Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's childs to have you, Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there,
Speaker 1: and here we are doing Stuff you Should Know about hoarding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jerry's over there under a stack of pizza boxes and newspapers. Yes,
Speaker 1: but Jerry proudly displays them to anybody who comes into
Speaker 1: the office and makes eye contact with her, which makes
Speaker 1: her a collector of those things. A big difference. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't save your hoarder. She's a pizza box collector,
Speaker 1: I got you. She likes those greasy after stains. Yes,
Speaker 1: supposedly that prevents you from recycling pizza boxes. I think
Speaker 1: we talked about it in one of our episodes before,
Speaker 1: but I think that that's a p s A that
Speaker 1: bears repeating. Yeah, I've never got a final answer on that,
Speaker 1: So I throw mine in the recycling anyway. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that comes up the works or not. Is
Speaker 1: there a spectrum or anything like that, or you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this one is just so obviously loaded with cheese um
Speaker 1: that I I can't possibly recycle this. Well, mine are
Speaker 1: always loaded because I specifically request that the pizza be
Speaker 1: delivered face down in the box. It's a little weird,
Speaker 1: but I like it that way. It's the way to
Speaker 1: do it, for sure, upside down pizza. Actually, you know
Speaker 1: what I should do is just tear the box in
Speaker 1: in half and at least recycle the top. That I
Speaker 1: think you may have just solved the real problem. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: I think we do need to do a follow up
Speaker 1: recycling episode because I would imagine it's probably advanced by
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds since we last discussed it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: here in my area of Atlanta, they quit um taking
Speaker 1: glass really a few months ago. Too heavy, not enough payoff.
Speaker 1: I think it was just yeah, and and or word
Speaker 1: got out that they weren't even recycling it, so um sin.
Speaker 1: Then they have set up places around Atlanta, one specifically
Speaker 1: at the Edgewood Target parking You know, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: stuff there, But in the Target parking lot, they have
Speaker 1: these huge glass recyclers there. And I meet up with
Speaker 1: the fellow Whinos about once every two weeks. We all
Speaker 1: shamefully toss in, you know, dozens of bottles of empty wine,
Speaker 1: so much dead yellow tail. Yeah, and we now I
Speaker 1: don't think that stuff. Uh, but we just we It's nice.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a wine meeting so much dead
Speaker 1: Paul Masson, like a wine clatch. I'm like, oh, what
Speaker 1: are you throwing away there? How have you gotten any
Speaker 1: recommendations from those chance encounters? It's literally happened where we're
Speaker 1: you know, I would meet a fellow whine. Now we're
Speaker 1: thrown away tons of bottles, and then we decide to
Speaker 1: own our shame and be like, hey, this one was
Speaker 1: pretty good by the way, and started a conversation, and
Speaker 1: then I get maced. Yeah you take you take the
Speaker 1: bollow and go huh night train? Haven't heard of this one? Right? Okay,
Speaker 1: that try? And I like the handy grip of the bottle.
Speaker 1: I never tried night train. Did you have that, dude?
Speaker 1: It's it's a nightmare, is what it is. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: would drink the like you don't even sober up before
Speaker 1: you get a crushing headache from it. It comes with
Speaker 1: a headache, That's what says. Um. What would I drink? Um?
Speaker 1: Mad dog mm hmm, Which I mean there's a reason
Speaker 1: they are sold right next to each other. Yeah, can
Speaker 1: you even call those wine? No it's not wine. It's
Speaker 1: wine like Prudo gets wine like malt liquor is beer.
Speaker 1: It's related, but it's drinking. Sure. Remember the Nikey's big mouths. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and cold forty five came in like gigantic like bottles.
Speaker 1: That was one of the biggest attractions of it. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was expensive, man, that would that was our jam
Speaker 1: for a little while. I never got into this, I
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. Didn't they have like the
Speaker 1: like a question or a trivia thing or something on
Speaker 1: the underside of it, the bottle, the lid, I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: there were a little green hand grenade bottles, little barrels
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know which came first or after
Speaker 1: it was either. I guess they switched to just the
Speaker 1: regular like uh, Coca Cola style twist off cap metal
Speaker 1: twist off, and I think they might. I think they
Speaker 1: did have something underneath it. Act there was something under there.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like a poker game or a card
Speaker 1: game or you've just won Liberal Disease. But before that
Speaker 1: then I think they had these really unique poll tabs
Speaker 1: because it was a big fat mouth Mickey's. That's why
Speaker 1: they called it that Mickey's big mouth, so they had
Speaker 1: to have a very unique UM bottle cap poll cap
Speaker 1: that was just sort of interesting. Nice Back in the day, man,
Speaker 1: back in the day when I was I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: wrap now, and we're now refined with our beverage consumption. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are. I only drink cold forty five out of
Speaker 1: a chill glass. Now. I got a nice whiskey bar
Speaker 1: set up at UM that's separate from the regular bar.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, with just like rise and bourbons and scotches
Speaker 1: and Irish and little additional I've gotten out to where
Speaker 1: I will put in little drops of little tinctures and
Speaker 1: shrubs and things. Oh yeah, occasionally. Shrubs are great. I
Speaker 1: made my own ones, and it's actually worth the effort. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My buddy Eddie, you know Eddie, he makes his own.
Speaker 1: He actually does it in the in the bottle, but
Speaker 1: he will he'll do like a cherry bourbon or an
Speaker 1: apple like confused bourbon. Yeah. Those shrubs though, man, uh,
Speaker 1: it's actually not very hard and they last forever because
Speaker 1: what you're doing is basically I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: fermenting or pickling or something, but you're doing something to
Speaker 1: the fruit that you're mastrating with the sugar and it
Speaker 1: just lasts forever, and it's just such a nice little
Speaker 1: tangy pop. It's like kim she you gotta bury it
Speaker 1: in your yard for kind of it's close to that. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's it's like the Yankee version of kim chi, but
Speaker 1: with fruit and you put it in your booze. Well,
Speaker 1: this is all very hoardy, like, well, hold on, even
Speaker 1: before we get into hoarding, we still have another tangent
Speaker 1: to go on our earl buds. Yeah, yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: announce it. Okay, So Caroline Irvin and Kristen Conger seriously, well,
Speaker 1: I know it was it was Conger, but she's been
Speaker 1: since gotten married. She took her husband's last name, remember, No,
Speaker 1: of course, Kristen Conger, No, I don't know. Something tells
Speaker 1: me Conger did not take his last name, right right.
Speaker 1: I could see that, because then I would no longer
Speaker 1: be able to call her Congs, which I know she loved.
Speaker 1: That's true, And she was probably there the SO Security
Speaker 1: administrations and thinking I can't do this, What about Chuck?
Speaker 1: She thought of that? At any rate, Caroline and Kristen,
Speaker 1: the former host of um Stuff, Mom never told You,
Speaker 1: which is now hosted by our pals um Emily and Bridget.
Speaker 1: That's right, right, So Kristen and Caroline went off on
Speaker 1: their own and they have now started a new podcast
Speaker 1: and this is the this is the great announcement here
Speaker 1: on stuff you should know. That's right. It's called Unladylike
Speaker 1: and uh I have I've heard the trailer, so it
Speaker 1: sounds great and anything they're gonna do is gonna be great.
