Selects: How Hoarding Works

You may be familiar with compulsive hoarding from TV, but something that’s often missing from those shows and the news is the deep and overwhelming shame that this disorder creates in its victims who are neurologically incapable of parting with their stuff. Find out all about it in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's your long lost cousin Josh. And for
this week's select, I chose our two thousand and eighteen
episode on hoarding. This is one of those eye opening
topics for me because I only knew of hoarding through
pop culture, and those portrayals are typically accurate to an extent,
but the problem is they usually missed the profound distress

(00:22):
and sadness that hoarders feel about their disorder. So prepared
to have your empathy Kate put on for you with
this one, and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to

(00:46):
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's childs to have you,
Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and here we are
doing Stuff you should Know about hoarding. Yeah, Jerry's over
there under a stack of pizza boxes of newspapers. Yes,
but Jerry proudly displays them to anybody who comes into
the office and makes eye contact with her, which makes

(01:09):
her a collector of those things. A big difference. Well, yeah,
I didn't save your horder. She's a pizza box collector,
I got you. She likes those greasy after stains. Yes,
supposedly that prevents you from recycling pizza boxes. I think
we talked about it in one of our episodes before,
but I think that that's a p s A that
bears repeating. Yeah, I've never got a final answer on that,

(01:31):
so I throw mine in the recycling anyway. I don't
know if that comes up the works or not. Is
there a spectrum or anything like that, or you're like, oh,
this one is just so obviously loaded with cheese um
that I I can't possibly recycle this. Well, mine are
always loaded because I specifically request that the pizza be
delivered face down in the box. Do you It's a

(01:52):
little weird, but I like it that way. It's a
way to do it for sure, upside down pizza. Actually,
you know what I should do is just tear the
box in in half and at least recycled the top.
That I think you may have just solved the real problem. Yeah, alright,
I think we do need to do a follow up
recycling episode because I would imagine it's probably advanced by

(02:15):
leaps and bounds since we last discussed it. Yeah, and
here in my area of Atlanta, they quit taking glass
really a few months ago. Too heavy not enough payoff.
I think it was just yeah, and and or word
got out that they weren't even recycling it, so um.
Since then, they have set up places around Atlanta, one

(02:36):
specifically at the Edgewood Target Parking You know, there's a
bunch of stuff there, but in the Target parking lot
they have these huge glass recyclers there. And I meet
up with the fellow Whinos about once every two weeks.
We all shamefully toss in, you know, dozens of bottles
of empty wine, so much dead yellow tail. Yeah, and

(02:58):
we Now I don't drink that stuff, but we just
we It's nice. It's sort of like a wine meeting,
so much dead Paul Masson like a wine clatch. I'm like, God,
what are you throwing away there? How was that right? Really?
Have you gotten any recommendations from those chance encounters? It's
literally happened where we're you know, I would meet a
fellow why no, we're thrown away tons of bottles, And

(03:21):
then we decide to own our shame and be like, hey,
this one was pretty good, by the way, and start
up a conversation and then I get maced, Yeah you
take you take the bottle and go huh night train.
Haven't heard of this one? Right? Okay, that is try
and I like the handy grip of the bottle. I
never tried night train. Did you have that, dude? It's
it's a nightmare, is what it is. Yeah. I would

(03:42):
drink the like you don't even sober up before you
get a crushing headache from it. Right, it comes with
a headache, that's what says. Um. What would I drink? Um?
Mad dog mhm. Which you know there's a reason they
are sold right next to each other. Yeah, can you
even call those wine? No, it's not wine. It's wine

(04:03):
like Prudo gets wine like malt liquor is beer. It's related,
but it's drinking college. Sure. Remember the Nicky's big mouths. Yeah,
and cold forty five came in like gigantic like bottles.
That was one of the biggest attractions of it, you know. Yeah,
it was expensive, man, that was that was our jam

(04:24):
for a little while. I never got into this, I
know what you're talking about. Then't they have like the
like a question or a trivia thing or something on
the underside of it, the bottle, the lid. I don't know. Well,
there were the little green hand grenade bottles, little barrels,
and uh, I don't know which came first or after
it was either. I guess they switched to just the

(04:45):
regular like uh, Coca Cola style twist off cap metal
twist off, and I think they might. I think they
did have something underneath it. Act there was something under there.
Maybe it was like a poker game or a card
game or you just liver disease. But before that then
I think they had these really unique poll tabs because

(05:07):
it was a big fat mouth, Mickey's. That's why they
called it that Mickey's big mouth. So they had to
have a very unique um bottle cap poll cap that
was just sort of interesting. Back in the day, man,
back in the day when I was I'm not gonna
wrap now. And we're now refined with our beverage consumption,

(05:28):
Yeah yeah we are. I only drink Call forty five
out of a chilled glass. Now. I got a nice
whiskey bar set up at home that's separate from the
regular bar, Oh wow, with just like rise and Bourbons
and Scotches and Irish, and it's very little additional. Uh.
I've gotten out to where I will put in little

(05:49):
drops of little tinctures and shrubs and things. Oh yeah, occasionally,
shrubs are great. I made my own ones and it's
actually worth the effort. Yeah. My buddy Eddie, you know Eddie,
he makes his own. He actually does it in the
in the bottle, but he will he'll do like a
cherry bourbon or an apple like confused bourbon. Yeah. Those

(06:11):
shrubs though, man, uh, it's actually not very hard and
they last forever because what you're doing is basically I
don't know if it's fermenting or pickling or something, but
you're doing something to the fruit that you're mascerating with
the sugar, and it just lasts forever. It's just such
a nice little tangy pop. It's like kimchi. You gotta
bury it in your yard for kind of. It's close

(06:32):
to that, Actually it's not. It's like the Yankee version
of kim chi, but with fruit and you put it
in your booze. Well, this is all very hoardy, like, well,
hold on, even before we get into hoarding, we still
have another tangent to go on. Oh our earl buds.
Yeah yeah, let's let's announce it, okay, So Caroline Irvin

