Hoarders: Most EXTREME Compulsive Shoppers - One-Hour Marathon | A&E

[Music] i'm dolores i love to shop but i'm out of control my problem is that i like too many things and it's hard for me to let go [Music] i think i'm a shopper and a hoarder i'm arthur and i'm dolores husband the current condition of our home is that every room is full i mean if you come into the entrance and you look to your left is the living room it's full you look to the right and the dining room is full you go straight ahead to the kitchen it's full you go to the family room it's full you go up the stairs if you can there's stuff on the stairs the three bedrooms up there are full so every room is full and the garage she doesn't like to stay in the house because of the condition of the house where have you been no we have the elbow how are you how are you stephanie i love love love to shop what are you looking for today we got tons of jewelry over there well you know me i'm first with the jewelry i know you like the jewelry we're here look pearl cliffs pearls are big again look at these my favorite thing to buy is jewelry that's my weakness these are good it's okay keep your pile over here like always i love my clothes orange is 25 off and green is hair full oh yellow you love yellow i love my shoes i get a high when i go shopping especially if it's on sale and this is what here yeah 75 90 75 wolf i get very excited this is nice oh that's nice and i buy it whether i need it or not i want no no shopping there oh really author's gonna see it tell me you went to the grocery store you got some uh toiletries that's what i say i have spent several hundred thousand dollars over the years on my stuff it made me happy i don't regret it she'll go into stores see something she likes and she'll buy it and bring it home arthur are you home and hide it and it's led to this current condition i'm jenny and dolores is my mom i think my mom is a hoarder i feel like she's caused the situation but she doesn't want to be around it it's like she loves these possessions but she's also resents them as well we've lived in this house for 41 years this is my dream house it was always picture perfect i would always entertain have my friends over and had beautiful dinners for christmas i was always a perfectionist i put my house before myself early on dolores didn't have any of those tendencies as far as collecting things and you know over-buying and purchasing she was pristine i mean her house she could eat off the floors you know everything was in order i'm artie and i'm dolores oldest child my house growing up my mom was like a neat freak so she would just always want everything in order and she was all about keeping her house nice and neat i remember my mom like picking up lint from the carpet like everything had to be perfect picture perfect the problem that we currently have didn't start until probably 25 years being in the current house in other words she's probably been doing it for the last 10 to 12 years arthur would like me to get rid of everything often would get very mean with me and tell me he's going to leave if the house is not in order he can't live like this anymore he would say i'm going to texas i'm going to move in with artie i said fine do that that's what you want the more author would get angry with me i would go shopping more and i knew that would upset him by me not having a house in order all the stuff in houses payback as far as i'm concerned you can go into that house and throw everything out everything everything nothing in there is mine nothing i feel like my dad's been put through a lot she's the one who did it and the victim's my dad it's been torture for him i think that my dad really doesn't know how to handle her and i think it's hurting their marriage tremendously if my mom's not willing to clean up the house i think that my dad is gonna have no other choice but to leave the problem of the hoarding has to be addressed it has to be fixed and if dolores doesn't change her habits i really don't know what our future will be good morning everybody good morning we're here big team because we've got a big job inside this house we are gonna spend the entire day today earning your trust and we want you feeling good about this and feeling comfortable about it we have enough people to help that we can actually get this done guys ready to go ready all right let's do it so we just had a really good morning meeting i've set the plan and we're all very clear on what our roles are going to be today dolores in the house with the organizers and me and artie and the cleaners in the garage and we're gonna bang out the whole first floor and we're gonna bang out the garage and everybody's gonna be happy no just leave that there that did not happen five minutes in dolores gets distracted with the garage hey dolores oh no you see what happened hold up no no dolores immediately leaned down put her hand on something and had to touch it so what do you what is your theory right here what are we doing this is yesterday's keys um that's a bag of sand yeah and from the very first minute we're just watching dolores pick see this this is christmas okay we're gonna sort all of that for you over the tables divorce what huh you're supposed to be inside yes i know i just said you can't look at all this stuff we're gonna pull it out for you and we're gonna let you sort it we saw immediately what arthur and the family was telling us about she is unable to stay focused even for 60 seconds i need you inside telling the girls yes what to do i'll go out so i need you to trust me to get this empty this is not gonna go in the dumpster okay this is exactly what happens anytime you anytime you try to get rid of stuff she starts looking in every bag and tries to keep everything there it's the same damn thing i see look the same thing just leave these two boxes there i got it i'll pull them to the side yeah no because i only need anything it's unbelievable so we got to interrupt this process oh yeah yeah this has to stop all right so you the girls are waiting on you at the front door all right and i'll no don't want to go to the garage i'll get all this i got a bunch of people that can help me with this yeah okay throw it out all right all right if you see this