific. [inaudible] pizza and cookies. I mean, this was her safe spot. Oh, just the pure
sadness to live here. As soon as you turn the
lights off in this house, time stands still. Hey, so I want to
see what it's really like to sleep like a hoarder. Man, my head is on
a cardboard box. And I hear aluminium
cans crinkling. And I hear newspapers rustling. I don't know if that's
a raccoon, a snake. And I was freaking out. [squeaking] What the [bleep] is that? I don't have a problem sleeping. Sleeping is not an issue for me. No, there's no way I
can sleep in this house. This is crazy. I don't know what's happening. I'm losing it already. Oh, I just can't do it. I'm out of here. Do you want this to
be a marriage bedroom? RAYMOND: Yes. Yes. MELVA GREEN: Yes? Now that I know he does. I am flat out surprised. They were able to come
to terms with the fact that they actually do
want their marriage. I'm Dorothy Breininger,
professional organizing expert. And I specialize in hoarding. We got a big
clothing hoard today. It's crazy. It's actually going
pretty well, so-- My mom hasn't freaked
out yet, I don't think. This isn't really
that junked, Ray. I mean, it's still a good toy. Save this, and one of these,
in case there's a grandchild. It's broken. I mean, if I go somewhere-- I mean, all I need is
a little, tiny chair. It's junk. And you got to realize that. Well, I don't want to
go out and buy a new one. I want this. They don't want any balls?
- No. They didn't want
any of these bats? No. I honestly don't
want to argue. I know. And I really don't want
to save stuff we're not going to give to the children. I honestly don't
want to argue. So I-- I don't
want to discuss it. Of course not. MELVA GREEN:
Everything that I've been seeing with the children
is indicated at the level of despair and frustration. And finding this chair
where one of the kids has written on the
chair, Mom's favorites equal Derek, Tyler, and T. She
does not do bad things to them. She hates Phil and Todd. DEBRA: I really didn't
want another boy. You know, I really
didn't want him. 'Cause really, I never
did ever like boys. You never liked
boys, and you had four. I imagine that it's tough as
one of the boys, overhearing your mother say, I
never wanted boys. And Derek actually overheard
his mother saying that. You don't want to
talk to your son? Why? I just don't. Why? She was upset that
I called her selfish. I'm just done with him. I can't imagine what that's
doing to Derek on the inside. I was asking him why
he thinks I'm selfish. He wouldn't answer me. He wouldn't talk to me. Ignoring me. So I'm ignoring him. But Debra, you are the parent. Right. You are the parent. And if your son would like
to have a healthy discussion with you. I don't think he
really wants to. I don't think he
really wants to-- Derek! The one thing we've always
wanted, over and over, and over, and over again,
was to clean up the house. It never happened. It never happened. We tried to help you. And you just wouldn't a let us. It was over and over. And we'd just give up. Your kids have been coping
the best that they know how. They've learned
to feel helpless. And I can tell from the
tears here, that I'm spot on. Look at your son.
DEBRA: I know. I see him cry. Debra, no, no, no. This is where I call a time out. I want you to look-- DEBRA: I'm not
trying to justify-- --look at--
DEBRA: But you know what? No, no, no, Debra,
look at your boy. Look at what this
has done to him. Matt, hey, how are you? Good morning. - Good to see you again.