(06:56):
and Kristen Conger seriously, Well, I know it was it
was Conger, but she's since gotten married to she took
her husband's last name, remember, No, of course, Kristin Conger. No,
I don't know. If something tells me Conger did not
take his last name, right, right, I can see that
because then I would no longer be able to call
her Congs, which I know she loved. That's true, and

(07:18):
she was probably there the SoC Security administrates and thinking
I can't do this. What about Chuck? She thought of
that at any rate. Caroline and Kristen the former host
of UM Stuff Mom Never Told You, which is now
hosted by our pals um Emily and Bridget. That's right,
So Kristen and Caroline went off on their own and
they have now started a new podcast and this is

(07:43):
the this is the grand announcement here on stuff you
should know. That's right. It's called Unladylike and uh I
have I've heard the trailer, so it sounds great and
anything they're gonna do is gonna be great. They're just
they're pros. They really like. Uh. I know, Stuff Mom
Never Told You was started with Molly and Conger, but
when Caroline came along, it really just found its true voice.

(08:04):
No offense, Molly, and um, she just trashed her home office. Uh,
it's just a great show and Unladylike is going to
be awesome and a and I believe it's got a
bit of a different flavor with interviews and stuff like that,
but it is definitely going to be dealing with uh,
feminism and women's issues and oh yeah, advocacy and their

(08:25):
their logo is great. It's a big middle finger, which
is just so them. Yep. So they have a site up,
but I think you can get their podcast anywhere you
get podcasts, that's kind of how it works. But they
have a site as well called un lady Like dot
ceo super British, not dot com dot ceo. Okay, that's right.

(08:46):
So the best of luck, ladies. I'm sure it'll be great.
And uh, you're always on our minds and in our
hearts about that. It's so nice of you. Good luck
Caroline and Kristen. It's gonna be great. Now, can we hoard? Yes?
Long last, Oh let's take a commercial break show. Can
you imagine Mollywood tresh her home office again? So we're

(09:08):
talking hoarding today, believe it or not, everybody UM and I.
Basically everyone is fairly well aware of hoarding thanks to
a couple of high profile um reality TV shows about
hoarders and hoarding UM and then there have also been

(09:28):
appearances of hoarders in literature. So even before it kind
of became like part of the cultural awareness, it was
also already kind of there, like everybody thought, you know,
there's some guy out there who has a house full
of something that he picked up on the side of
the road, and his it's just accumulated and he can
barely get around his house. Like that was there before.

(09:50):
But thanks to those TV shows, which is actually which
actually sprung out of the first real research on hoarding
as its own disorder d UM from the early nineteen
nineties by a Smith College psychology professor named David o'frost
and then two of his students, Rachel Gross and Tamarra

(10:10):
hardel Um. Those three people together actually form the basis
of our knowledge about hoarding the disorder. They took it
out of the cultural reference, they took it out of
the realm of Freud and and they got it ultimately
all the way up into the d s M. Five
and two thousand thirteen, which is about the best you

(10:30):
can hope for is an undergrad psychology student. Yeah, you
get your d S M tattoo M to two yep uh.
And I believe those shows. One was called Hoarders and
one was called Jerry's Pizza Box Collection. No, Jerry's a collector.
Well it was Jerry's Pizza Box Collection, Colin, I'm not
a hoarder, right. It was a little little mouthie, little wordy.

(10:54):
The log line was, if you're looking for a show
about a hoarder, keep looking. But if you like pizza
boxes and he doesn't speak eight seven central, be very
David lynche In. Just this mute woman walking around pizza boxes, blackout,
bar over most of her face everywhere. She would be great. Um,

(11:16):
all right, so we'll go ahead and get it going
with a stat here. Back in the day, I was statman,
remember that, of course, So I'm gonna reprise that role. Okay,
do you have a cape still? Oh yeah, that's on
see Oh yeah, I see it's probably I couldn't see
you weren't turned the right way. Uh well it's a
it's a thin cape for broadfellaw uh so estimates No

(11:42):
one really knows, because, like you said, it's very recently
that it's been recognized as its own disease um and
not a symptom of another thing, even though it is,
as we will see later, very much co morbid with
other other issues and mental illnesses. But despite the fact
that we don't know a ton about the stats, there
are estimates to say anywhere from point four percent two

(12:05):
as many as five that's high. Is this humans or humans? Americans? Humans?
Ah yeah, I think the general population, which that would
make its prevalence higher than schizophrenia. Wow. Yeah, which I
actually kind of believe if I stop and think about it. Well,
the thing is, though you don't this is and we're

(12:28):
going to talk about all this stuff, but it's not
often the kind of thing that presents itself out in
public because these people are hiding in their houses full
of stuff. No. No. And one of the things one
of the early misconceptions about hoarders that we'll see is
that it was mostly older people who were hoarding. But um,
it turns out that they're the ones who get thrust
into the limelight because it's a progressive chronic disease r exactly.

(12:54):
So by the time the news media becomes aware of
this and drags these pour people out into the lime. Lie. Um,
their their hoard has gotten very big and they have aged.
So that's why we initially thought that just older people
were hoarders. It turns out it actually starts far earlier
in life. Typically. Yeah, like I show about a twelve

(13:16):
year old with one corner of their room too messy. Yeah,
just looking at it like this is gonna be huge
one day. And we're joking here, but this is a
serious mental illness. But we we joke about all kinds
of things. So I don't want anyone to get upset
about things like that. No, No, if you're new to
the podcast, go listen to the comas episode. That'll set

(13:39):
things straight. All right. So some of the symptoms of
hoarding um, and we're we're going to get into also
in a bit to the I Guess myths. And separating
those two is really important because it's very easy for
someone to very dismissively say, oh, they're a hoarder because
they have a lot of stuff. Um. And my family,
my in laws, well, let me let Steve off the hook.