Speaker 1: They're just they're pros. They really like. Uh. I know,
Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never Told You was started with Molly and Conger,
Speaker 1: but when Caroline came along, it really just found its
Speaker 1: true voice. No offense Molly and U. She just trashed
Speaker 1: her home office. Uh, it's just a great show. And
Speaker 1: Unladylike is is gonna be awesome and and I believe
Speaker 1: it's got a bit of a different flavor with interviews
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but it is definitely going to
Speaker 1: be dealing with uh feminism and women's issues and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: advocacy and uh, their their logo is great. It's a
Speaker 1: big middle finger, which is just so them. Yep. So
Speaker 1: they have a site up, but I think you can
Speaker 1: get their guest anywhere you get podcasts. That's kind of
Speaker 1: how it works. But they have a site as well
Speaker 1: called un lady like dot ceo super British not dot
Speaker 1: com dot ceo. Okay, that's right, so best of luck, ladies.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll be great. And uh, you were always
Speaker 1: on our minds and in our hearts, so nice of you.
Speaker 1: Good luck Caroline and Kristen. It's gonna be great. Now,
Speaker 1: can we hoard? Yes? Long last, well, let's take a
Speaker 1: commercial break show. Can you imagine Mollywood trash her home
Speaker 1: office again? So we're talking hoarding today. Believe it or not, everybody,
Speaker 1: um and I basically everyone is fairly well aware of
Speaker 1: hoarding thanks to a couple of high profile UM reality
Speaker 1: TV shows about hoarders and hoarding UM. And then there
Speaker 1: have also been appearances of hoarders in literature. So even
Speaker 1: before it kind of became like part of the cultural
Speaker 1: aware us, it was also already kind of there, like
Speaker 1: everybody thought, you know, there's some guy out there who
Speaker 1: has a house full of something that he picked up
Speaker 1: on the side of the road and his it's just
Speaker 1: accumulated and he can barely get around his house. Like
Speaker 1: that was there before. But thanks to those TV shows,
Speaker 1: which is actually which actually sprung out of the first
Speaker 1: real research on hoarding as its own disorder um from
Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties by a Smith College psychology professor
Speaker 1: named David o'frost and then two of his students, Rachel
Speaker 1: Gross and Tamara hardel Um. Those three people together actually
Speaker 1: form the basis of our knowledge about hoarding the disorder.
Speaker 1: They took it out of the cultural reference, they took
Speaker 1: it out of the realm of Freud and and they
Speaker 1: got it ultimately all the way up into the d
Speaker 1: s M. Five and two thousand thirteen, which is about
Speaker 1: the best you can hope for, is an undergrad psychology student. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get your d SIM tattoo mm to two yep uh.
Speaker 1: And I believe those shows. One was called Hoarders and
Speaker 1: one was called Jerry's Pizza Box Collection. No, Jerry's a collector.
Speaker 1: Well it was Jerry's Pizza Box Collection, Colin, I'm not
Speaker 1: a hoarder, al right. It was a little a little mouthy,
Speaker 1: little wordy. The log line was, if you're looking for
Speaker 1: a show about a hoarder, keep looking. But if you
Speaker 1: like pizza boxes and he doesn't speak eight seven, central'd
Speaker 1: be very David Lyncheon. Just this mute woman walking around,
Speaker 1: blackout bar over most of her face everywhere. She would
Speaker 1: be great. Um, all right, so we'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: get it going with a stat here. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: I was statman, remember that, of course, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: reprise that role. Okay, do you have a cape still? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's on see. Oh yeah, I see it. Probably I
Speaker 1: couldn't see it. You weren't turning the right way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh well, it's a it's a thin cape for broadfella.
Speaker 1: Uh So estimates, no one really knows, because, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's very recently that it's being recognized as its own
Speaker 1: disease um and not a symptom of another thing, even
Speaker 1: though it is, as we will see later, very much
Speaker 1: co morbid with other other issues and mental illnesses. But
Speaker 1: despite the fact that we don't know a ton about
Speaker 1: the stats, there are estimates to say anywhere from point
Speaker 1: four percent two as many as five percent of high
Speaker 1: Is this humans or humans? Americans? Humans? Ah yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the general population, which that would make its prevalence
Speaker 1: higher than schizophrenia. Oh wow, yeah, which I actually kind
Speaker 1: of believe if I stop and think about it. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing is, though you don't this is and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about all this stuff, but it's not
Speaker 1: often the kind of thing that presents itself out in
Speaker 1: public because the people are hiding in their houses full
Speaker 1: of stuff. No. No, And one of the things, one
Speaker 1: of the early misconceptions about hoarders that we'll see is
Speaker 1: that it was mostly older people who were hoarding. But um,
Speaker 1: it turns out that they're the ones who get thrust
Speaker 1: into the limelight because it's a progressive chronic disease exactly.
Speaker 1: So by the time the news media becomes aware of
Speaker 1: this and drags these pour people out into the limelight, um,
Speaker 1: their their hoard has gotten very big and they have aged.
Speaker 1: So that's why we initially thought that just older people
Speaker 1: were hoarders. It turns out it actually starts far earlier
Speaker 1: in life. Typically. Yeah, like a show about a twelve
Speaker 1: year old with one corner of their room too messy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just looking at it like this is gonna be huge
Speaker 1: one day, and we're joking here, but this is a
Speaker 1: serious mental illness. But we we joke about all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. So I don't want anyone to get upset
Speaker 1: about things like that. No, no. If you're new to
Speaker 1: the podcast, go listen to the comas episode. Alright, so
Speaker 1: some of the symptoms of hoarding. Um, and we're we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into also in a bit to the I
Speaker 1: guess myths and separating those two is really important because
Speaker 1: it's very easy for someone to very dismissively say, oh,
Speaker 1: they're a hoarder because they have a lot of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: and my family, my in laws, well, let me let
Speaker 1: Steve off the hook, specifically my mother in law, my
Speaker 1: grandmother in law, Mary, the eldest general of the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know Army and uh, my aunt Sue, Sharon,
Speaker 1: Sue and Mary. They have a lot of stuff and
Speaker 1: we call it the disease sort of as a joke. Um,
Speaker 1: but they're well, they're not hoarders at all, but they
Speaker 1: got a lot of stuff they have a hard time
Speaker 1: throwing away, you know, the stuff that they had that
Speaker 1: they think someone in the family might want. I think
Speaker 1: that stuff. That's that's pretty typical. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are like that. And a lot of people have a
Speaker 1: basement room with a lot of junk in it out
Speaker 1: of being too busy or lazy, or maybe just a
Speaker 1: bit of the disease where you just like I can't
Speaker 1: bear to part with it even though I really should,
Speaker 1: But that is not hoarding. Well, so my question would be,
Speaker 1: then have you ever seen them and do you feel
Speaker 1: like they have the ability to clear out like the
Speaker 1: attic or donate some of the stuff like you can't
Speaker 1: they have the ability to part with the stuff. There
Speaker 1: have been pushes at various times, like when they're moving
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Of course it's a good time
Speaker 1: to do that. Um, it is always a bit of
Speaker 1: a painful experience. But I think, like I said, everyone's
Speaker 1: got a little not everyone. Some people are so unsentimental
Speaker 1: that they'll just back the dumpster up and just empty
Speaker 1: their house into it and say I'll get a new
Speaker 1: drunk But um, it's a good way to move, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: but they it is a little bit of a hard time.
Speaker 1: And very famously either um, Charlie there Emily's grandpa who
Speaker 1: who left us on our wedding day. Um, he famously
Speaker 1: passed away with like you know, buckets have bent rusty nails.