row right here this is from the garage and that's a lot of mouse poop all right and it's really just this row here but it's pretty saturated with both poop and urine okay can i put this on the dolores commandments which is anything covered in rat poop you agree with that yeah okay what's this in here i don't know but it's trash bag so i think it's gonna be bad so i i would suggest letting it go because it's covered in rat pee and poop now delores you're going with your bare hands through stuff that's covered in mouse food throw down there you go you've given us the okay i'm gonna let you pick that top corner all right now you're fiddling with things like that yeah no no this oil goes yeah okay if it goes then you can leave it doing great yeah there you go yeah this goes okay [Music] i won't even tell you what this costs these four things dolores i'm gonna be really blunt if you want an empty house you're gonna lose stuff that is important to you do you hear me mm-hmm do you what do you agree or do you care certain things i will not certain things i will not like these these are very very expensive and i'll use them i'm just gonna really question how important is this stuff versus clearing a house out for your grandkids certain things are important what's more important a fake gold plate or making space for your grandkids some is my stuff your stuff is more important than making space with the grandkids probably you mean that the stuff is more important certain things yes i'm dr david tolin i'm a clinical psychologist and a specialist in the study and treatment of hoarding disorder i was shocked jenny is standing right there and that's got to be brutal to hear your mom say that jenny you look like you're feeling something as you're listening to this tell me what's going on with you it's just a lot tell me it's just a lot of stuff like you can't no one can use all this stuff so it's just i understand it's hard to make a decision on every single one but we can't sit here and make a decision on every single piece we can't or else it's just we're never gonna get this house done right we're only on the garage right now so we need to move a little bit move along a little bit but it's really going to require a tough choice from you dolores i know that you put family first and i think deep in your heart you know that to be true as well but i think right now your thinking has been clouded by this drug that's all around you this clutter i believe that deep in her heart she really wants to get over this at the same time dolores has been thrown into the middle of something huge and overwhelming and she's doing what she can to feel a semblance of control you could do it you have our support you don't need this stuff i have to work with dolores to try to understand the reasons why she hoards so that she can get better control over herself so please we're begging you please get rid of this stuff like we're begging you please i'm concerned about the pace that this is going at right now dolores still has to handle and look at every single item how are you making the decision if dolores doesn't fundamentally change her behavior all right we're not really going to accomplish much we can clean out the house but if dolores doesn't change she's just going to fill it up again if we go at the pace we're going right now we'll be lucky to finish downstairs and that's just not enough for the for everybody i need to get rid of some stuff either trash donate or sell so matt's question is are you willing to let the organizers make some decisions about what stays and what goes without you having to look at every one of them but that's if you do that then we can just move on with the other stuff too because we need to get to these other rooms okay mm-hmm so would that be okay with you dolores to let other people go through some stuff for you instead of you having to do it all yourself yeah okay good you're good to us we need that author yeah yeah thank you kind of surprised how easily dolores is saying okay she's saying yeah go for it and so we did for the last two hours we really cranked it out we got a full team we're going as fast as we can and the reality is we have not put a dent in this house i got 10 feet of white tile that's it i've got to clean four rooms tomorrow and get upstairs if i have any chance of saving this house day four is always tough you really hope you're gonna finish but i don't know if we're gonna finish we've been cranking all morning we're making really good progress upstairs and we're about to fill our 10th dumpster which is going to put us over 25 000 pounds of trash in the last three days donate our pace has picked up considerably because dolores got out of the house and let us work donate donate all right i like it got it donate donate dolores is out front going through thousands of pieces of clothing i would estimate probably 10 000 pieces of clothing are coming from upstairs and my goal is to keep her doing that the rest of the day donate but we are gonna be up to the very last second to finish this [Music] [Music] we did it we cleaned the upstairs and the downstairs it was a slow start but we really pulled it out at the end we're getting ready to take the family in and show them all the work that we did oh boy [Music] oh my goodness oh yeah yeah goodness my house what do you think great oh my god oh my god it's just hard to believe i haven't seen this room in probably 10 years you know it's always fun to see a family walk into a house they haven't seen in 20 years and you could see the emotion immediately from everybody jenny how you feel definitely brings back a lot of good memories yeah you got good memories in here too it's just hard to put into words it's just really unbelievable like i never thought that this would happen oh my god it looks brand new yeah go on in i it's something wow this is like a rebirth i mean this is just something that i never dreamed could happen never arthur truly believes he's getting his life back that's a really powerful thing to see oh my god oh my god i haven't seen that granite and many moons it was just astounding to see it totally clear the way i remembered it from many years ago now i'm very excited just to live a normal life this is absolutely a win we