(14:03):
Specifically my mother in law, my grandmother in law, Mary,
the eldest general of the stuff you should know Army
and uh my aunt Sue, Sharon two and Mary. They
have a lot of stuff and we call it the
disease sort of as a joke, um, but they're actually well,

(14:25):
they're not hoarders at all, but they got a lot
of stuff they have a hard time throwing away, you know,
the stuff that they had that they think someone in
the family might want. But I think that stuff that's
that's pretty typical. A lot of people are like that,
and a lot of people have a basement room with
a lot of junk in it out of being too

(14:46):
busy or lazy, or maybe just a bit of the
disease where you just like I can't bear to part
with it even though I really should. But that is
not hoarding. Well, so my question would be, then have
you ever seen them and do you feel like they
have the ability to clear out like the attic or

(15:07):
donate some of the stuff like they can't they have
the ability to part with the stuff. There have been
pushes at various times, like when they're moving and stuff
like that. Of course it's a good time to do that. Um,
it is always a bit of a painful experience. But
I think, like I said, everyone's got a little not everyone.
Some people are so unsentimental that they'll just back the

(15:29):
dumpster up and just empty their house into it and
say I'll get a new drunk But um, it's a
good way to move, Yeah, exactly, but they it is
a little bit of a hard time. And very famously either, Um, Charlie,
there Emily's grandpa who who left us on our wedding day. Um,

(15:50):
he famously passed away with like you know, buckets have bent,
rusty nails. But he was not a hoarder. He was
legitimately one of these guys. He was like, I can
straighten these and reuse them one day. And he believed
in the value of just not throwing everything away, which
is great. So let me ask you this though he
would he would say kind of with pride, like look

(16:12):
at all these awesome nails that I'm not wasting you chump, No,
not at all. It was just um, was he ashamed
of his bucket of nails? No, he would. He would
occasionally get out a nail and straighten it and use it,
and it was just everyone in the family knew, Like
you know, Charlie, he did grow up in the Great
Depression and as we will see. That is one of

(16:33):
the myths that, oh, all these people just grow up
in the depression, so they value things more. That is
not the case. There's no tie to that. But he
is one of those gentlemen who grow up in the
Great Depression, and and I love that attitude. We're in
such a disposable frame of mind. I think that they
the depression thing has kind of come back for the

(16:53):
generation behind us, where they value things a bit more. Good. Yeah,
you know, because the posibility of products and just everything.
Just pulling a dump strip to your back door and
pushing your stuff out as a means of moving. Yeah,
we're like, I'll just that thing didn't work. Well, I
could probably get repaired, but screw it. I'll get another one.
It's only twenty bucks. Things like that, Like it kind

(17:16):
of drives me nuts. So I'm oh, wait, my phone
has has a new version of my phone has just
come out. So now the company that made my phone
is remotely slowing my phone down, so I have to
throw it away and go buy another one. That's definitely
part of the problem as well. You know, it's funny.
I can totally see Grandpa Charlie saying everybody gather around

(17:38):
getting a nail out of his rusty nail buckets, straining
it and just driving it right through the webbing of
his hand as a party trick. That's what I thought
of when when you said, yeah, every once in a a
while he get a nail out and straighten it and
use it. That's what I would think. You know, what
were the people that he's a beenhead? People that would

(17:58):
drive the nail through there? Yeah, the blockhead That's what
it was. Blockheads. Yeah. I can't believe you did a
whole podcast on that. That shows a good one too.
Um alright, So number one on the symptoms though, uh
is you literally have an inability two to get rid
of things and to stop acquiring things. So you may
if you go into a hoarder's home, you may go

(18:21):
into their closet and see a wrack of clothes with
tags on them because they're like, oh, just this is
on sale. It's such a good deal. I feel like
I just have to get it and then it's unworn
a decade later. Yeah. So, so the early researchers David
Frosten is two students um Tamra Hartle and Rachel Gross.

(18:41):
They initially I think it was specifically Rachel Gross and
David Frost. Sorry, but they that first study that they
did on hoarders, they assumed that, um, it would be
all just junk like stuff nobody could possibly want, and
they were really surprised when they toured some of their
their study participants homes and found like stuff still in
the package, like clothes, perfectly fine clothes that had never

(19:03):
been worn, but piles up to the ceiling that we're
now had now taken over the kitchen, you know what
I'm saying. That's the difference between being like, oh, this
is actually a pretty good deal, I could use this
someday and hoarding. They they basically won't pass up a bargain.
It's one of the ways that they might acquire something.
My mom has a little bit of that, you mean.

(19:24):
I went through an open house once and I've never
seen more clothing owned not just by one person, by
several families put together. But it was just one lady's clothes,
and like they had built on like an addition to
their attic and their garage top and that was just
filled with clothes more close than anyone could possibly wear.

(19:46):
And we noticed that like some of them still had
the tags on. Were like, God, this lady has so
many clothes. Now, looking back after researching this, I'm like,
she definitely had a touch of the hoarders disorder. I
guess she had a little bit of the hordes. Yeah,
it didn't spill out into the rest of her house,
so either she it was just a touch of it,

(20:08):
or her family was keeping it in check. But there
was definitely you you wouldn't believe me if I if
I told you how many just sweaters and shirts and
dresses this lady had. Give me a number, how many sweaters? Sweaters?
I know you're one of your superpowers of sweater guestimating right,

(20:30):
sweaters and chili beans. I would say, just from what
we saw, she easily had two hundreds something sweaters easily.
And those were just the sweaters. Man, that's not including
like tops, blouses, dresses. She had so many clothes. Yeah,
my friend Ryan, I won't say his last name, he uh,

(20:52):
his dad very famously had a h and I don't know,
you know what I asked him last time I saw him,
and I can't remember the answer now, but at one
point his dad had like warehouses with stuff because he's
like a dream hoarder. Yeah, but I don't know if
it was hoarding either, because as you will see there
as we go on, there are very specific definitions, and

(21:14):
just because you want warehouses full of stuff doesn't necessarily
mean you're a hoarder, you know. Yeah, what was his stuff?
I don't know, huh. I'll find out and follow up.
But getting back to the inability to stop acquiring, one
of the key points about not getting rid of stuff
is they're holding onto things with no value at all,

(21:35):
like even sentimental value. Like when you have stacks and
stacks of newspapers and magazines for for decades and decades.
Those don't hold sentiment about sentimental value, any monetary value
unless you happen to have like the moon landing stuff
in there or something. Um, you know, it's just it's