- Good to see you. My name is Dr. Robin Zasio. I'm a licensed
clinical psychologist. And I specialize in OCD
and compulsive hoarding. Tell me about your night. Whoa, [bleep] [bleep]. What the [bleep] is that? It was tough. I tried to spend the
night in the house, in a couple of different rooms. And I couldn't do it. What's the house look
like on the inside? There's nothing
really of value. This one's all mental. I mean, this is going
to be a tough hoard. I have a feeling I'm
going to have my hands full. As we begin to
de-clutter the home, Patty's going to
be left with having to face her feelings about the
past, which she is so guarded against. Remember, everything that you
keep has to have a purpose, and it has to have a home. PATTY: You can throw
all the plastic away. You can throw the bags away. All this stuff
we can throw away? But just keep--
ROBIN ZASIO: Oh, good. --the contents. So this can go in the
rummage sale pile. Yes, that is what
I'm talking about. Garbage. Excellent. Proud of you. 2003. Garbage. That's garbage. If it doesn't have anything
written in it, it's garbage. ROBIN ZASIO: Oh, look at you go. Garbage, garbage. ROBIN ZASIO: Good job. Good job, Grandma. You're doing really good. I'm very proud of you. ROBIN ZASIO: At this point,
Patty is trusting the process, and trusting us. She has been working hard. But I'm at a place where
I want to challenge Patty just a little bit more. We want you to be dealing with
the psychological triggers that led to the hoarding, which means
dealing with some of the more difficult stuff. This is the easy stuff. Holy crud. OK, you ready? Go ahead, and go in. This is a battle that
we've known we've needed to tackle for years. And it just kept getting
pushed off and pushed off. This is the worst part of
this entire process, right here. Your boys are here for you. Deep, long breaths, OK? Work with me on the
breathing, come on. She's seeing how sad the reality
of her past is, to the point where I'm really worried
about her health. I mean, I'm getting
very, very nervous. We are going to need
Dr. Zasio in here to put a mask on for me. She needs to put
a mask on quickly. So you think you
have a sickness? I told them a few
years ago I did. Say that to your son. I do have a sickness, Derek. And I'm sorry. He sees this
mother as selfish. But he doesn't really see his
mother as having a sickness. I think that's
beginning to shift. She's got a problem. And she can work towards
fixing that problem. I love you, Derek I
love you a lot, Derek. So here's what
I want you to get. 20,000 pieces of
clothing are right here. Each of us are going
to take a corner. I'm going to make a pile of
keep, giveaway, keep, giveaway. Ray has a pile over there. Can you trust him enough? No. OK. This is going to
take forever, Dorothy. Yep. Who wears this? My nephew's daughter
with wear that. We don't have time for
you to think about this. Well, I'll give it to her. I mean, why throw away
a brand new thing? Because you don't have space. I understand. But I'll just give it to her. It's not like a problem. DOROTHY BREININGER: I've
cleared out all the bedrooms. But the whole rest of the
house now, is full again. And so is outside. And so is the garage. And so is the shed. This is your master
bedroom, all that way, all the way to the TV set. You've got to share
some of the work. You can't see it all. What I would like to do is
excuse myself from this. I'd like for you to stay
here together, and come up with a plan on how you would
get rid of some of this. These boxes are
taller than you. Some of this has got to go. I don't think Debra realizes
that we are on a timetable. I wouldn't throw this away. Even though it's
got dust on it, I would shake it out and use it. Because I can't find this
in the store anymore. And we can't find anything
that looks like real flowers. She wants to save it. I probably wouldn't. But once again, it's very
difficult to talk to Debra because she doesn't
want to listen. What's it good for? I'll just take it out. You know what? I'm not even arguing with you. Don't keep saying no, no, no. If it's important to
me, that's what it is. Ray, you-- you don't even know. You don't even know what
might be important to me. You have no clue. Everything. Look at the house. No, but I'm just saying. Every single piece
is important to you. 100% of everything
is important to you. In that moment I
walked in, she was in a lot of emotional distress. I wanted to stay in that core
of the hurt and the pain, and for her to really experience
those emotions that, for so long, she has been avoiding. You've experienced very
severe abuse and trauma. And this is the
consequence of your trauma. This is trauma that led to this. As painful as it
is to sit in here, I'm hoping that you're
going to see that by moving through
this, you're going to be in a much better place. PATTY: It's really hard
for me to know that I let the house get so bad. I failed my kids. And I failed myself. OK, so the same thing
with the dishwasher then? The rang?