finished the house we got 25 000 pounds of trash out of here and a family has got a chance of getting their life back oh my goodness oh my god oh my god oh my god just beautiful how do you feel dear now we're going to keep it this way right that's right all right it's not going to change absolutely it's really important to recognize that this is not the end of the story this is the beginning of the story that we got him off to a good start but now it's up to them i'll never forget any of you it's just amazing amazing amazing amazing you said something in the garage today you know what we said there's no way to repay what you have done all of you all of you the whole crew you folks did a great job yourselves you worked your butts off this week and it shows [Music] open your house and open your hearts and maybe you'll have a new life is dolores cured of hoarding not at all the real work starts next week when dolores has the urges to go shopping the only way this house stays clean is the delores goes to therapy i'm going to make sure that she gets the help that she needs i think this family needs to keep practicing setting limits but if everybody does their part i think we may be able to keep this problem away for good i am not going to hoard anymore absolutely not and i promised to my husband and my children that this will not happen again this is the beginning of the rest of my life to live happily ever after [Music] i'm deborah and i'm a medical lab technician i have five kids four boys and a girl i both third shift for like 21 years and i haven't been able to keep a house for many years i'm raymond deborah is my wife the piles of clothing in our room sometimes reach the ceiling the things that i kind of like to collect are mostly clothes my hobby is kind of shopping deborah's 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 sometimes deborah will purchase things and sort of sneak 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 hit it i'm derek and deborah is 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've wasted a lot of money thirty thousand or more thirty thousand dollars is a low figure deborah's credit card debt is probably closer to fifty thousand dollars [Music] i would like to stay together to help the children i don't want my children 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 you know get back i don't know time's running out if deborah continues down the path of being a hoarder she's probably going to lose me and her family i will seek a divorce i'm dorothy brenninger professional organizing expert and i specialize in hoarding got a big clothing board 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 on my new one i like this they don't want any balls no they didn't want any of these bats no we honestly don't want to argue i know and i really don't know so i i don't want to discuss it of course not 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 gonna make a pile of keep giveaway keep giveaway ray has a pile over there can you trust him enough no okay this is gonna take forever dorothy yep who wears this my nephew's daughter will 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 [Music] 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 at 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 deborah 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 even find it this in the store and we can't buy 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 deborah 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 you might be important to me you have no clue everything look at the house no but every single piece you know what is you know important to you 100 of everything is important to you can we stop for a second you guys are talking but not communicating i'm dr melville green i'm a board certified psychiatrist specializing in anxiety disorders and hoarding behaviors i can never voice my whole opinion because you shut it down all the time translation i don't feel heard right you're exactly right i don't feel heard you're heard the thing is that you never listen to us translation i never feel heard this is very true you never listen to us do you really want this cause 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 job 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 deborah got rid of about 15 000 pieces of clothing darn good [Music] [Music] wow the difference this is just fantastic there's no other way to describe it but it's absolutely fantastic this is the dining room well this is really nice the house was just full of horde and today the horde is gone and it's just free space it was bright and it was white [Music] i really liked the colors of wallpaper because the wallpaper was about like a thousand dollars it's just not my color it's just not my color white i 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 and and no i mean i did i hate it to me it's horrible i mean it's it's horrible debra really wanted dorothy to get her dorothy couldn't read her mind and that brought up for deborah all the disappointments of the past and i know this disappointment it's about being chronically disappointed it's okay you don't understand i've never liked surprises and dinner like chris cause i never liked surprises i know it's been a roller coaster you know you've got this beautiful transformed space and deborah's bawling her eyes out been disappointed so much i know 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 i'm nora a retired medical professional and i'm a collector i'm a collector of everything i collect cuckoo owls i collect tails lamps sleepwear i'm one for a lot of victoria secret sleepwear and i can't even tell you everything that's under the pile i just know it's things that i've collected over the years you cannot walk through rooms the stove is piled up to where i cannot cook on it the sinks are piled up to where i can't get even any water out of the sink i'm sheila and nora is my sister the last time i've seen noor's home was over 13 years ago she will not allow you even to visit or stop by and if you continue to ask she becomes very upset and asks why are you assuming that i am a hoarder i'm ver lee and i am nora's sister there's been days where i can't get hold of my sister for like a day and a half on