(21:55):
like literally it's junk, right, it can be. It can
also be stuff that like is actually useful and somebody
would want this unopened, unworn dress or something like that. Right,
So it can go either way. But the point is
they can't stop acquiring stuff. They can't help themselves. That's
that's part one, Part two, And these things are part
and parcel with one another is they can't bear to

(22:18):
give any of it up, like you said, even if
it's totally useless, even if it doesn't have any actual,
real emotional value. But that is a big one that
a lot of them point to, is like they say, well, no,
this means a lot to me or um. Another another
explanation or another rationalization among hoarders is that like they're
they're they're just kind of stockpiling. They might need all

(22:40):
these clothes one day, the event that never happens, right exactly,
and um. The other one I think is that they
use it as a reminder. Apparently there's a um there's
a correlation between faulty recall or um inaccurate memory or

(23:01):
a lack of trust in one's own memory and hoarding.
And so some hoarders will say, well, I keep this
to remind me that I have to do this in
the future, remind me to get in touch with this person.
So they imbue importance into all these objects that from
the outside are junk. And apparently the stuff that they
imbue these objects with is just rationalization. It's necessarily really

(23:24):
valuable in the way that they feel like it is
to them totally. Another symptom is that and this one
I'm kind of curious about we should talk about it
is that is the stuff is disorganized and very disorganized. Um, However,
I would think that you could be a hoarder and

(23:44):
also be very and maybe be anal retentive and have
everything organized. But does that immediately disqualify you? From what
I understand it does. Yeah, you can have a lot
of stuff and even very odd stuff, and if you
or organize it, that's a huge symptom of hoarding that
you're not. That's the a box is not being checked

(24:06):
and would probably preclude you from a diagnosis of hoarding
because they think that it has to do with your
ability and the brain to make decisions. It's supposedly stems
from perfectionism, which we'll talk about. But this this inability
to make decisions about you know, what to keep and
what to throw away and being so paralyzed by it

(24:27):
that you just don't make the decision at all, and
all this stuff accumulates. That also extends to organizing and sorting.
You can't make the decision about what you go where
or what goes with what. You just can't just you
can't make decisions when it comes to your material possessions.
That's a huge hallmark of and I think a cornerstone

(24:47):
of hoarding. The diagnosis. I'm gonna take issue with that
one officially then on the record, Like you could had
literally have every single symptom, and you just might be like, no,
all the newspapers go here, and all this stuff goes here,
and it's literally caving in on me, and I can't
get rid of any of it, and I'm ashamed of it,
and I have no quality of life. Um, but I'm

(25:08):
anal retentive. Like, so I'm officially taking issue. No one
cares well you. I mean, you make you paint a
pretty good picture in that. In that sense, I think
if you if you have stuff organized, it's probably not
having it's probably not taking over your life, maybe financially,
maybe time wise, but like you could still have people over. Um,

(25:31):
your husband or wife isn't leaving you as a result,
your kids aren't ashamed to bring friends over to play.
Who knows, but yeah, I don't think from what I
understand tho, as far as the psychological community is concerned,
if you can organize, you're probably not a hoarder. I
think all those things you just mentioned could still happen

(25:52):
if you're organized. Yeah, and this is just my dumb opinion.
It's it's possible. Though. I might sort of show called
Chuckstum Opinions just to follow up each week to this. Yeah,
I get it all out. Uh number three did you
get a little Josh saying Number three is the hoarder

(26:14):
feels ashamed? And we talked a little bit about this
here and there, but that is definitely one of them.
It's not like you walk into a hoarder's house and
they're like, have you seen my collection of dead goldfish
floating in bowls? Um, Although that'd be a weird thing.
Although animal hoarding will get to this definitely thing that's
like trapesing along the line of performance are right, But

(26:38):
this is the thing is you feel ashamed and that
can feed the beast. So you gather all this stuff,
you accumulate it, you feel really guilty about it. And
then one of the things that hoarders do is it
makes them feel better to collect the stuff, so then
you start hoarding more. And they and the grabster wrote
this one right, So the grabstre is said, it's you know,

(26:58):
it's really not unlike an alcoholic drink, you get ashamed.
Do you feel those feelings of shame, so you drink
to sort of feel better or forget right. So like
alcohol is to an alcoholic or um like somebody who
eats for comfort. These these people acquire stuff for comfort

(27:20):
or like their material possessions are like food to somebody
who eats um as comfort. Right, Yeah, and but they
do feel ashamed of the whole thing, Like that's a
huge thing. And that's also, like I was saying, what
differentiates them from collectors. Even if you have a collection
of some really weird stuff, if you, you know, want
to show it off to people and you really value it,

(27:43):
you you're a collector. If you are ashamed of your collection,
your hoard um, and you don't want people to see it,
and you know that it's weird, but you just can't
do anything about it, that's a symptom of hoarding. That's
one of the reasons also why it makes it such
a terrible mental disorder, because the people who are hoarders,

(28:07):
they're not they're not like off their rocker or something
like that. They're not mentally impaired, they're not like out
of touch with reality. They they are they have enough
perspective to feel shame about the state that their life
is in because of these material possessions that they can't
get rid of and can't stop accumulating. They can't do

(28:27):
anything about it, and that's what makes it just such
a sad disorders. They're aware of this and then feel
shame as a result. Yeah, they're incapable of change. Well,
I think that. I don't know if incapable is the
right word. But with the right help, they're capable. But
I think on their own they're generally incapable. Yes, well
that's what I mean. I'm not saying. Do you seek

(28:49):
treatment and you still can't stop that happens to uh.
And then finally, another symptom is that you are it
is really impacting your life. So um. You may have
rooms in your house that you can't even use anymore,
Like I can't take a bath because that's where I
keep the backing peanuts, or I can't use the stove
because it has seven microwaves that I bought that are

(29:11):
still in boxes stacked on it. Um. And you will
a lot of times they will, like like a snow plow,
just dig a path through their home just so they
can get around where they can get around. Yeah, apparently
among hoarders or among psychologists who study hoarding, it's called
they call them goat paths yea. And they can be