Speaker 1: But he was not a hoarder. He was legitimately one
Speaker 1: of those guys who was like I can straighten these
Speaker 1: and reuse them one day. And he believed in the
Speaker 1: value of just not throwing everything away, which is great.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this though he would he
Speaker 1: would say kind of with pride, like, look at all
Speaker 1: these awesome nails that I'm not wasting, you chump, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. It was just um, was he ashamed
Speaker 1: of his bucket of nails? No, he would. He would
Speaker 1: occasionally get out a nail and straighten it and use it,
Speaker 1: and it was just everyone in the family knew, Like
Speaker 1: you know, Charlie, he did grow up in the Great Depression.
Speaker 1: And as we will see that as one of the
Speaker 1: myths that oh, all these people just grow up in
Speaker 1: the Depression so they value things more. That is not
Speaker 1: the case. There's no tie to that. But he is
Speaker 1: one of those gentlemen who grow up in the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: and and I love that attitude. We're in such a
Speaker 1: disposable frame of mind. I think that that the depression
Speaker 1: thing has kind of come back for the generation behind us,
Speaker 1: where they value things a bit more. Good. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: because the disposability of products and just everything. Just pulling
Speaker 1: a dump strip to your back door and pushing your
Speaker 1: stuff out as a means of moving. Yeah, we're like,
Speaker 1: I'll just that thing didn't work. Well, I could probably
Speaker 1: get repaired, but screw it, I'll get another one. It's
Speaker 1: only twenty bucks. Things like that, Like it kind of
Speaker 1: drives me nuts. So I'm or, oh, wait, my phone
Speaker 1: has has a new version of my phone has just
Speaker 1: come out. So now the company that made my phone
Speaker 1: is remotely slowing my phone down, so I have to
Speaker 1: throw it away and go buy another one. That's definitely
Speaker 1: part of the problem as well. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I can tell really see Grandpa Charlie saying everybody gather
Speaker 1: around getting a nail out of his rusty nail buckets,
Speaker 1: straightening it and just driving it right through the webbing
Speaker 1: of his hand as a party trick. That's what I
Speaker 1: thought of when when you said, yeah, yeah, every once
Speaker 1: a while he'd get a nail out and straighten it
Speaker 1: and use it. That's what we think they know, what
Speaker 1: were the people that he's a pinhead, people that would
Speaker 1: drive the nail the blockhead that's what it was. Blockheads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't believe we did a whole podcast on that.
Speaker 1: That shows a good one too. Um alright, so number
Speaker 1: one on the symptoms though, uh is you literally have
Speaker 1: an inability two to get rid of things and to
Speaker 1: stop acquiring things. So you may if you go into
Speaker 1: a hoarder's home, you may go into their closet and
Speaker 1: see a wrack of clothes with tags on them because
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, just this is on sale. It's such
Speaker 1: a good deal. I feel like I just have to
Speaker 1: get it, and then it's unworn a decade later. Yes. So,
Speaker 1: so the early researchers, David frosten is two students, um
Speaker 1: Tamra Hartle and Rachel Gross. They initially I think it
Speaker 1: was specifically Rachel Gross and David frost Sorry, but they
Speaker 1: that first study that they did on hoarders, they assumed that, um,
Speaker 1: it would be all just junk like stuff nobody could
Speaker 1: possibly want, and they were really surprised when they toured
Speaker 1: some of their their study participants homes and found like
Speaker 1: stuff still in the package, like clothes, perfectly fine clothes
Speaker 1: that had never been worn, but piles up to the
Speaker 1: ceiling that we're now had now taken over the kitchen.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. That's the difference between being like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is actually a pretty good deal. I could use
Speaker 1: this someday and hoarding. And another aspect of that too
Speaker 1: is if you're buying these clothes, sure it might be
Speaker 1: a good bargain, but these are women's genes and you're
Speaker 1: a man and they are there, they're they're like half
Speaker 1: of your size. Yeah, you know, they'll buy clothes that
Speaker 1: don't even fit them just just because we're gonna wear
Speaker 1: what they want. So sure, sure, but I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: don't even fit you, right, um, And they they have
Speaker 1: good point, Chuck, thank you for that, but they they
Speaker 1: basically won't pass up a bargain. It's one of the
Speaker 1: ways that they might acquire something. My mom has a
Speaker 1: little bit of that. Yeah, if you're a man and
Speaker 1: you're dressed in women's clothing, that is not a symptom
Speaker 1: of hoarding. No, no, no, And my mom doesn't have that.
Speaker 1: She has a little bit of the like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: such a good deal, I feel like you have to
Speaker 1: get it. You mean, I went through an open house
Speaker 1: once and I've never seen more clothing owned not just
Speaker 1: by one person, by several families put together. But it
Speaker 1: was just one lady's clothes and like they had built
Speaker 1: on like an addition to their attic and their garage
Speaker 1: top and that was just filled with clothes more close
Speaker 1: than anyone could possibly wear. And we noticed that like
Speaker 1: some of them still had the tags on. Were like, God,
Speaker 1: this lady has so many clothes. Now, looking back after
Speaker 1: researching this, I'm like she definitely had a touch of
Speaker 1: the hoarders disorder. I guess she had a little bit
Speaker 1: of the hordes. Yeah, it didn't spill out into the
Speaker 1: rest of her house, so either she it was just
Speaker 1: a touch of it or her family was keeping it
Speaker 1: in check. But there was definitely you you wouldn't believe
Speaker 1: me if I if I told you have many just
Speaker 1: sweaters and shirts and dresses this lady had. Give me
Speaker 1: a number how many sweaters? Sweaters? I know you're one
Speaker 1: of your superpowers of sweater guestimating right, sweaters and chili beans.
Speaker 1: I would say, just from what we saw, she easily
Speaker 1: had two hundreds something sweaters easily. And those were just
Speaker 1: the sweaters. Man, that's not including like tops, blouses, dresses.
Speaker 1: She had so many clothes. Yeah, my friend Ryan, I
Speaker 1: won't say his last name, he uh, his dad very
Speaker 1: famously had ah and I don't know, you know what
Speaker 1: I asked him last time I saw him, and I
Speaker 1: can't remember the answer now, but at one point his
Speaker 1: dad had like warehouses with stuff, because he's like a
Speaker 1: dream hoarder. Yeah, but I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: hoarding either, because as you will see there as we
Speaker 1: go on, there are very specific definitions, and just because
Speaker 1: you want warehouses full of stuff doesn't necessarily mean you're
Speaker 1: a hoarder, you know. Yeah, what was his stuff? I
Speaker 1: don't know, huh. I'll find out and follow up. But
Speaker 1: getting back to the inability to stop acquiring, one of
Speaker 1: the key points about not getting rid of stuff is
Speaker 1: they're holding onto things with no value at all, like
Speaker 1: even sentimental value, Like when you have stacks and stacks
Speaker 1: of newspapers and magazines for for decades and decades. Those
Speaker 1: don't hold sentiment about sentimental value, any monetary value unless
Speaker 1: you happen to have like the moon landing stuff in
Speaker 1: there or something. Um, you know, it's just just like
Speaker 1: literally it's junk, right, It can be and also be
Speaker 1: stuff that, like as is actually useful and somebody would
Speaker 1: want this unopened, unworn dress or something like that, right,
Speaker 1: So it can go either way. But the point is
Speaker 1: they can't stop acquiring stuff. They can't help themselves. That's
Speaker 1: that's part one. Part two, and these things are part
Speaker 1: and parcel with one another. Is they can't bear to
Speaker 1: give any of it up, like you said, even if
Speaker 1: it's totally useless, even if it doesn't have any actual,
Speaker 1: real emotional value. But that is a big one that
Speaker 1: a lot of them point to, is like they say, well, no,
Speaker 1: this means a lot to me or um. Another another
Speaker 1: explanation or another rationalization among hoarders is that like they're
Speaker 1: they're they're just kind of stockpiling. They might need all
Speaker 1: these clothes one day. They that never happens, right exactly,
Speaker 1: and um. The other one I think is that they
Speaker 1: use it as a reminder. Apparently there's a um there's
Speaker 1: a correlation between faulty recall or um an inaccurate memory
Speaker 1: or a lack of trust in one's own memory and hoarding.