the phone yes i'm worried about her [Music] about 30 years ago her son kevin was diagnosed with a brain tumor and he lived about eight years with it they stopped life support 5 30 [Music] in the evening and that's when my life ended not a day it was by and when kevin passed away then when the things started accumulating every time i would buy a set of something i would about set for him it was almost a feeling that kevin was going to come back she's so attached to these items that taken them away is like reliving kevin's death it really is she's told us she does not want to get rid of anything she doesn't have anything to get rid of and she will die first in the home before she parts with them if nora is not able to get rid of any for things and refuses help then we have to call protective services i said you best not do anything like that i'm not hoarding anything i'm collecting things and i love my collectibles and i'm going to keep collecting them i'm very concerned that my sister will die in the home and no one be there with them [Music] nora we were told you wanted to talk to us this morning my name is corey chalmers i'm an extreme cleaner specializing in biohazard and hoarding i had some very exciting news later last night my nephew sheila's son who's in the military he's a naval officer is coming home and he asked last night could he come to my house and visit a few days so we got to get moving today oh i love that i'm serious well good let's do it let's get going donate donate donate donate cook books donate things are going great so far she's letting the sisters make decisions while she hangs out in the tent and slide on one of them would that be okay i just bought those from a car or something uh throw them in a keep box keep oh i know where all this stuff goes moving things you go back in the house some places later it's been kind of slow going at this rate it would take weeks if not months to go through everything odor is very foul and lingering what's wrong i don't know i can't believe this is my sister they come down and visit me all the time and then he was living like this and i let her go home to something like this why did i let her go home oh my gosh you can't do this to yourself okay i understand how you're feeling but you can't beat yourself up okay you can't go back there's nothing you can do to go back we didn't know where we would have helped her there she is we're just talking you all are throwing too much stuff away out there is that right the donate boxes yes what's the matter burley is upset about what oh i'm just feeling sad and guilty because when i let you come home from my house i didn't know it was like this well don't feel sad feel happy that you're able to help me now oh good are you okay with us helping you though now yeah i'm okay i just i'm sorry you're going through this no i just love you love you too sweetie well wait a minute did you find those binoculars they're expensive i'm selling them there should have been a little pair what are you looking for they were in a if they were in the case we never took them out they're two thousand dollars where are they i know little spurnockers in there i know that i could sell them within a day and i know what i can get out for it because i've got the receipt of what i paid for i feel like we're going back to yesterday afternoon when you started to check out and you started to get stressed and i don't want to do that to you so i need to make sure your head's still in this and you still really it is i just don't want four five six thousand dollars was thrown away either dr tompkins has some work to do he's got to sit down with her and see if we can't proceed but at this point it's not looking good what were your concerns nora when you went into the house that things will be thrown away or have been thrown away or donated which i would not have permitted there was an entire apartment building that burnt down a couple cities over and 48 families were homeless they're gonna come and get all this and give it to all those families does that help just knowing that these families are getting it oh this makes me happy it really does that's what we like to hear [Music] when i was in second grade our home burned down so i know how devastating that is and i just want to give whatever we can to these victims i just want to really applaud you i mean i think they took 75 boxes away which for me is a record and hopefully that'll motivate you to let go of even more tomorrow morning okay because that's the last we have tomorrow morning's yeah michelle can we donate this [Music] where am i [Music] when i walked in the front door it felt like i was in a dream i just couldn't believe it was my home it's mean so much to me i can't it actually looked like someone waved a magic wand it brought us all to tears when kevin was alive this space was filled with love caring kindness then we lost kevin and you filled the space around your heart with things so what brought us here was to bring love and carry back in your life it feels like there's been some weight lifted off of my heart i mean that i mean that with all my heart now nora can create new memories of love and caring and i was there it was right there in the room you could see it [Music] my name is ingrid i am 58 years of age i am an administrative assistant in personnel administration i don't mind being here because there's nobody else here it's just me and so i don't mind it at all my name is barry and ingrid is my mom i don't think she's ever viewed it as a problem when she goes somewhere else and it's messy she notices but when it's her own house she doesn't know us it's like she has blinders my name is michael and i'm ingrid's brother if there's a denial scale like a one to ten denial scale she's hovering about 9.5 if i had more storage area even a room like you know a utility room it wouldn't be as much of a problem it's floor to ceiling wall-to-wall i know that she does a lot of things on home shopping network i know she's done a lot of things on qvc i would say i do 70 to 85 of shopping over tv they make it so easy of course just sit there and oh that's pretty i think i need that there are boxes everywhere that are unopened the ups man probably is a regular stop at her house so