(29:33):
dangerous too. Hoarders have been known to have died sure
from there they walking along their goat paths in this
stuff on either side, just coming down on top of
them and pinning them and suffocating them. Yeah, and this
and this is the point to where you talked about
where uh they impacting your life. They don't get out much,
maybe because they don't want to leave their stuffcause they're
afraid of family member might come over and and take

(29:55):
things they are hold up. They don't have anyone over, uh,
because of the shame. So it's just, um they are.
They're literally trapped by their things, yeah, figuratively and and literally.
And they also um their Their houses will also very
frequently be in disrepair, not just from the the collections

(30:19):
of stuff taking over rooms and just totally changing their meaning,
but also like if you have a hot water heater
and it breaks, you're not gonna let some repair man
come over. You don't know him. You know, he might
touch your stuff, he might take something, or you feel
so much shame that you just won't even invite a
stranger to come in and and and fix your hot

(30:39):
water heater, so they'll just live without hot water forever. Um.
They may also it's it's super sad man, it will
like because of documentary television, because the reality television. I
think horders have kind of gotten reputation as people are like,
go look at those freaks, you know. Um, But if
you really start to dig into it, and I'm sure

(30:59):
some of these was do this from time to time too,
it is an extremely sad condition. It just makes you
want to help them when you come across him, you know.
And then one other thing is they're also very frequently
in debt. Say it gives the example of, um, if
their kitchen is just totally covered and stuff and they

(31:20):
can't get to the oven any longer, they have to
order take out, which is much more expensive than grocery shopping.
So their finances are very likely impacted by the their
hoarding behavior. Good point. Should we take a break, Yeah,
all right, let's do it, and we'll come back and
talk about some of the myths right after this. All right,

(32:09):
So we talked about some of the truths UM. And
some of the myths are as follows. And you mentioned, um,
well you mentioned the first one that it affects only
older people. UM. Another one is the hoarders are are lazy,
and that is just not true. UM. They in fact,
they may be very busy in there with while they

(32:33):
may not be organizing, they may be moving things around
and obsessing about it and or you know, they also
might be on the recliner just hoping they don't get
caved in on. But the stuff point is, stuff isn't
there because they're lazy. It's a mental illness. That's a
big one. UM. Another another early idea about hoarders is

(32:57):
that the reason they hoard is be because they had
some experience previously in their lives where they came face
to face with deprivation or scarcity. And so now, yeah,
the Great Depression, or their dad lost his job when
they were a kid, and like their family really went
through a hard time. So now as a as a UM,

(33:19):
in response to that experience, they're just trying to get
their hands on everything they can and they don't want
to throw anything away. Apparently, that is absolutely not the
case that that the UM science doesn't bear that out
at all, and then they do think that they are
connected to some sort of difficult event previous in life,
but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with deprivation

(33:42):
UM at any point like they they may they may
have been wealthy. I read it and Nautilus, I think
a Nautilus article on hoarding, and they profiled this guy
who was quite well off and he hoarded UM and
I don't think he had ever gone through any financial hardship,
and that's apparently par for the course. Well, one of

(34:03):
the things that says one of the traumas could be
excessive discipline, which I thought was interesting because Freud, and
I know he said it's been mentioned. It's not a
new thing, like it's been in everything from Dante's Inferno
to Silas Marner in eight sixty one, UH, and Freud
talked about it uh in his day. But here's the
thing is, everyone says Freud was way off UM, but

(34:27):
he thought it could be as a result of overly
harsh toilet training, which I thought was interesting because while
that is not true, if it came from excessive discipline,
and you were excessively disciplined while toilet training, you know,
maybe he wasn't that far off. Yeah, you're right, he
probably wasn't. Like I said before, the guy was one

(34:48):
of the history's great thinkers. It's just you shouldn't use
the phrase anal character when you're describing what the problem
was with hoarding, which he did. He did, But you
make a really good point actually that he he Maybe
he wasn't that far off. But if it is discipline,
overly harsh discipline and adolescence, I think that's a big one. UM.

(35:11):
I think the loss of a significant other, of a
close family member, UM, some sort of loss of UM
love is it can trigger hoarding behavior, and some people
has been known to bring bring the disorder on as well.
I can see that like I lost that thing, but
I can keep all this like that I can control, right,

(35:34):
And that also would explain why they tend to imbue
emotional attachment into their possessions, you know, like these things
are these things equal love to me, and now I
can hang on to them and they're never going to
leave me. Yeah, I'm telling you it's a very sad disorder.
What another myth is that it's a symptom of o
c D obsessive compulsive disorder. For many many many years

(35:58):
were just now starting to understand more about it. But
for many years they thought it was either just straight
up was O c D or was just an offshoot
of it. Um, But like you said, with the D
s M, it is its own distinct disease, but it
can be co morbid with O c D and other
things like anxiety. So it's UM, I see why people

(36:21):
get that confused. Yeah, you know, there's some study took
away the criteria for UM, took away the hoarding criteria
from O c D, right, So it just gave these
people a checklist to determine whether they had O c
D or not, but took hoarding out of the equation,
and hoarders tended to to not qualify for O c

(36:43):
D only like six percent of them do or something
like that. So it's connected in some cases, but definitely
not in all cases. And it's certainly not just an
offshoot of O c D itself, like you're saying, right, Uh.
And then finally, and of course, because this is a
a disease, and um, just because you finally get a

(37:04):
family member in there against all a lots to clean
everything out of there, that does not cure you of anything.
No I saw that. It just says, first of all,
what a horrible experience that would be for the poor hoard.
The county comes in or some family members come in
with some tough love and just clear all your stuff out.
So that's number one. But number two apparently they say, okay,

(37:27):
well I've got a lot of space to fill. Now
I better get to work. Like that's the result of it. Supposedly,
so it's a chronic disease, chronic condition, and supposedly recurrence
of this is a hundred percent in all cases without treatment. Yeah,
the grabstre emailed this woman named Lisa Hale co Um sorry,