Yes, I'll pull it. We are moving stuff
out of the house. But the reality is, I only
got a few days to clean it. Are you sure you want me
to pull all the appliances? I got to go a lot
faster if I want to get her back into this
home by the end of the week. If we don't address
that now, while I'm here, my fear is this family
is going to remain in so much dysfunction that
none of the goals that they're trying to reach, in terms
of bringing this family back together, are going to happen. If your husband is not
involved in your life, it ain't going to work out. No, I just-- I don't really want to see him. The closest thing to seeing him
would be my fist in his face. Ever since Cody and I
first started going out, it's been a back and forth
battle between Mom, Chris, and Cody. I knew Chris was
going to be angry. But I didn't realize Mom was
really holding that much anger back. Cody needs to step it up. He's burned plenty
of bridges already. And I think this is going
to be his last chance. So we either go
forward, or we say stuck. This is a huge stumbling
block that I want to help you guys start to try to bridge. It ultimately
is Mom's decision. I'm going to ask
you to trust me. No matter what I'm
doing, at this moment I'm going to hurt somebody. If you want this
family to come together, then let's move forward. Let me do my job. DEBRA: You're trying to
put words in my mouth. And what you continue to say-- MELVA GREEN: Can we
stop for a second? You guys are talking,
but not communicating. I can never voice my whole
opinion because you shut it down all the time. DEBRA: Translation, I
don't feel heard, Ray. You're exactly right. I don't feel heard. You're heard. The thing is that you
never listen to us. MELVA GREEN: Translation,
I never feel heard. This is very true. You never listen to us. Do you really want this? Because this is what
it's going to take. It's going to take
a lot of practice. Are you willing to do the work? I gave them a way out. I can't think of
a reason why not. I want to go forward with this. Yeah, I guess so. And they're saying no, we want
it, even if it means we have to fight through it to get it. Good job. Good. Good job. DOROTHY BREININGER: It was a
big day for Debra because she actually gave up control to
all of us, the organizers, and the 1-800-GOT-JUNK team. We were doing it for her. And her family was
doing it with her. That's a really different
experience for Debra. Debra got rid of about
15,000 pieces of clothing. Pretty darn good. Wow, the difference. This is just fantastic. There is no other
way to describe it. It's absolutely fantastic. This is a dining room. This is really nice. TODD: The house was
just full of hoard. And today, the hoard is gone. And it's just free space. DEBRA: It's bright,
and it's white. I really liked the
colors of the wallpaper because the wallpaper
was about like $1,000. It's just not my color. It's just not my color, white. I really hate white. The pinks and the mint
green, they make me happy. I really am upset
with the bathroom because I really love the pink. Everything that I really
loved in my house is gone. This is horrible. I hate this whole bathroom. I hate it. No, I mean, I hate it. To me it's horrible. I mean, it's-- it's horrible. MELVA GREEN: Debra really
wanted Dorothy to get her. Dorothy couldn't read her mind. And that brought up, for
Debra, all the disappointments of the past. And I know this disappointment
is about being chronically disappointed. It's OK. But you don't understand. I never liked surprises. I never liked Christmas.
I never liked surprises. I know. I know. It's been a roller coaster. You know, you've got this
beautiful transformed space. And Debra's bawling
her eyes out. You've been
disappointed so much. I know. I know. Looking at her, that
the average person would think, what a jerk. But this is the illness. When you move their
things around, or when you attempt to
transform their space, you see something different
than what they see. Let me do why you
guys brought me here. I'm sorry, hon. It's OK. I'm so proud of
you because you're doing what you think is best
for this family and you. SEAN: I was kind of
shocked that she said OK. But she didn't do it because she
wanted to be nice or anything like that. She did it because she thought
Dr. Zasio made a great point. PATTY: So this is Cody's
best chance to grow up. And he needs to grow up. I'm really proud of
this family for being willing to trust the process. Hi there. What up? I think Cody really wants
to prove that he could be a part of this family. Here you go, [inaudible]. I did feel like part
of the family today. It was awesome to be able to
work with them the way I did. MATT PAXTON: And he's
working really, really hard. All their personal
issues aside, they're doing exactly what they
need to support their mom, and get this house clean. These guys are hustling. Beautiful. It's time for Patty to start
facing more of her demons. We started to bring out items
associated with her ex-husband. Tell me about this one. It was a 1990 stein. This was the year he started
drinking a lot again. And things went downhill again. I'm not hearing anything
positive the more you talk about this stein. This does not produce
a happy memory. You've held it in for decades. It's time to let it out. I hate what you did to me. And I hate what you to my life. And I hate what
you did to my kids. By Patty smashing
the steins, it's her way of starting to release
that emotional pain that she was so afraid to face. It's really, really good to
see this family come together, and start to learn that you
can express any emotion, and it's OK. This family is tired. They've worked
really, really hard. If Dr. Zasio did not have this
family learn to talk together and work together,
there's no way we would've gotten the
house as clean as we did. Look up. What do you think? It's beautiful. What do you think? Isn't it awesome. It's wonderful. There isn't enough words
to tell you how I feel. I can't express how
thankful that I am. My grandkids can come and
spend the night in my home for the first time
in their lives. CHRIS: My mom was able
to face her fears. And none of this
could have happened if she wouldn't have done that. I was able to let go of
a lot of horrible memories that were in that house. I feel more like Patty today
than I have felt like Patty in a long, long, long time. You've given me my life back.