there's got to be thousands of mice and god knows what kind of flora and fauna and botulism and mold and you know who knows what's in there my name is sandy and i'm ingrid's younger sister she does have some some health problems with things that they can't identify that she's always getting antibiotics for and i think after a certain amount of antibiotics your body starts getting immune to the antibiotics i was getting strep throat all the time and fevers she has weird infections cropping up in her mouth and things i would think she's putting herself in in great physical danger my name is david i'm ingrid's younger cousin she travels a lot and whenever she comes home she's usually under the weather and she would attribute it to jet lag and i've always told her i said ingrid it's not that trip it's your home and she just she would just shrug it off i think there's probably hazards in every house and this probably isn't healthy but like i say it's there's a lot of things that aren't that is frustrating because like i told her too if you were to get sick and an ambulance team were to need to come in here with a gurney they wouldn't be able to get to you you couldn't even get the guy carrying the gurney into the house i would say my biggest fear would be that she would just continue to do what she's doing and she would eventually die in that house good morning good morning how are you feeling today i'm great how are you we're good my name is matt paxton i'm an extreme cleaning specialist ingrid is not like your traditional hoarder she's unbelievably unaware of how real this problem is all right we got a lot of work to do today yes a whole lot of work i know we do normally we'd get started inside and try to find an easy place and kind of warm up unfortunately we can't get inside so we're going to start here in the hallway and we're going to start pulling things out you're going to stay in the yard all right let's get to it it's an enormous amount of volume there's not even really a clear pathway to walk we can't even open this door if i can make two feet in that in that back door then we'll get a place to start bringing things out so we're gonna pull everything onto the steps and then open this door all the way and then bring it out all right i walked in there i never get headaches i got a headache man just smelling in there for 30 seconds the mold the feces the urine there's a lot in there there is mice poop on everything it's covered how do you think we have these in the house just one like there's two right here they're covered in i think there were three these are covered in some kind of they can that can get washed i'm suzanne chabot i'm a clinical psychologist and i specialize in obsessive compulsive disorders and hoarding we see this with hoarders they don't smell what we smell they're not as sensitive to toxins as we would be and that's because they're living in a home that's toxic can i wash it off i was gonna give that to somebody you can't give this to anybody you can't okay i mean i couldn't you know take a poop on a gift and then give it to you you know i mean does it smell though it doesn't matter i mean my mouse is pooped on this when we see a thing that's covered with mouse poop we see the mouse poop and we think let's get rid of it because it's speared with mouse poop she doesn't see it so it's it's extremely frustrating this is a keeper the downstairs bedroom was completely full i mean you couldn't even see the roof through the doorway so we had to go through the outside window we had to crack open the window and just start pulling things out i've got a bunch of stuff over here i need you to approve it's trash they can start taking it to one of the trucks i think you're gonna be able to make some sweeping decisions a lot of brand new shoes we think are good they can be saved the paintings can be saved other than that it's it's pretty much trash it's just covered in in feces and urine is it i mean covered how do you feel about that well can i look at some of it again the question is not is it good stuff the question is is it healthy and safe but it's just not real yeah but i would like to save these i think i mean it's not safe that is covered oops in species covered if it's covered in poop you can't keep it you can't sell it you can't give it away she just doesn't see that yet for this house to be liberal tomorrow she has to make a lot more decisions a lot quicker that'll be hard but i don't know what there is throw away really this is just too much too fast for her if i was betting i would say no she's not gonna be able to do it that stuff that's unopened stuff she purchased off the computer has never opened in 10 15 20 years and here are some of them that were on the front porch i have no idea what's inside they're all home shopping qvc that kind of thing if and when we're able to open that front door we're going to find more of these because this is the stuff when that stopped yeah this is where it ended up i mean it's like a 300 10 piece stainless steel cookware said now we're getting down to the meat and i mean you're seeing how much stuff she's bought and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of things i mean this is this is a serious serious problem yeah i bought a pair of rain boots for four dollars yeah that's not cool well i figured i'd get in trouble for that yeah it's kind of a slap in the face to go buy something on the day of a cleanup why am i wasting my time here away from my family to help you if you're gonna go buy something that buying something is the same process that got you in trouble because that's the same thing that for a moment takes away the pain for a moment gives you a sense of freedom but it is not freedom anything that you overdo in your life to an extreme is gonna start killing you now that we're down to crunch time we're coming to the wire now it's do or die you know she has an emotional attachment to this stuff but she wants to keep every damn thing this is keep this keeps and this is true it's garbage it's just garbage too much stuff too little pace to store it i mean you have to make a decision in the next 20 minutes some of this stuff has to be let go somehow somewhere ingrid's issue as we've known from the beginning is limits and