(37:48):
founding director of the Kansas City Center for Anxiety Treatment
and also a junct associate professor at University of Missouri,
Kansas City. So fighting hay seeds the stacks seeds. I
think Haysey didn't that a derogatory name for Kanson. It

(38:09):
depends on whether they own it or not. You know,
okay um, I'm sure we'll hear. But yeah, she she
said that it approaches like that is that is straight
up proof that that cleaning things out and while the
family member, well, a county just says there directive but
while a family member might think, oh, I've helped them, Um,

(38:31):
you you really haven't. If that was your solve, No,
you you're probably the Other part of it, too, is
if you come in there all tough love and you
need to get your act together and you're just being lazy,
what's wrong with you? And clean their stuff out for them?
First of all, that's basically abuse. I don't even know
if you need to qualify with basically. I think that's
abuse of a mentally ill person. But secondly, um, all

(38:57):
you're doing is driving that behaved your That's a very
stressful event, and the the um the way they deal
with stress is through hoarding behavior. So all it's going
to do is just turn the notch up on the
hoarding that they're doing anyway, and you can probably say
goodbye to ever seeing them again after that too. Man,
what a terrible situation. Apparently we'll talk about, you know,

(39:20):
treatment in a minute, but one of the key factors
and treatment is that the family and friends and loved
ones of the person who's hoarding and now undergoing treatment,
they have to go through therapy themselves. Because it's I'm
sure quite easy to look at this with disgust, horror,
UM anger, Like, what is wrong with you? Like, I

(39:40):
know that that's a natural reaction, but you have you
can't follow through on that. You have to approach it
from a place of understanding or else all you're going
to do is trigger the hoarding behavior even further. Yeah,
for sure if you go in their guns, blaze in
with your broom and your and your dumpster. Uh yeah,
it's just gonna get worse. You just crumble that person. So, UM,

(40:03):
what causes this is really interesting because UM, we don't
know for sure and there are they have been everything
from UM lesions on the brain in certain studies that
they found UM could account for it two chromosomal defects

(40:24):
to possibly genetics UM, because they found that it's uh
other illnesses or at least a behavior as part of
other illnesses that are definitely genetic, and hoarders are more
likely to have other family members who are also hoarders.
Of hoarders surveys say that they have a family member
who as a hoarder, which is way more than the

(40:46):
general population. Yeah, so we have no idea what the
really underlying causes, but we do know it's what's called
and this is what um, what Hail said who had interviewed,
is that it is a neuropsychiatric condition and it is
it's all about like you were talking about earlier, these
processing challenges UM, not being able to process visually, organizationally,

(41:08):
emotionally and your brain connections aren't aren't working right. Yeah,
I remember hearing years ago like that they would stick
these these poor people into the wonder machine and talk
to them about getting rid of their possessions, saying like,
I want you to imagine you know this room, and
think about all of your newspapers. Now, which newspaper do
you want to get rid of? And these people would

(41:29):
experience basically physical pain, huge spikes and their levels of
stress just thinking about this. But when you said the
same thing about somebody else's stuff, they had no reaction whatsoever.
It's strictly their stuff and their attachment to it. And
another study by David Frost showed that when you give

(41:50):
somebody who is a hoarder something um and say this
is yours now I think he gave out key chains,
their attachment to it was immediate, it like right right
when they knew that they owned the thing and it
was theirs. They were now as attached to as if
they'd had it for fifty years it was as important
to them. So there's a lot of stuff going on

(42:10):
in the brain, and it does have to do with attachment,
decision making, finding um comfort and de escalation of stress
through these material possessions as well. Um, But they just
don't quite know what did it? Was it a bad
experience as a kid? Are are you born with the
chemical balance that doesn't begin to show its symptoms until adolescence.

(42:32):
It's just too new, Like it only became its own
thing in the d s M five, which came out
in two thousand thirteen. But it is in the d
s M now, which means that insurance companies will pay
for treatment for it, which means that a lot more
people are going to be studying it than they ever
were before. Man, I can't imagine anything more torturous than
being strapped in an MRI machine, which is already stressful

(42:56):
and confining, and then having to quiz people on anxiety
inducing mental illness, right like, you know, we're getting rid
of this thing now, and I'm sure they're they're just
like want to like bust out of that thing, you know. Yeah,
it's like it's like torture, just like, and it's valuable research.

(43:16):
So hats off to the people that do that, and
and the people that like, the people that administer it,
and the people that are brave enough to go in
there and and seek that treatment. Yeah. Oh yeah, hats
off to him for sure, Man, literal hats off, because
you can't wear a hat in an MRI machine. You can,
you can only wear a mesh helmet, that's right. Um. Well,

(43:37):
there was one other kind of general explaination hypothesis that
explains hoarding um floating around, and that is that we
all have this innate evolutionary instinct to gather stuff. Yeah,
I really like this, Like it's just it's just what
It's part of our mammalian heritage. And and they think

(44:01):
that in people who hoard, this instinct has basically gone haywire,
like some snaps connected with another synaps that weren't supposed
to be connected. Now, all of a sudden, this thing
that's a natural thing where you know, you go to
the grocery store, you buy some stuff, you keep it
in your refrigerator for a week, turns into you can't
get enough Sunday circulars to possibly stave off these feelings

(44:26):
of anxiety. Yeah, it's cool. Little uh story reference was
like an animal saving food for the winter. Do they
work extra long to prepare for a possibly long winter,
but stay out there and are are more more vulnerable
to getting eaten by the cheetah while they're collecting stuff?