Speaker 1: And so some hoarders will say, well, I keep this
Speaker 1: to remind me that I have to do this in
Speaker 1: the future, remind me to get in touch with this person.
Speaker 1: So they imbue importance into all these objects that from
Speaker 1: the outside are junk. And apparently the stuff that they
Speaker 1: imbue these objects with is just rationalization. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: really valuable in the way that they feel like it
Speaker 1: is to them. Another symptom is that in this one
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious about we should talk about it
Speaker 1: is is the stuff is disorganized and very disorganized. Um, However,
Speaker 1: I would think that you could be a hoarder and
Speaker 1: also be very and maybe be anal retentive and have
Speaker 1: everything organized. But does that immediately disqualify you, From what
Speaker 1: I understand it does. Yeah, you can have a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff and even very odd stuff, and if you
Speaker 1: organize it, that's a huge symptom of hoarding that you're not.
Speaker 1: That's a box is not being checked and would probably
Speaker 1: preclude you from a diagnosis of hoarding because they think
Speaker 1: that it has to do with your ability and the
Speaker 1: brain to make decisions. It's supposedly stems from perfectionism, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about. But this this inability to make decisions
Speaker 1: about you know, what to keep and what to throw
Speaker 1: away and being so paralyzed by it that you just
Speaker 1: don't make the decision at all, and all this stuff accumulates.
Speaker 1: That also extends to organizing and sorting. You can't make
Speaker 1: the decision about what you go where or what goes
Speaker 1: with what? You just can't just you can't make decisions
Speaker 1: when it comes to your material possessions. That's a huge
Speaker 1: hallmark of and I think a cornerstone of hoarding. The diagnosis.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take issue with that one officially. Then on
Speaker 1: the cord, like you could hauld literally have every single
Speaker 1: symptom and you just might be like, no, all the
Speaker 1: new papers go here and all the stuff goes here,
Speaker 1: and it's literally caving in on me, and i can't
Speaker 1: get rid of any of it, and I'm ashamed of it,
Speaker 1: and i have no quality of life. Um, but I'm
Speaker 1: anal retentive. Like, so I'm officially taking issue. No one
Speaker 1: cares well you, I mean, you make you paint a
Speaker 1: pretty good picture on in that. In that sense, I
Speaker 1: think if you if you have stuff organized, it's probably
Speaker 1: not having it's probably not taking over your life, maybe financially,
Speaker 1: maybe time wise, but like you could still have people over. Um,
Speaker 1: your husband or wife isn't leaving you as a result,
Speaker 1: your kids aren't ashamed to bring friends over to play.
Speaker 1: Who knows, but yeah, I don't think from what I
Speaker 1: understand though, as far as the psychological community is concerned.
Speaker 1: If you can organize, you're probably not a hoarder. I
Speaker 1: think all those things you just mentioned could still happen
Speaker 1: if you're organized. Yeah, and this is just my dumb opinion.
Speaker 1: It's it's possible them. I might sort a show called
Speaker 1: Chuck Stump Opinions just to follow up each week to this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it all out. Uh number three did you
Speaker 1: get a little justin Number three is the hoarder feels ashamed.
Speaker 1: And we talked a little bit about this here and there,
Speaker 1: but that is definitely one of them. It's not like
Speaker 1: you walk into a hoarder's house and they're like, have
Speaker 1: you seen my collection of dead goldfish floating in bowls? Um,
Speaker 1: Although that'd be a weird thing. Although animal hoarding will
Speaker 1: get to this definitely thing that's like trapesing along the
Speaker 1: line of performance. Are right, But this is the thing,
Speaker 1: is you feel ashamed, and that can feed the beasts.
Speaker 1: So you gather all this stuff, you accumulate it, you
Speaker 1: feel really guilty about it, and then one of the
Speaker 1: things that hoarders do is it makes them feel better
Speaker 1: to collect the stuff, So then you start hoarding more
Speaker 1: and they and the grabster wrote this one, right, So
Speaker 1: the grabster is said, it's you know, it's really not.
Speaker 1: Unlike an alcoholic. You drink, you get ashamed. Do you
Speaker 1: feel those feelings of shame, so you drink to sort
Speaker 1: of feel better or forget right. So like alcohol is
Speaker 1: to an alcoholic or um like somebody who eats for comfort,
Speaker 1: these these people acquire stuff for comfort or like their
Speaker 1: material possessions are like food to somebody who eats um
Speaker 1: as comfort. Right, yeah, and but they do feel ashamed
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, Like that's a huge thing. And
Speaker 1: that's also, like I was saying, what differentiates them from collectors.
Speaker 1: Even if you have a collection of some really weird stuff,
Speaker 1: if you, you know, want to show it off to
Speaker 1: people and you really value it, you you're a collector.
Speaker 1: If you are ashamed of your collection, your hoarde um,
Speaker 1: and you don't want people to see it, and you
Speaker 1: know that it's weird, but you just can't do anything
Speaker 1: about it, that's a symptom of hoarding. That's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons also why it makes it such a terrible
Speaker 1: mental disorder, because the people who are hoarders, they're not
Speaker 1: they're not like off their rocker or something like that
Speaker 1: they're not mentally impaired. They're not like out of touch
Speaker 1: with reality. They they are they have enough perspective to
Speaker 1: feel shame about the state that their life is in
Speaker 1: because of these material possessions that they can't get rid
Speaker 1: of and can't stop accumulating. They can't do anything about it,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes it just such a sad disorders.
Speaker 1: They're aware of this and then feel shame as a result. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're incapable of change. Well, I think that I don't
Speaker 1: know if incapable is the right word. But with the
Speaker 1: right help, they're capable. But I think on their own
Speaker 1: they're generally incapable. Yes, well that's what I mean. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you seek treatment and you still can't stop. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then finally, another symptom is that you are it
Speaker 1: is really impacting your life. So um, you may have
Speaker 1: rooms in your house that you can't even use anymore,
Speaker 1: Like I can't take a bath because that's where I
Speaker 1: keep the backing peanuts, or I can't use the stove
Speaker 1: because it has seven microwaves that I bought that are
Speaker 1: still in boxes stacked on it. Um. And you will
Speaker 1: a lot of times they will like like a snow plow,
Speaker 1: just dig a path through their home just so they
Speaker 1: can get around where they can get around. Yeah, apparently
Speaker 1: among hoarders or among psychologists who study hoarding, it's called
Speaker 1: they call them goat paths, and they can be dangerous too.
Speaker 1: Hoarders have been known to have died sure from there.
Speaker 1: They're walking along the goat paths and this stuff on
Speaker 1: either side just coming down on top of them and
Speaker 1: pinning them and suffocating them. Yeah, and this and this
Speaker 1: is the point to where you talked about where uh
Speaker 1: they impacting your life. They don't get out much, maybe
Speaker 1: because they don't want to leave their stuff because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of family member might come over and and take
Speaker 1: things they are hold up. They don't have anyone over
Speaker 1: because of the shame. So it's just um they are.