restraints she has no understanding of limits or consequences i would keep these bags let go of the big boxes that have no personal attachment they're just things you bought sell them or donate them one of the two you know on an emotional level united's attacks i understand but some of those things i just bought three or four weeks ago i know you just bought i want to say it a third time i know you just bought it i i i understand but i'm telling you it's fine you don't agree but you can't disagree with math you only have two feet left in that box once that box is full we leave we can't do anything else to help you you're gonna have stuff on the lawn that's okay i'll put it in the house where in the back room the whole point was to give you space to live i think it's really unrealistic so i am done he's been really unreasonable i'm sorry but he is she's unable to give anything away she's unable to throw anything away all she wants to do is keep it of all the stuff in the house this is the donate pile we have an 18-wheeler truck from salvation army here to take as much donations we can get you know we're not going to fill buy boxes okay you ready one person's garbage is another parent's treasure helps us out so yeah just call us and we'll come and get it wherever you are this is one of the frustrating jobs when you look at a whole is this job a success or a failure and if you look at it in this small snapshot right now of course you're gonna say it's a failure but you have to look at where she's come from yesterday morning to this afternoon has she figured out some of the issues she has a little bit um how much work we have to do an enormous amount of work if she doesn't religiously follow her aftercare this house will be filled before i get on the plane tomorrow i guess i didn't realize i was a hoarder i just know i like pretty things i didn't realize all the psychological things that go along with it today ingrid began to really accept that she is a hoarder that she has a disorder that is progressive and that she is in the extreme state of hoarding it's hard to let go of things that you consider important in your life so maybe it'll get easier as time progresses recovery doesn't happen in two days it's a process first step admitting that you have a problem [Music] [Music] my name is ruby and everybody calls me mama i think i'm the worst kind of hoarder i must have lost a pair of shoes in there i can't move in the house the only way i get in it is to do the side step turn sideways and scoot my feet side to side the living room serves no purpose except for stuff the kitchen has no purpose except to take over the stuff that the living room can't have handled at first i was sort of keeping further control of it but then at one point i don't know when it just overwhelmed me that when i went in to try to move stuff it wouldn't let me move it i'm jessica i'm 20 years old i was raised by ruby she's my great grandmother she adopted me and my brother he was nine months old i was four years old i'm jeremy i'm 17 years old i've always been a hoarder for as long as i can remember really but it's starting to get really bad within the last five years i didn't really notice it until i got a little older i started noticing things get out of hand like the house started filling up she started running out of places to put things i'm a shopaholic i was spending about five or six hundred dollars a month i've cut back a lot i'll put it like that i go shopping maybe three times a week and now i try to hide it you know so i don't let my kids know that i'm shopping i'm lorraine i'm mama's second child i've been controlling mama's money for approximately three years i realized that the thrift stores were getting all of her money shopping is like a drug for my mom she had absolutely no self-control whatsoever when i'm shopping it makes me feel good floating on cloud nine it takes the sadness away probably see you on friday bye bye mama's stuff means everything to her i'm sure but i hate it i hate the stuff i hate all this unnecessary clutter i hate the filth it's just a painful situation to see mama and jeremy live this way good morning everybody good morning good morning i'm dorothy brenninger i'm a professional organizing expert and i specialize in hoarding we really do want to be clear about there is a crisis here i mean bottom line we want to pull out everything from the house so we can examine whether the rats have gotten to it whether the mice have gotten to it ruby is facing adult protective services her daughter lorraine will call them if this house isn't cleared because it's simply not safe jeremy does not need to live in that kind of house and neither do you we want to create a space for you too okay it matters well that's why we're going to get this done without a fight right without a fight without a fight give me a hand but it's going to be without a fight no fighting okay and here we go this way this can go on the tarp on the tarp we need to have manpower woman power to get in here and clear the stuff out there's so much in it would take months to pull it all out if we did it just one or two people at a time this is massive this pile ruby this is what your family members have proposed as trash this entire pile is ready to go on the truck oh no y'all didn't stamps you guys know how much stamps cost 48 cents you throw the stamps in the trash what do you mail and this belongs to something in the kitchen let her finish going through because when she's done with that box artist gonna go on a truck we made a huge pile of garbage however she's trying to tell us that it's a lot of good stuff but to us it's trash it just needs to be thrown away now see here this is a brand new turkey baster mama please let's get this going see this is what i knew was gonna happen you guys just come in indiscriminately and sort of throw a stuff away ruby i'm lifting i thought you were accepting help i am no you're not you're fibbing you're not okay i lie once ruby was able to see that there were a number of good things in the first few bags of things that had been deemed trash it really set her into a spiral it really broke the trust this is not the promise you gave your word is worth nothing you take this chia pet and grow something