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Hoarders: The Complete Season One

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Hoarders: The Complete Season One
7 Episodes on 2 Discs (2010)

"Hoarders" on A&E is probably the most compelling show you haven't seen. It is an absolutely fascinating in-depth look at people whose entire lives have been utterly consumed by clutter and possessions, most of which are absolute junk. The inability to part with any of these items as small as a soda can to as large as a broken-down School Bus means many of them are facing threats of eviction, divorce, having their children removed from them, or even going to jail for criminal littering. There are over three million people suffering from obsessive compulsive hoarding in the United States and each episode tells two of their stories.

Hoarding is a psychological, painful disease where people are lost inside their own world with their stuff. Their stuff most of the time is more valuable to them than human relationships. In this show it can affect anyone as young as a seven year-old to as old as a woman in her seventies. These people are being asked to change by their landlords at threat of eviction, by their spouse or significant other on threat of leaving them, and for their own health and well-being as well as their families.

These stories are amazing! A woman whose children had already been taken away from her was trying to clean up so they could be returned and she put her foot down at throwing out an old 7/11 Mountain Dew slurpee cup. One young man is suicidal and suffering panic attacks and is under the impression that if he removes the dog hair all over his apartment, that somehow that will make his dog die faster. The saddest story that brought tears to my eyes was that of a woman in her seventies who was blind in one eye who could not stop taking in stray cats. She wanted to badly to save them but as her house was cleaned, the amount of cat skeletons in her attic, garage, etc. was heartbreaking. They found around 70 cats total, 40 something of them alive. The most disgusting story was in the first episode of a woman who hoarded food and could not even recognize properly when it was rotten and assumed all food frozen was still good from several years earlier even when green and accused everyone around her of having poor stomachs. One older woman is addicted to yard sales and has so much junk in her house and yard that she has had to move into a hotel with her husband and can no longer afford that and is more devoted to her possessions than caring about having a relationship with her children.

While all of their behaviors have gone into a downward spiral to the extreme, some have rational reasons for hoarding. One man believes collecting scrap metal in his yard is a valid way to save for his grandchildren's college funds some day. Many cannot bear to part with things that evoke certain memories, a gift someone gave them that they aren't using or their grown kids' baby clothes. Others are collectors of happy meal toys and stuffed animals believing some day they will sell them on Ebay -- but they won't. Depression-Era behaviors are passed down through generations making people prone to stocking up on items when they are on sale as if they'll never have that opportunity to purchase again and then they will forget they already have a bunch of it and continue to buy more until they are further into debt.

Each person/couple is offered a crew that is able to clean-up their house in two days as well as the help of a professional organizer and/or therapist....if the hoarder is willing to let them. Each episode demonstrates who can rise above their disease and finish the clean-up and who allows their problems to swallow them up. It is so sad with all the help being offered when a person still can't let go.

These pack-rats can get so absorbed that when put to the test to clean an area, they can spend the entire day or two in one bathroom or one corner of one room. The clean-up crew cannot act without the hoarders permission because just clean it up for them would allow the problem to begin all over again. The hoarder has to be involved in the process or the behavior will not change. The problem is that a hoarder's decision-making process is complex, slow, and emotional and it is very difficult to make progress. It is embarrassing and humiliating for them when the crew has to literally shovel up the debris and can find anything from animal droppings to human feces to mold or critter skeletons.

There are two complaints about the series: the use of black screens with white text to give exposition between scenes to pick up the drama and let new people tuning it catch up feels like it slows down the story immensely and would be much more beneficial to have a narrator/voice over giving the information. Also the DVD Menu does not have a "Play All" option on the main menu, that option is on the Scene Menu. Why wouldn't you play all the scenes in an episode? That button seems misplaced and is annoying because every time you select a new episode you have to remember to hit "Play All".

The series itself is interesting and absorbing from a psychological standpoint. I dare you to watch this and see if you end up cleaning your own house afterward.

Bonus Features:

There is additional unused footage of each of the stories that could not fit in the episode's time frame. There is more exploration into individual items they can't throw away and why. The series showed many successful decisions as well as failures for the hoarders and this shows more failures and lack of progress. A skunk was found in a dryer in one man's yard. One woman's children have a degenerative nerve disease unmentioned before that made it more difficult for them to walk around the house. Another woman's coupon collection could not be discarded because she said some places still accept expired coupons (from 2007).

to clean out your freezer, wash your windows, straighten up the shelves in the garage or empty out the extra closet - this is it. Watch one of these and you'll have a lot more energy to do whatever you need to!!!

I loved Hoarders when it aired on Foxtel in Australia. I found it addictive to watch, so just had to buy the DVD's.

Most episodes I really enjoyed, although there are a couple of really depressing stories.... The young guy whose father is an alcoholic, and also the lady with all the cat corpses in her garage.

Certainly an eye-opener, and makes me feel so much better about our piles of clutter. Also helps me think about why I really need to keep stuff. I only wish there had been more "behind the scenes" footage on the DVD's.