(44:47):
Or do they say, you know what, I'm gonna go
ahead and get in the cave. I've got enough stuff. Um,
eventually there will be that long winter and those animals
will die out. So you know, over the course of time,
the a long winter evolutionary trait will be the one
that's passed on. Yeah, it's really interesting. The guy whose
paper he based that on. You should see this paper. Man,

(45:10):
It's got like sigma everywhere and he's talking about squirrels
gathering nuts. But there's all these really complex math and
statistical formula that he's got on on his paper. But
the the overall gist of it is pretty fascinating and
it proves or it definitely lends credence to the idea
that it is a naturally selected evolutionary trait to gather

(45:31):
a lot of stuff. Most of us, though, have this
cut off point where we know I don't need anything
more than this, or anything more than this is irrational
and people who hoarde definitely don't have that cut off point. Yeah,
we have a room in our house that is full
of stuff, and it's not hoarding. It's we don't have

(45:52):
a place for this stuff. We live in a you know,
eighties something year old craftsman and that you know, those
houses just don't have the closet space and the storage space.
We don't have a garage. We do have an addict
that has us some stuff, and in theory, we could
probably move all of this stuff up there, but most

(46:14):
of this stuff we kind of need access to more often. Um,
So we're not hoarding, but it's it's just like our
house is small, and we could go you know, the
other route and be go a little more minimalist for sure,
and get rid of this stuff, trust me. But um
but if you don't want to, you don't want to,
well yeah, but I mean it's um, it's a problem

(46:36):
when we have a guests in the night, which is
not often because that's our quote guest room. I got
to you know, I was gonna say, you guys need
to get to the container store. No, A lot of
the stuffs and containers. You need a container for your containers. Uh.
And what we do, it's funny when we do have
the occasional guests, they are invariably very very close friend

(46:57):
or family member, and so they understand and we clear
the cut path that's very to the bed. They're like,
just dive over onto the bed. And then when you
when you wake up and you want to get up
to call us and we'll lower the crane harness. That's right.
But where we are adding not adding onto our house,
but we're we're finishing the basement. So hopefully that will

(47:20):
be the solve because we're gonna have some lots more
good storage down there. There you go being bang boom,
except we're having to do house construction, which is the
worst right for your stuff. Um, all right, should we
take one more break? Yeah, all right, let's do that,
and we'll come back and talk just briefly about the

(47:41):
very famous call your brothers and then hit on animal hoarding,
which could be the saddest of all hoarding. M all right,

(48:20):
we would be remiss if we didn't mention the Langley
Homer and Langley Collier. Uh. We you said you want
to do a full show on them. This will be
the second time we've covered them. When did we talking
about him before Bizarre Ways to Die? Oh wow, which
is literally a nine year old episode. Yeah, that is old.

(48:42):
So I would say we could probably still get away
with a full episode because if you listen to the
one in April two nine, in the segment on the
call your Brothers within that minute episode, then you would
probably appreciate a more flashed operasion. I would love it.
But just the broad strokes of it are that Homer
callier Um went blind older in life or later in life,

(49:08):
and his brother Langley took care of him. Well. Langley
was a hoarder and accumulated more and more stuff, and
eventually Langley died. He was crushed by his stuff and Homer,
who was a percent depended on Langley Um, starved to
death in their brownstone and they were found separately, uh

(49:28):
weeks apart, this in Harlem, New York City. And if
you just look up pictures of this and the cruise
and the removing of things, it's really something else. And
there's actually a little park there named to call your
Brother's Park. Then in early two thousand's, uh, there was
a push to get that changed because they were like,
we should not name a park after these guys. But

(49:53):
as far as I can tell, let's still name that.
I tried to. I don't think that went anywhere, but yeah,
let's definitely do a uh. And in fact, I think
it was called call Your Syndrome for a while too.
Huh yeah, for a while. I mean they were pretty
famous because all the New York papers got in there
and like printed all sorts of pictures and they had
like just a fascinating story. All right, now, we might

(50:15):
as well finish on the saddest of notes, which is
animal hoarding. And um, we're not talking about well, it
could be crazy Cat Lady, but not necessarily. I think
she's an archetype of animal hoarders. Right, So in this
case we are talking about and I know you've seen
stories probably on the news here and there. Um, these

(50:38):
are people that that hoard animals to the extent where
it's just like the other stuff. It is, Uh. Their
house is often filled with feces and smells of ammonia,
full of maybe fleas and ticks. Can't have people over. Uh.
And and it's one of the saddest because it's these

(51:00):
people can't bear. They think they're doing the right thing, yeah,
writing these animals, but they're not because these animals almost
time are very much suffering. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's like hoarding.
But you know, your your newspapers and plastic grocery bags
don't suffer with animal hoarding. The hoarder suffers and the

(51:21):
animals suffer as well because no matter how great the
intentions of the animal hoarder are, and apparently that is
the one of the basis of animal hoarding is that
they really do have the best of intentions. They feel
like they're rescuing the animals that almost wants. They're taking
them into their home. Yeah, they're they're feeding them, they're

(51:42):
caring for him. The problem that is they can't stop
acquiring them, so it reaches a point where the animals
they can't possibly there's not enough hours in the day
to properly care for all the animals. And even if
you had help and you, um, you had the money
to buy food and and um veterinary care for all

(52:06):
these animals, there's still a huge factor in that these
animals are living very close together in ways that they
should not be. That's not natural for them. So they're
stressed out all the time. Yeah, and another one of
the hallmarks could be not always, but a lot of
times these are people that are um left alone in life,

(52:26):
either from being widowed or divorced, or just their their
family has gone, or they just may have a trouble
interacting with people. And these animals uh in this article
ecent they call it a conflict free relationship, and they
surround themselves with this thing because it's it's filling them
with something that they can't get oftentimes out of humans, right,

(52:50):
which is unconditional love. The problem is, again, it is
very sad because there's that extra component, the extra very
important component of suffering animals. But and when people hear
about this stuff, you just immediately like like kind of hiss.
And the people who who do this when you hear
about it on the news and don't really know what's

(53:10):
going on. But again, when you dive into the psychology
behind it, it's extraordinarily sad because these people have the
best intentions for these animals, and even while they're caring
for these animals, they are they're suffering as well through
this indecision like do is do I love this dog
or or is this one my favorite or should I

(53:31):
adopt it out? And they just can't decide, so they
just avoid the decision and just acquire more and more animals,
again to the detriment of all of the animals involved. Yeah,
and just like with regular hoarding, um removing these animals
because by the time you see it on the news,
it's probably because um that the county is in there
and animal control is in there and you see them

(53:53):
these sad, sad stories where they're literally taking out these
like dogs clearly suffering from malnutrition or cats or whatever,
and um, that does not solve the problem. You know,
they have to seek therapy. And just like with with
object hoarding, UM, if you're a family member confronting them
being angry, even though this one is probably even tougher

(54:15):
to not be angry. If you're an animal lover, you
need to just keep that in check and try and
be compassionate and help them so you can help the
animals as well. Right, so there are some stats on
this animal thing. Where where did you get this? Where
was this problem as a good article? Man? I wish
you hadn't asked. I'll tell you. By the time you're
done with the stats. All right, UM, I'll just take
through a couple of these. Every year, thirty five hundred

(54:37):
hoarders animal hoarders come to the attention to the authorities,
two fifty animals affected each year. This one is really sad.
Of animal hoarders have disease, dying, or dead animals on
the premises at the time. UM. That can be cod
more of it. Up to four actually is about of
the time, um. Object hoarders are also hoarding animals. UM.