your word is worth absolutely nothing yeah we're not going to be able to get the house done mom at this rate and the only chance we have to get it done is down the drain all this giveaway let's go we said hey jeremy let's move you into the big room and he's all for it so he started moving furniture and clearing things out none of that stuff was cheap jeremy got to pick what he was going to keep in his room or not he said it's my room it's my stuff i'm throwing it away my mom want to keep stuff and less stuff's pee and all that extra stuff no he's standing up and he's becoming a man of the house which is great you've done a great job i want you to go to the mentality that you are going from no social life at home to a whole change for you as a man okay so go to it good luck see you soon no problem all i want you to do is pull out a few of them that you're going to keep you can't keep this many coats i don't want to start here ruby i don't want to start there ruby this doesn't need to be a power struggle well i'm not green i'm not getting rid of most of these coats you agreed with dorothy if you want the help you're gonna have to accept the help let's see if we can work this plan okay ruby is still trying to control so it's impeding the process you're about to mess up i hear you i'm just stunning she's got to be able to release the reins if she is going to be successful let's just start with one that's a keep now remember i'm watching to see what you can discard i want to see the ability to discard let's speed it up keep my mint coat stays i've always said i had enough clothes for everybody in the block but i didn't know i had enough stuff for this whole cul-de-sac the fog of the cloud is beginning to move on out of my brain it clicks for ruby that she's got to let things go it's either her stuff or her life okay stuff and the den area threw it in the trash every bit of it she's throwing away everything from the den yeah [Music] [Applause] wow thank you mom thank you all this is trash [Music] it's beautiful absolutely beautiful [Laughter] wow [Music] so jeremy you've been avoiding coming home at times and staying out in the streets probably in places okay i'm so excited i mean i honestly don't want to go nowhere now i just want to kick back at the house oh my god [Music] look how nice you'll be able to sleep like a princess or queen tonight oh my god this is phenomenal that we're going to be able to spend more time together that i could finally bring my girls my granddaughters to her house i can't believe i have floor lorraine and jamie would you still feel the need to call adult protective services no not at all this is just awesome oh thank you thank you our goal was number one create a safe healthy living space for ruby and jeremy so that daughters aren't going to call adult protective services number two give jeremy the space where he can be at home so he's not on the streets but studying and having a safe place to live total total success wow finally we have a home to come to to enjoy to invite friends over to have dinner together to play together look at this your game area look we're ready to go freedom family loves you i feel like i'm the winner and i dare that mess to come back [Music] i'm nora and i'm a retired school teacher i have an infinite number of containers i i can't keep count i really um like things organized and i just keep buying containers now to do that with i have lots of things for cooking and scrapbooking and crafting things i used at school i have an addiction to books [Applause] i guess it's better to be addicted to books and some of the other things but it's but it's an addiction in itself i'm jennifer and i'm nora's daughter my mom has thousands of containers in her house and in her storage building i have seen the stacks get higher i've seen less of a path there's no room to do anything you can't even think when you're in there all you want to do is just turn around and walk away our relationship has become very very strained over the years when i try to clean things out she wants to go through everything she has to go through the box it's it's always on her terms what she's willing to let go of mothers and daughters um have a lot of disagreements sometimes but we've had more than our share she tells me all the time that when we argue that that's when she goes shopping so that puts a lot of pressure on me that it's all me that it's my fault that she goes shopping in january of 1997 my grandmother passed away in november of 97 i moved out and moved into an apartment in december of 1997 my father passed away and at that point things were totally different with her i lost my three best friends my mother in german and jennifer it was just hard to lose them all at the same time i didn't take time i guess to grieve so shopping a lot because i didn't want to be home at night much i'm not scared to be home at night it just got here lonely so you make friends with the people in the store i knew the stores um that stayed open all night i get good bargains and when i get good bargains i want to buy one for everybody i know you know the shopping is just as bad as an alcoholic or a drug addict or anything like that because she's wasting her life away and you can't get through to her my mom lost a job not long after my father had passed away because she was a teacher she went shopping during school hours unfortunately i was going most of the day and while i was going to child got hurt and she was not there and therefore got fired the very next day if my mother does not get the help and address the hoarding and the compulsive shopping and the over organizing then this is the last straw our relationship will just become more strained and more distant i love her i love her to death and i would do anything to help her but at this point i just don't think i can good morning everybody good morning i'm dorothy brenninger i'm a professional organizing expert and i specialize in hoarding this is a very special day and a very unique day for sure we've got about 2 000 containers in the house and in the driveway you're gonna have thousands and thousands of tough decisions to make my name is dr robin zazio i'm a licensed clinical psychologist and i specialize in compulsive hoarding and ocd