Speaker 1: They're literally trapped by their things, yeah, figuratively and and literally.
Speaker 1: And they also um their Their houses will also very
Speaker 1: frequently be in disrepair, not just from the the collections
Speaker 1: of stuff taking over rooms and just totally changing their meaning,
Speaker 1: but also like if you have a hot water heater
Speaker 1: and it breaks, you're not gonna let some repair man
Speaker 1: come over. You don't know him. You don't. He might
Speaker 1: touch your stuff, he might take something, or you feel
Speaker 1: so much shame that you just won't even invite a
Speaker 1: stranger to come in and and and fix your hot
Speaker 1: water heater, so they'll just live without hot water forever. Um.
Speaker 1: They may also it's it's super sad, man. It were
Speaker 1: like because of documentary television, because the reality television. I
Speaker 1: think quarters have kind of gotten reputation as people like,
Speaker 1: go look at those freaks, you know. Um, But if
Speaker 1: you really start to dig into it, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: some of these shows do this from time to time too,
Speaker 1: it is an extremely sad condition. It just makes you
Speaker 1: want to help them when you come across him, you know.
Speaker 1: And then one other thing is they're also very frequently
Speaker 1: in debt. Say Ed gives the example of, um, if
Speaker 1: their kitchen is just totally covered and stuff and they
Speaker 1: can't get to the oven any longer, they have to
Speaker 1: order take out, which is much more expensive than grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: So their finances are very likely impacted by the their
Speaker 1: hoarding behavior. Good point. Should we take a break, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it, and we'll come back and
Speaker 1: talk about some of the myths right after this all right,
Speaker 1: So we talked about some of the truths UM, and
Speaker 1: some of the myths are as follows, and you mentioned, um,
Speaker 1: well you mentioned the first one that it affects only
Speaker 1: older people. UM. Another one is the hoarders are are lazy,
Speaker 1: and that is just not true. Um. They in fact,
Speaker 1: they may be very busy in there with while they
Speaker 1: may not be organizing, they may be moving things around
Speaker 1: and obsessing about it and ore. You know, they also
Speaker 1: might be on the recliner just hoping they don't get
Speaker 1: caved in on. But the stuff point is, stuff isn't
Speaker 1: there because they're lazy. It's a mental illness. That's a
Speaker 1: big one. UM. Another another early idea about hoarders is
Speaker 1: that the reason a horde is because they had some
Speaker 1: experience previously in their lives where they came face to
Speaker 1: face with deprivation or scarcity. And so now, yeah, the
Speaker 1: Great Depression, or their dad lost his job when they
Speaker 1: were a kid, and like their family really went through
Speaker 1: a hard time. So now as a as a UM,
Speaker 1: in response to that experience, they're just trying to get
Speaker 1: their hands on everything they can and they don't want
Speaker 1: to throw anything away. Apparently, that is absolutely not the
Speaker 1: case that that the UM science doesn't bear that out
Speaker 1: at all, and then they do think that they are
Speaker 1: connected to some sort of difficult event previous in life,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with deprivation
Speaker 1: UM at any point. Like they they may they may
Speaker 1: have been wealthy. I read it and Nautilus, I think
Speaker 1: a Nautilus article on hoarding, and they profiled this guy
Speaker 1: who was quite well off and he hoarded UM and
Speaker 1: I don't think he had ever or gone through any
Speaker 1: financial hardship, and that's apparently par for the course. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things that says one of the traumas
Speaker 1: could be excessive discipline, which I thought was interesting because
Speaker 1: Freud and I know, we said, it's been mentioned. It's
Speaker 1: not a new thing, like it's been in everything from
Speaker 1: Dante's Inferno to Silas Marner in eighteen sixty one, UH,
Speaker 1: and Freud talked about it UH in his day. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing is, everyone says Freud was way off UM,
Speaker 1: but he thought it could be as a result of
Speaker 1: overly harsh toilet training, which I thought was interesting because
Speaker 1: while that is not true, if it came from excessive
Speaker 1: discipline and you were excessively disciplined while toilet training. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe he wasn't that far off. Yeah, you're right, he
Speaker 1: probably wasn't. Like I said before, the guy was one
Speaker 1: of the history's great thinkers. It's just you shouldn't use
Speaker 1: the phrase anal character when you're describing what the problem
Speaker 1: was with hoarding, which he did. He did. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you make a really good point actually that he he
Speaker 1: maybe he wasn't that far off. But if it is discipline,
Speaker 1: overly harsh discipline and adolescence, I think that's a big one. UM.
Speaker 1: I think the loss of a significant other, of a
Speaker 1: close family member, UM, some sort of loss of UM
Speaker 1: love is it can trigger hoarding behavior and some people
Speaker 1: or has been known to bring bring the disorder on
Speaker 1: as well. I can see that like I lost that thing,
Speaker 1: but I can keep all this like that I can control, right,
Speaker 1: And that also would explain why they tend to imbue
Speaker 1: emotional attachment into their possessions, you know, like these things
Speaker 1: are these things equal love to me and now I
Speaker 1: can hang on to them and they're never going to
Speaker 1: leave me. Yeah, I'm telling you it's a very sad disorder.
Speaker 1: What another myth is that it's a symptom of O
Speaker 1: c D obsessive compulsive disorder. For many, many, many years
Speaker 1: were just now starting to understand more about it, But
Speaker 1: for many years they thought it was either just straight
Speaker 1: up was O c D or was just an offshoot
Speaker 1: of it. UM. But like you said, with the D
Speaker 1: s M, it is its own distinct disease, but it
Speaker 1: can be co morbid with O c D and other
Speaker 1: things like anxiety. So it's UM, I see why people
Speaker 1: get that confused. You know that some study took away
Speaker 1: the criteria for UM, took away the hoarding criteria from
Speaker 1: O c D, right, So it just gave these people
Speaker 1: a checklist to determine whether they had O c D
Speaker 1: or not, but took hoarding out of the equation, and
Speaker 1: hoarders tended to to not qualify for O c D
Speaker 1: only like six percent of them do or something like that.
Speaker 1: So it's connected in some cases, but definitely not in
Speaker 1: all cases. And it's certainly not just an offshoot of
Speaker 1: O c D itself, like you're saying, right, Uh, And
Speaker 1: then finally, and of course, because this is a a disease,
Speaker 1: and um, just because you finally get a family member
Speaker 1: in there against all LODs to clean everything out of there.
Speaker 1: That does not cure you of anything. No, I saw that.
Speaker 1: It just is first of all, what a horrible experience
Speaker 1: that would be for the poor hoard. The county comes
Speaker 1: in or some family members come in with some tough
Speaker 1: love and just clear all your stuff out. So it's
Speaker 1: number one, but number two apparently they say, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of space to fill. Now I
Speaker 1: better get to work. Like that's the result of it. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: so it's a chronic disease, chronic condition, and supposedly recurrence
Speaker 1: of this is a hundred percent in all cases without treatment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The grabstr emailed this woman named Lisa Hale co Um sorry,
Speaker 1: founding director of the Kansas City Center for Anxiety Treatment
Speaker 1: and also a junct associate professor at University of Missouri,
Speaker 1: Kansas City. So fighting hay seeds the stacks seeds, I
Speaker 1: think Haycy. Isn't that a derogatory name for Kanson. It
Speaker 1: depends on whether they own it or not. You know,
Speaker 1: okay um, I'm sure we'll hear. But yeah, she she
Speaker 1: said that it approaches like that. Is that is straight
Speaker 1: up proof that that cleaning things out and while the
Speaker 1: family member, well a county just says they're directive. But
Speaker 1: while a family member might think, oh I've helped them, um,
Speaker 1: you you really haven't. If that was your solve, no, you,
Speaker 1: you're probably the Other part of it, too, is if
Speaker 1: you come in there all tough love and you need
Speaker 1: to get your act together and you're just being lazy,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? And clean their stuff out for them?
