oh darn!!!! i forgot to watch it both days i will hope for a rerun

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There is a lady here in town that i suspect has this kind of problem too. She's got a 2 story house with attached 2 car garage, you can see the boxes and clutter up against all the porch windows and even the garage windows.She's also got a goose-neck camper trailer parked near her house that is packed full too, and a window van filled with stuff. Her late husband owns a metal pole building on the outskirts of town it's filled with stuff they used to buy at auctions and estate sales, when he was alive they used to hold rummage sales in that building. It surprises me that the city doesn't send someone over to inspect her home, it's really bad! I do not envy the person who has to clean it out when she dies, and she is up there in age too- 80'ish.

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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"

I've NEVER thought of myself as a horder! I have garage sales all the time and get rid of SO much, of course I still have PLENTY here at home too! But when the hubby said it started out as piles...! Yikes, I'm a piler - that's scary! I don't see my little piles EVER getting this bad, but I'll bet she didn't either! They said it was probably just part of her nature but the deaths in the family set it off... I hope nothing sets me off! I can't imagine living like that!!

I haven't seen the 2nd day yet - I've got it recorded though! I really do hope she can break the habit though!!!

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WE'RE DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

This is one of the reasons my MILs hoarding bothers me. I told my husband I wasn't cleaning it up. They can hire someone. She is not as bad as the lady on the show but she has stuff piled in every spare room. The main rooms are cluttered but you can still see the furniture and most of the floor.

When they were talking about the mold it made me think of all the stuff she took out of the attic when our first child was born. She expected me to used 40 year old baby gear while we were at her house. It was dusty and moldy!

We keep visiting at their house to a minimum. She wonders why I won't drop the kids off their to play. If we say anything to her she gets angry and is denial.

I can't even imagine that. I didn't see the episodes, but this habit just blows my mind! I deep clean my house every Saturday and I am amazed at the amount of clutter we bring in during just one week. (I have two school age kids that bring 10-20 papers home per day. I keep the best and toss the rest!) My fiance jokes often that I'll have the whole house thrown away before we're married!

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If it wasn't on a clearance rack, it's not in my house!

So mad I missed it. My grandmother is a hoarder. She was given not very long to live and was put in a nursing home. It took a long time for my mom to clean out the house. Several months and many dumpsters later the house was clean and grandma made a unexpected recovery and moved back home. Now my mom could just cry because the house is awful again. I think the house is what made her sick in the first place.

I think you are guys are seeing the "stuff" and not the pain she is in. I was in tears b/c I could easily see myself in her. When dh was let go from his job we both went into this don't throw anything away b/c we were very worried about our future. I am still relunctant to get rid of stuff I know I should be able to make money off of and bartering just doesn't get rid of stuff that fast and you are still bringing stuff into your home.
This is a mental health issue.

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allgirls, mom to 3 girls

My father also has a tendency to keep things because he can "sell" them one day. He's slowly realizing that just because you might make some money off of something, it may not be worth the extra stress of owning the clutter. I've also noticed that depression-era people have tended to have this trait. It skipped most of my grandparents who either very young or born around/after that time, but the great-GPs tended to keep things "just in case" (just not to the extent of the lady on Oprah).
Sometimes, I will keep clutter for awhile, but then it will get on my nerves to where I'll do a major purging.

I saw most of the part 1...it really made me so sad. I can't imagine living like that!

I just finished watching part 2! WOW!!! Everything piled high in that warehouse! How could they live like that! All I kept thinking about was that they HAVE to be in MAJOR debt! 3000 pairs of shoes and 3000 handbags... that wasn't even a little chunk in all the stuff she had there! They made $13000 off it, there had to be $100,000 worth of stuff in there, if not more! Don't you think??? Even buying it all at a discount! Plus, the hubby said at one point that generally it was so messy they just didn't stay at home ever! That means they probably ate out a lot and had a lot of entertainment expenses! WOW!!!

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WE'RE DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!