(55:00):
And like I was talking about being being lonely or
widowed perhaps or divorce, seventy percent of animal hoarders UM
who the authorities know about are females or single, widowed
or divorce. So the thing is is that's skewed differently
for some reason. Apparently, if you just go out and

(55:21):
sample the community, hoarding is pretty much evenly divided among
men and women. I'm not sure why we typically think
of them as women, but apparently for animals are in
general in general, well this is animals specifically, So okay,
I guess there may be some sort of deeper compassion
from women. I don't know who knows, but I don't

(55:41):
want to, uh to undermine the efforts of the Anxiety
and Depression Association of Americas. Of course, whose site this
came from. Yeah, thanks very much. Uh those great stats,
good website. Yeah. So let's talk real quick about treatment
of all kinds of hoarding. Um, that's big one is
they family intervention and loving support is a huge part

(56:06):
of it, because hoarders apparently don't initiate treatment themselves even
though they know that they're suffering. Typically, Um, but apparently
talk therapy is proving to be the best treatment for hoarding.
And that's where, uh, say, a cognitive behavioral therapist talks
you through your own beliefs about things like, well, you

(56:27):
know what will happen exactly if you have to give
away your your plastic grocery bags, and that you they
make you say it out loud, and when you say
it out loud, maybe there's a little part of your
brain that's like, wait a minute, that does sound a
little cookie And maybe they said, well, really, what you
just said, even if they did happen, even if that
negative outcome did happen, is that really as as bad

(56:49):
as it sounds in reality? And they just kind of
talk you through your beliefs while at the same time
basically dragging them out into the open so that they're
not just in your head anymore. They're out there and
you kind of have to evaluate them in a different
way speaking with this trained professional. Yeah, and I would
imagine they, uh, it's probably a ghost slow thing, like

(57:11):
maybe next week you bring in something that you care
about and we're gonna we're gonna get rid of it together. Um.
I doubt if it's like they have some talk therapy
and then they just go through and clear the house out.
It's probably very gradual thing to heal someone of this. Yeah,
but I think it is gradual, like you said, and
against family has to support it because you know, they

(57:32):
may give the person they say, like your therapist knows
exactly how you feel every Thursday at two o'clock, you know,
I mean you're there for an hour. Um, probably more
than that if you are a diagnosed toward er and
you're undergoing treatment. But the point is it's not an
impatient treatment. You go back home afterward and they give
you homework, and if you're a chronic hoarder, you're probably

(57:54):
not going to do the homework. So you need to
have family saying, well, didn't doctor so and so say
you need to start to clear this room out this
week and just just kind of be there and know
what's going on and support the treatment as well, and
not just leave them to their own devices. Yeah. And
the hoarders that have no family and support system, those
are the ones that are just so tragic because they're

(58:16):
the least likely to get help and seek help and uh,
you know, potentially die a very kind of sad, lonely
life surrounded by their stuff. Yeah. I think those are
the ones that are the ones you see on the news,
the ones that don't have family and friends anymore. Yeah.
So I guess the upshot of all this chuck is
that if you know a hoarder, um, maybe go be

(58:38):
nice to them and see if you can help them out,
because they are most likely suffering calm passion. Yeah, there
you go. If you want to know more about hoarding,
you can type that word in the search bar bring
up this excellent article by Ed Grabanowski on how stuff
works dot common. Since I said that it's time for
a listener mail, short and sweet is what I called

(58:58):
this because cracks me up. Occasionally when someone is just
cracked up by some dumb thing we said I know
this one. Hey guys, you made my day once again.
I spent December listening to Christmas music. Me too, by
the way, Oh man, I was done in week one. Yeah,
I can. I can muscle through generally for the most part.
Not because eventually and we can go. It wasn't the

(59:22):
Christmas spirit, just Christmas music this year. I was like,
I can't take this at all. Yeah. Yeah, eventually I
have to say, all right, we need to like turn
on Radiohead or something. And that's why I go to
because she'll go she can always listen to radio Head. Yes,
she's like, I love Radioheads Christmas album. Oh my god,
can you imagine? Um? Now, I'm just hearing various versions

(59:44):
of that in my head. Very nice. Um. So I
spent December listening to Christmas music, so I got behind
on my podcast. I'm currently listening in reverse to December.
I was just striving to work listening to Cake and
I almost had to pull over because I was laughing
so hard at the conversation about oven doors. Josh, I'm sorry, Chuck,

(01:00:05):
do you have a window in your oven door? Josh?
Of course? What am I a communist? Between that and
Chuck baking in his dishwasher. You two made this a
perfect day. I gotta say I cannot wait to see
you next week again in Portland. My stuff you should
know Bingo board is ready travel safe and that is
jin Hunt Jen. By the time this comes out, we

(01:00:26):
will have just been in Portland and um maybe we
have even met you. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed the show.
I hope everybody in Portland enjoyed the show. And as
a follow up, I don't know if I officially said
I'm glad you're saying this. I think I posted on Facebook,
but I definitely do not have an oven window. No,
Chuck is officially a communist as an oven without a window,

(01:00:47):
and I've never seen anything like it before. It's like
a tank. It's great. Yeah, it's a good look an oven.
I don't want to see that jump cooking. Okay, Well,
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