Speaker 1: First of all, that's basically abuse. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if you need to qualify with basically I think that's
Speaker 1: abuse of a mentally ill person. But secondly, um, all
Speaker 1: you're doing is driving that behavior that that's a very
Speaker 1: stressful event, and the the um the way they deal
Speaker 1: with stress is through hoarding behavior. So all it's going
Speaker 1: to do is just turn the notch up on the
Speaker 1: hoarding that they're doing anyway, and you can probably say
Speaker 1: goodbye to ever seeing them again after that too. Man,
Speaker 1: what a terrible situation. Apparently we'll talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: treatment in a minute, but one of the key factors
Speaker 1: and treatment is that the family and friends and loved
Speaker 1: ones of the person who's hoarding and now undergoing treatment,
Speaker 1: they have to go through therapy themselves. Because it's I'm
Speaker 1: sure quite easy to look at this with disgust, horror,
Speaker 1: um anger, like what is wrong with you? Like, I
Speaker 1: know that that's a natural reaction, but you have you
Speaker 1: can't follow through on that. You have to approach it
Speaker 1: from a place of understanding or else all you're going
Speaker 1: to do is trigger the hoarding behavior even further. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure if you go in their guns blazing with
Speaker 1: your broom and your and your dumpster, Uh, you just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna get worse. You just crumble that person. So, UM,
Speaker 1: what causes this is really interesting because UM, we don't
Speaker 1: know for sure, and there are they have been everything
Speaker 1: from UM lesions on the brain in certain studies that
Speaker 1: they found um could account for it two UH chromosomeal
Speaker 1: defects to possibly genetics UM because they found that it's
Speaker 1: uh other illnesses or at least that behavior is part
Speaker 1: of other illnesses that are definitely genetic, and hoarders are
Speaker 1: more likely to have other family members who are also hoarders.
Speaker 1: Of hoarders surveys say that they have a family member
Speaker 1: who's a hoarder, which is way more than the general population. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have no idea what the really underlying causes,
Speaker 1: but we do know it's what's called and this is
Speaker 1: what um. What Hail said who had interviewed, is that
Speaker 1: it is a neuropsychiatric can Asian and it is it's
Speaker 1: all about like you were talking about earlier, these processing
Speaker 1: challenges UM not being able to process visually, organizationally, emotionally
Speaker 1: and your brain connections aren't aren't working right. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember hearing years ago like that they would stick these
Speaker 1: these poor people into the wonder machine and talk to
Speaker 1: them about getting rid of their possessions, saying like, I
Speaker 1: want you to imagine you know this room, and think
Speaker 1: about all of your newspapers. Now, which newspaper do you
Speaker 1: want to get rid of? And these people would experience
Speaker 1: basically physical pain, huge spikes and their levels of stress
Speaker 1: just thinking about this. But when you said the same
Speaker 1: thing about somebody else's stuff, they had no reaction whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's strictly their stuff and their attachment to it. And
Speaker 1: another study by David Frost showed that when you give
Speaker 1: somebody who is a hoarder something um and say this
Speaker 1: is yours now I think he gave out key chains,
Speaker 1: their attachment to it was immediate. It was like right
Speaker 1: right when they knew that they owned the thing and
Speaker 1: it was theirs, they were now as attested to as
Speaker 1: if they'd had it for fifty years, it was as
Speaker 1: important to them. So there's a lot of stuff going
Speaker 1: on in the brain, and it does have to do
Speaker 1: with attachment, decision making, finding um comfort and de escalation
Speaker 1: of stress through these material possessions as well. Um, But
Speaker 1: they just don't quite know what did it? Was it
Speaker 1: a bad experience as a kid? Are are you born
Speaker 1: with the chemical balance that doesn't begin to show its
Speaker 1: symptoms until adolescence. It's just too new, Like it only
Speaker 1: became its own thing in the d s M five,
Speaker 1: which came out in two thousand thirteen. But it is
Speaker 1: in the d s M now, which means that insurance
Speaker 1: companies will pay for treatment for it, which means that
Speaker 1: a lot more people are going to be studying it
Speaker 1: than they ever were before. Man, I can't imagine anything
Speaker 1: more torturous than being strapped in an MRI machine, which
Speaker 1: is already stressful and confining, and then having to quick
Speaker 1: as people on anxiety inducing mental illness right, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're getting rid of this thing now, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're they're just like want to like bust out of
Speaker 1: that thing, you know. Yeah, it's like it's like torture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like and it's valuable research. So hats off to
Speaker 1: the people that do that and and the people that, like,
Speaker 1: the people that administer it, and the people that are
Speaker 1: brave enough to go in there and and seek that treatment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, hats off to him for sure. Man, literal
Speaker 1: hats off, because you can't wear a hat in an
Speaker 1: MRI machine. You can. You can only wear a mesh helmet.
Speaker 1: That's right. Um. Well, there was one other kind of
Speaker 1: general explaination hypothesis that explains hoarding um floating around, and
Speaker 1: that is that we all have this innate evolutionary instinct
Speaker 1: to gather stuff. Yeah, I really like this, Like it's
Speaker 1: just it's just well, it's part of our mammalian heritage.
Speaker 1: And and they think that in people who hoard, this
Speaker 1: instinct has basically gone haywire, like some snaps connected with
Speaker 1: another synaps that weren't supposed to be connected. Now, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, this thing that's a natural thing where
Speaker 1: you know, you go to the grocery store, you buy
Speaker 1: some stuff, you keep it in your refrigerator for a
Speaker 1: week turns into you can't get enough Sunday circulars to
Speaker 1: possibly stave off these feelings of anxiety. Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1: Little uh story reference was like an animal saving food
Speaker 1: for the winter. Do they work extra long to prepare
Speaker 1: for a possibly long winter but stay out there and
Speaker 1: are are more more vulnerable to getting eaten by the
Speaker 1: cheetah while they're collecting stuff? Or do they say, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna go ahead and get in the cave.
Speaker 1: I've got enough stuff. Um, eventually there will be that
Speaker 1: long winter and those animals will die out, so you know,
Speaker 1: over the course of time, the long winter evolutionary trait
Speaker 1: will be the one that's passed on. Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: The guy whose paper he based that on. You should
Speaker 1: see this paper. Man. It's got like sigma everywhere and
Speaker 1: he's talking about squirrels gathering nuts. But there's all these
Speaker 1: really complex math and statistical formula that he's got on
Speaker 1: on his paper. But the the overall gist of it
Speaker 1: is pretty fascinating and it proves or it definitely lends
Speaker 1: credence to the idea that it is a naturally selected
Speaker 1: evolutionary trait. To gather a lot of stuff. Most of us, though,
Speaker 1: have this cut off point where we know, I don't
Speaker 1: need anything more than this, or anything more than this
Speaker 1: is irrational, and people who hoarde definitely don't have that
Speaker 1: cut off point. Yeah, we have a room in our
Speaker 1: house that is full of stuff, and it's not hoarding.
Speaker 1: It's we don't have a place for this stuff. We
Speaker 1: live in a you know, eighties something year old craftsman
Speaker 1: and that you know, those houses just don't have the
Speaker 1: closet space and the storage space. We don't have a garage.