dorothy and i are a team to remind you it's either your family or your stuff your face is worth a thousand words right now talk to me it's just been so old i'm ready to have her back i wanted to be a part of my kid's life we're in a crisis situation you've lost a lot of money your daughter is standing next to you saying i can't do this anymore right we've got to stay focused and i think we'll have success if we do okay yes let's get the day started with some energy [Applause] i would like for you to just go through this first box and tell me what you think i know that most of the books i want and some i may give away later some are for jennifer's children but later is now unfortunately these are mostly just really good books for school [Music] and this is all stuff you're keeping right here yep um yes from this these are cookbooks okay let me take your cookbooks thank you yes and this is all stuff you're saving here too yes and this and this as well and what about this stuff here yes this this stack right here is this all stuff that you're keeping have you been through this i'm taking all of it i count one two six items that you've given away so far i'm wondering what we're gonna do your daughter is right here and she's worried about something we're gonna have to let it go mama but you have got so many magazines yes and you know this is what it's doing to me i don't want you to be upset and i don't want you to give up mama please don't be like that um i just [Music] nora has an incredibly difficult time with mood regulation she's either happy or she's angry and when she gets angry because she can't tolerate those feelings because they're uncomfortable for her she runs and hides [Music] i am frustrated and i know you're going to say it's all grief coming out it is not grief it is my life one think about daddy daddy would not want you living like this i don't you can't live mama you cannot live like this you have got to get the stuff out okay well then let's get everything when we pushed her which made her feel uncomfortable she went to the extreme end and basically said throw everything away i'm not gonna make a decision about anything we're not you know what's important so you're giving up controversy we want you to make decisions about your stop but you're not making any decisions and every time we try to push you to do something you you stop you block us i'm asking you to trust us that we are here for you and your best interest to to hold on to what is here for you she's done everything but go on her knees and beg you to please choose her over your stuff and so far you're choosing your stuff if she is not willing to accept that help then there's nothing more that i can do there's nothing more anybody can do this is your stop and we want you to make good decisions i'm gonna paint upstairs she will be buried in this house because that's all that she's going to have i can't victoria i'm getting christmas i wanted to buy that southern lady magazine i'll go down and get it myself and keep your hands off of me please right now i'm doing this okay she's she will die alone [Music] we're on day two and you got some sleep last night very good and i also see even though you got plenty of sleep that you've got a black guy you kind of hit something hit you yesterday yeah well actually i hit it you hit it okay yesterday the success rate wasn't good we got rid of 16 items if we started in the living room just getting down to work we could get some of that momentum going that might bring up a feeling of success for you that could get us rolling yes what do you think of that i think that's a great idea you know what rather than take all these supplies out that's going to be donated why don't we just keep it in the box and let me see bingo now norah wait a second wait a second i'm getting away not organizing giving away right i love to give away you want to give to people because you're a very generous person at this point isn't it the most important thing that you just give it to somebody who can use it i have lots of friends and lots of schools i can give them to right and we have a donation truck ready to go to take them to take it everybody here has been nothing but kind to you and you are being so ugly and rude and it is embarrassing me i cannot stand by and watch you continue to do this to the people that are trying their hardest to help you and the people that love you i have given you the best of my life but i will not continue to let you hurt me the way that you're doing today or yesterday i have shed more tears in the past two days than i have ever shed in my whole life and i will not continue to do it the house is not big enough for everything that is currently in it i know and i'm trying to take away but somebody wants me to take all of it away nobody wants you to take it all away you have got to get that through your head i think that's a waste of time sandra please i know they're leaving and i want them to get down as much as you can because i want the house's clothes to get me but i don't want this when i got here i thought we had 2 000 containers turns out there were 3 000 out of the 3 000 containers that were on the property we got rid of 15 boxes going to charity 5 boxes of trash and five bags of trash that's it nora did not develop any insight into her problem we made very little progress and i'm really worried about her prognosis i'm not convinced that she will actually follow through with therapy and if that's the case i think eventually she could lose everyone she loves [Music] my mom definitely let me down because i thought this was a new beginning a new chance a chance for my children to have a grandmother and for me to have a mom again she's not the same person and at this point i don't think that she ever will be the same person i think that she's happy with what she has and i think that that's the way i will find her one day is in her stuff [Music] hi thanks for being a fan of hoarders and subscribe to a e for more videos and click the links around me to watch more

Channel: A&E

Views: 617,218

Keywords: a&e, aetv, a&e tv, ae, a&e television, a&e shows, a and e, a+e, a&e full episodes

Id: 34rI_TA4700

Length: 77min 11sec (4631 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022