Thoroughly recommended, and I'm looking forward to Season 2 when it comes out.

This show is very interesting. You'll get to see how this obsession can get out of control. It's unbelievable how some people live their lives among trash and animal waste. You'll see how local clean-up crews, hoarding specialists, and family get involved in the process of cleaning out a house.

The only things I have complaints about are the Text screens that come on the screen, telling you about hoarding. You'll be reading the same definition of hoarding every single episode. It gets very repetitive. These text screens show up a lot, to the point where it feels you're staring at a black screen with text for most of the show. Also, whenever they transition between the two hoarding stories, they play a high-pitched, spine tingling sound and it is very annoying........you'll see, just watch it.

In one episode, an older woman spent two years living on a medical toilet, strapping herself in at night. She had no running water, so she used adult diapers. When she finished with one diaper, she would toss it over her head. The diapers piled up in her kitchen, stacking taller than she was. One night she fell out of her chair and was stuck in a pile of her own dirty diapers.

We get limited stuff on AFN (Armed Forces Network), so I really wanted to see what one of my coworkers was talking about. I cannot believe that people live like this. This DVD really opened my eyes to what goes on behind people's doors and in their heads. I found this to be interesting a something to show my husband when he complains that I have too many articles of clothing. I actually got rid of over 20 bags of clothes because of this show - I want to be nothing like these people. I think it was well worth the price and this item got to me in just a little over a week. I would buy from this seller again.

Hoarding causes horror and sickening problems that are beyond the scope of most so-called horror movies, because this is real life. Hoarding is a type of OCD, and the people who have it live in conditions that even the poorest people of the world would find unbearable.

There are cat hoarders, food hoarders, scrap metal hoarders, trinket hoarders, magazine hoarders, and more. Some accept help and some refuse it. All have serious emotional issues and problems that extend into their families and workplaces. Even the city and county authorities get involved sometimes when the situation becomes so bad that lives and property values are endangered.

It's upsetting, and yet it is hard not to watch. And then you feel the urge to go and clean your house!

Nothing gets me motivated to declutter, clean, and organize my house faster than this show. It is interesting, fascinating, inspiring, depressing, and disgusting all at the same time! I feel sorry for most of the hoarders and merely disgusted with some. I think this show is helping a lot of people improve their lives and will probably cause much prevention of hoarding in the next generation. Who needs a book on clearing clutter and getting organized? This show is sure to get you started and keep you going.

After five and a half hours - a full seven episodes - of this addicting reality show, you're likely to look around your own home and feel a little bit better about the clutter you may have. "Hoarders" - a reality show in the best sense of the term - features people (and sometimes couples) suffering from a debilitating compulsive disorder that prevents them from being able to part with pretty much anything. But these aren't just people who happen to have a lot of junk lying around, these are people on the verge of personal crisis - some are facing foreclosure, some are in danger of having their children taken away, some already have had their children taken away, and one especially incredible case features a man who is facing jail time unless he cleans up his property. Each case is unique and intriguing and though no two hoarders are the same, there's a clear throughline in the show - despite constant signs of distress and looming personal risks, these people are often unable to part with even the simplest objects.

Each episode begins with a brief description of the disorder - which seems to include a mix of obsessive-compulsive disorder among other things - and covers two cases each, usually of hoarders with very different problems. For example, the finale includes a child who can't throw away even a single cotton ball on one hand and a grandfather with a few acres of scrap metal (including a full school bus!) on the other. The juxtaposition of the two cases in each episode keeps the show moving, especially as it becomes clear who will benefit from the assistance the crew on the show are offering and who will not. The show features a rotating crew of psychologists, moving crews, and professional organizers who show up at the designated hoarding houses and attempt to help the afflicted person(s) purge their houses. As often as not the attempts to help are unsuccessful, and though this can be frustrating as a viewer, it's also a testament to how intense the illness is. At the end of each episode there is a brief follow-up to say what the final outcome was of the intervention. These are especially interesting, though I often wished these bits were a bit more in-depth, particularly for those who had the most trouble letting go of anything.

The 2-disc season one collection features a few minutes of extra footage from each episode, and once you've gotten through the show you'll be more than intrigued by what could have been filmed but left out. The series will soon be in its second season on A&E and after sitting through the first season in a single sitting (maybe I have a bit of the obsessive-compulsive disorder myself!) I'm already ready for more. If you get a chance to check this show out, don't miss it. It could be called voyeuristic guilty pleasure reality television, but with featured psychologists giving their professional opinions, it feels like so much more.

This show is my new "guilty pleasure." I sit & wonder what triggers this behavior? I realize that some hoarders are older, and having lived through the depression, they have the "nothing gets thrown out" mentality, but there are an equal number of younger people with this disease. We all become a slave to our possessions, but having to walk a narrow path from room to room, because things are piled up all over is a shame. I shudder when there are no sanitary facilities, and the person is forced to find other means for dealing with that. This is a real eye opening series, and it can be a bit shocking in parts.

Dvd package was in excellent shape and dvd was very good. would buy from them againHoarders: The Complete Season One