Speaker 1: We do have an addict that has us some stuff,
Speaker 1: and in theory, we could probably move all of this
Speaker 1: stuff up there, but most of this stuff we kind
Speaker 1: of need access to more often. Um, So we're not hoarding,
Speaker 1: but it's it's just like our house is small, and
Speaker 1: we could go you know, the other route and be
Speaker 1: go a little more minimalist for sure, and get rid
Speaker 1: of this stuff, trust me. But um, but if you
Speaker 1: don't want to, you don't want to, well, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean it's um, it's a problem when we have
Speaker 1: a guests in the night, which is not often because
Speaker 1: that's our quote guest room. I got you you know
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you guys need to get to
Speaker 1: the container store now, a lot of the stuffs and containers.
Speaker 1: We need a container for your containers. Uh. And what
Speaker 1: we do. It's funny when we do have the occasional guests,
Speaker 1: they are invariably very very close friend or family member,
Speaker 1: and so they understand we clear the cut path to
Speaker 1: the bed. They're like, just dive over onto the bed
Speaker 1: and then when you when you wake up and you
Speaker 1: want to get up, just call us and we'll lower
Speaker 1: the crane. Harness. That's right. But were we are adding,
Speaker 1: not adding onto our house, but we're we're finishing the basement.
Speaker 1: So hopefully that will be the solve because we're gonna
Speaker 1: have some lots more good storage down there. There you go,
Speaker 1: being bang boom, except we're having to do house construction,
Speaker 1: which is the worst for your stuff. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: should we take one more break? Yeah, all right, let's
Speaker 1: do that, and we'll come back and talk just briefly
Speaker 1: about the very famous call your brothers, and then hit
Speaker 1: on animal hoarding, which could be the saddest of all hoarding.
Speaker 1: All right, we would be remiss if we didn't mention
Speaker 1: the Langley Homer and Langley Collier. Uh we you said
Speaker 1: you want to do a full show on them. This
Speaker 1: will be the second time we've covered them. When did
Speaker 1: we talking about him before Bizarre Ways to Die? Oh wow,
Speaker 1: which is literally a nine year old episode. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is old. So I would say we could probably still
Speaker 1: get away with a full episode because if you listen
Speaker 1: to the one in April two tho nine, in the
Speaker 1: segment on the call your Brothers within that five minute episode,
Speaker 1: then you would probably appreciate a more flashed op version.
Speaker 1: I would love it. But just the broad strokes of
Speaker 1: it are that Homer Callier Um went blind older in
Speaker 1: life or later in life, and his brother Langley took
Speaker 1: care of him. Well. Langley was a hoarder and accumulated
Speaker 1: more and more stuff and eventually, uh, Langley died. He
Speaker 1: was crushed by his stuff and Homer, who was a
Speaker 1: percent depended on Langley Um, starved to death in their
Speaker 1: brownstone and they were found separately, uh weeks apart. This
Speaker 1: in Harlem, New York City. And if you just look
Speaker 1: up pictures of this and the cruise and the removing
Speaker 1: of things, it's really something else. And there's actually a
Speaker 1: little park there named to call your Brother's Park. Then
Speaker 1: in early two thousand's, uh, there was a push to
Speaker 1: get that changed because they were like, we should not
Speaker 1: name a park after these guys. But as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, let's still name that I tried to.
Speaker 1: I don't think that went anywhere. They let's definitely do ah.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I think it was called call your
Speaker 1: Syndrome for a while too. Huh yeah, for a while.
Speaker 1: I mean they were pretty famous because all the New
Speaker 1: York papers got in there and like printed all sorts
Speaker 1: of pictures and they had to like just a fascinating story.
Speaker 1: All right, Now, we might as well finish on the
Speaker 1: saddest of notes, which is animal hoarding. And um, we're
Speaker 1: not talking about Well, it could be Crazy Cat Lady,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily. I think she's an archetype of animal hoarders. Right,
Speaker 1: So in this case we're talking about and I know
Speaker 1: you've seen stories probably on the news here and there. Um,
Speaker 1: these are people that that hoard animals to the extent
Speaker 1: where it's just like the other stuff. It is. Their
Speaker 1: house is often filled with feces and smells of ammonia,
Speaker 1: full of maybe fleas and ticks. Can't have people over
Speaker 1: uh and and it's one of the saddest because as
Speaker 1: it's these people can't bear They think they're doing the
Speaker 1: right thing. Yeah, writing these animals, but they're not because
Speaker 1: these animals almost time are very much suffering. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like hoarding. But you know, your your newspapers
Speaker 1: and plastic grocery bags don't suffer with animal hoarding. The
Speaker 1: hoarder suffers, and the animals suffer as well because no
Speaker 1: matter how great the intentions of the animal hoarder are,
Speaker 1: and apparently that is the one of the basis of
Speaker 1: animal hoarding, is that they really do have the best
Speaker 1: of intentions. They feel like they're rescuing the animals that
Speaker 1: US wants. They're taking them into their home. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're feeding them, they're caring for him. The problem is
Speaker 1: is they can't stop acquiring them, so it reaches a
Speaker 1: point where the animals they can't possibly there's not enough
Speaker 1: hours in the day to properly care for all the animals.
Speaker 1: And even if you had help and you um, you
Speaker 1: had the money to buy food and and um veterinary
Speaker 1: care for all these animals, there's still a huge factor
Speaker 1: in that these animals are living very close together in
Speaker 1: ways that they should not be, that's not natural for them,
Speaker 1: So they're stressed out all the time. Yeah, and another
Speaker 1: one of the hallmarks could be not always, but a
Speaker 1: lot of times these are people that are um left
Speaker 1: alone in life, either from being widowed or divorced, or
Speaker 1: just their their family has gone, or they just may
Speaker 1: have a trouble interacting with people. And these animals uh
Speaker 1: in this article you sent, and they call it a
Speaker 1: conflict free relationship, And they surround themselves with this thing
Speaker 1: because it's it's filling them with something that they can't
Speaker 1: get oftentimes out of humans, right, which is unconditional love.
Speaker 1: The problem is, again it is very sad because there's
Speaker 1: that extra component, the extra very important component and of
Speaker 1: suffering animals. But and when people hear about this stuff,
Speaker 1: you just immediately like like kind of hiss of the
Speaker 1: people who who do this when you hear about it
Speaker 1: on the news and don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 1: But again, when you dive into the psychology behind it,
Speaker 1: it's extraordinarily sad because these people have the best intentions
Speaker 1: for these animals, and even while they're caring for these animals,
Speaker 1: they are they're suffering as well through this indecision like
Speaker 1: do is do I love this dog or or is
Speaker 1: this one my favorite? Or should I adopt it out?
Speaker 1: And they just can't decide, so they just avoid the
Speaker 1: decision and just acquire more and more animals, again to
Speaker 1: the detriment of all of the animals involved. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: just like with regular hoarding, um removing these animals because
Speaker 1: by the time you see it on the news, it's
Speaker 1: probably because um that the county is in there and
Speaker 1: animal control is in there and you see them these sad,
Speaker 1: sad stories where they're literally taking out these like dogs
Speaker 1: clearly suffering malnutrition or cats or whatever, and um, that
Speaker 1: does not solve the problem. You know, they have to
Speaker 1: seek therapy. And just like with with object hoarding, UM,
Speaker 1: if you're a family member confronting them being angry, even
Speaker 1: though this one is probably even tougher to not be angry,
Speaker 1: if you're an animal lover, you need to just keep
Speaker 1: that in check and try and be compassionate and help
Speaker 1: them so you can help the animals as well. So
Speaker 1: there are some stats on this animal thing. Where where
Speaker 1: did you get this? Where was this from? This is
Speaker 1: a good article, man, I wish you hadn't asked, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you by the time you're done with the stats,
Speaker 1: all right, UM, I'll just tick through a couple of these.
Speaker 1: Every year, thirty five hundred hoarders animal hoarders come to
Speaker 1: the attention to the authorities, two fifty animals affected each year.
Speaker 1: This one is really sad. Of animal hoarders have disease, dying,
Speaker 1: or dead animals on the premises at the time. UM
Speaker 1: that can be code more of it. Up to four
Speaker 1: actually is about of the time. UM. Object hoarders are
Speaker 1: also hoarding animals. UM. And like I was talking about
Speaker 1: being being lonely or widowed perhaps or divorce, seventy percent
Speaker 1: of animal hoarders UM who the authorities know about are
Speaker 1: females or single, widowed, or divorce. So the thing is
Speaker 1: is that's skewed differently for some reason. Apparently, if you
Speaker 1: just go out and sample the community, hoarding is pretty
Speaker 1: much evenly divided among men and women. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: why we typically think of them as women, but apparently
Speaker 1: for animals are in general in general, well this is
Speaker 1: animals specifically, so okay, I guess there may be some
Speaker 1: sort of deeper compassion from women. I don't know who knows,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to, uh to undermine the efforts
Speaker 1: of the Anxiety and Depression Association of Americas. Of course,
Speaker 1: whose sight this came from. Yeah, thanks very much. Uh
Speaker 1: those great stats, good website. Yeah. So let's talk real
Speaker 1: quick about treatment of all kinds of hoarding. Um, that's
Speaker 1: a big one, is they Family intervention and loving support
Speaker 1: is a huge part of it because hoarders apparently don't
Speaker 1: initiate treatment themselves even though they know that they're suffering. Typically, Um,
Speaker 1: but apparently talk therapy is proving to be the best
Speaker 1: treatment for hoarding. And that's where, uh say, a cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapist talks you through your own beliefs about things like, well,
Speaker 1: you know what will happen exactly if you have to
Speaker 1: give away your your plastic grocery bags, and that they
Speaker 1: make you say it out loud, and when you say
Speaker 1: it out loud, maybe there's a little part of your
Speaker 1: brain that's like, wait a minute, that does sound a
Speaker 1: little cookie And maybe they said, well, really, what you
Speaker 1: just said, even if they did happen, even if that
Speaker 1: negative outcome did happen, is that really as as bad
Speaker 1: as it sounds? In reality, and they just kind of
Speaker 1: talk you through your beliefs while at the same time
Speaker 1: basically dragging them out into the open so that they're
Speaker 1: not just to your head anymore. They're out there and
Speaker 1: you kind of have to evaluate them in a different
Speaker 1: way speaking with this trained professional. Yeah, and I would
Speaker 1: imagine they, uh, it's probably a ghost slow thing, like
Speaker 1: maybe next week you bring in something that you care
Speaker 1: about and we're gonna we're gonna get rid of it together. Um.
Speaker 1: I doubt if it's like they have some talk therapy
Speaker 1: and then they just go through and clear the house out.
Speaker 1: It's probably very gradual thing to heal someone of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think it is gradual, like you said, and
Speaker 1: against family has to support it because you know, they
Speaker 1: may give the person. They say, like your therapist knows
Speaker 1: exactly how you feel. Every Thursday at two o'clock, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean you're there for an hour, Um, probably more
Speaker 1: than that if you are a diagnosed toward er and
Speaker 1: you're undergoing treatment. But the point is it's not an
Speaker 1: impatient treatment. You go back home afterward and they give
Speaker 1: you homework. And if you're a chronic hoarder, you're probably
Speaker 1: not going to do the homework. So you need to
Speaker 1: have family saying, well, didn't doctors, so and so say
Speaker 1: you needed to start to clear this room out this
Speaker 1: week and just just kind of be there and know
Speaker 1: what's going on and support the treatment as well, and
Speaker 1: not just leave them to their own devices. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the hoarders that have no family and support system, those
Speaker 1: are the ones that are just so tragic because they're
Speaker 1: the least likely to get help and seek help and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially die very kind of sad, lonely life
Speaker 1: surrounded by their stuff. Yeah. I think those are the
Speaker 1: ones that are the ones you see on the news,
Speaker 1: the ones that don't have family and friends anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I guess the upshot of all this, chuck is
Speaker 1: that if you know a hoarder, um, maybe go be
Speaker 1: nice to them and see if you can help them out,
Speaker 1: because they are most likely suffering calm passion. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: you go. If you want to know more about hoarding,
Speaker 1: you can type that word in the search bar bring
Speaker 1: up this excellent article by Ed Grabanowski on how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot common. Since I said that it's time for
Speaker 1: a listener mail, short and sweet is warning called this
Speaker 1: because cracks me up occasionally when someone is just cracked
Speaker 1: up by some dumb thing, we said, I know this one. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: you made my day once again. I spent December listening
Speaker 1: to Christmas music. Me too, by the way, Oh man,
Speaker 1: I was done in week one. Yeah I can. I
Speaker 1: can muscle through generally for the most part, because eventually
Speaker 1: and we can go. It wasn't the Christmas spirit, just
Speaker 1: Christmas music this year. I was like, I can't take
Speaker 1: this at all. Yeah. Yeah, Eventually I have to say,
Speaker 1: all right, and we need to like turn Radiohead or something.
Speaker 1: And that's why I go to because she'll go she
Speaker 1: can listen to radio Head. Yes, He's like, I love
Speaker 1: Radioheads Christmas album. Oh my god, can you imagine? Um Now,
Speaker 1: I'm just hearing various versions of that in my head.
Speaker 1: Very nice. Um. So I spent December listening to Christmas music,
Speaker 1: so I got behind on my podcast. I'm currently listening
Speaker 1: in reverse to December. I was just striving to work
Speaker 1: listening to Cake and I almost had to pull over
Speaker 1: because I was laughing so hard at the conversation about
Speaker 1: oven doors. Uh, Josh or I'm sorry, Chuck, do you
Speaker 1: have a window in your oven door? Josh, of course
Speaker 1: what am I communist? Between that and Chuck baking in
Speaker 1: this dishwasher, you two made this a perfect day. I
Speaker 1: gotta say I cannot wait to see you next week
Speaker 1: again in Portland. My stuff, you shnow bingo board is
Speaker 1: ready travel safe and that is Jin Hunt Jin. By
Speaker 1: the time this comes out, we will have just been
Speaker 1: in Portland and um, maybe we have even met you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope everybody in
Speaker 1: Portland enjoyed show. And as a follow up, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I officially said, oh, I'm glad you're saying this.
Speaker 1: I think I posted on Facebook, but I definitely do
Speaker 1: not have an oven uh window. No, Chuck is officially
Speaker 1: a communist. He has an oven without a window, and
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it before. It's like a tank.
Speaker 1: It's great. Yeah, it's a good look an oven. I
Speaker 1: don't want to see that jump cooking. Okay, Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us to let
Speaker 1: us know how we correct you up. We love hearing
Speaker 1: about that. You can tweet to us. I'm at Josh
Speaker 1: um Clark and s Y s K podcast. I also
Speaker 1: have a website called are you series Clark dot com.
Speaker 1: You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or at slash stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email the Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and, as always,
Speaker 1: join us at our home on the web, stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com.