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Selects: How Hoarding Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's your long lost cousin Josh. And for
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Speaker 1: this week's select, I chose our two thousand and eighteen
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Speaker 1: episode on hoarding. This is one of those eye opening
0:10
Speaker 1: topics for me because I only knew of hoarding through
0:13
Speaker 1: pop culture, and those portrayals are typically accurate to an extent,
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Speaker 1: but the problem is they usually missed the profound distress
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Speaker 1: and sadness that hoarders feel about their disorder. So prepared
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Speaker 1: to have your empathy Kate put on for you with
0:29
Speaker 1: this one, and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
0:37
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
0:46
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's childs to have you,
0:49
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and here we are
0:52
Speaker 1: doing Stuff you should Know about hoarding. Yeah, Jerry's over
0:58
Speaker 1: there under a stack of pizza boxes of newspapers. Yes,
1:02
Speaker 1: but Jerry proudly displays them to anybody who comes into
1:06
Speaker 1: the office and makes eye contact with her, which makes
1:09
Speaker 1: her a collector of those things. A big difference. Well, yeah,
1:12
Speaker 1: I didn't save your horder. She's a pizza box collector,
1:15
Speaker 1: I got you. She likes those greasy after stains. Yes,
1:19
Speaker 1: supposedly that prevents you from recycling pizza boxes. I think
1:22
Speaker 1: we talked about it in one of our episodes before,
1:25
Speaker 1: but I think that that's a p s A that
1:27
Speaker 1: bears repeating. Yeah, I've never got a final answer on that,
1:31
Speaker 1: so I throw mine in the recycling anyway. I don't
1:33
Speaker 1: know if that comes up the works or not. Is
1:35
Speaker 1: there a spectrum or anything like that, or you're like, oh,
1:38
Speaker 1: this one is just so obviously loaded with cheese um
1:42
Speaker 1: that I I can't possibly recycle this. Well, mine are
1:46
Speaker 1: always loaded because I specifically request that the pizza be
1:49
Speaker 1: delivered face down in the box. Do you It's a
1:52
Speaker 1: little weird, but I like it that way. It's a
1:55
Speaker 1: way to do it for sure, upside down pizza. Actually,
1:57
Speaker 1: you know what I should do is just tear the
2:00
Speaker 1: box in in half and at least recycled the top.
2:03
Speaker 1: That I think you may have just solved the real problem. Yeah, alright,
2:10
Speaker 1: I think we do need to do a follow up
2:12
Speaker 1: recycling episode because I would imagine it's probably advanced by
2:15
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds since we last discussed it. Yeah, and
2:19
Speaker 1: here in my area of Atlanta, they quit taking glass
2:23
Speaker 1: really a few months ago. Too heavy not enough payoff.
2:26
Speaker 1: I think it was just yeah, and and or word
2:30
Speaker 1: got out that they weren't even recycling it, so um.
2:34
Speaker 1: Since then, they have set up places around Atlanta, one
2:36
Speaker 1: specifically at the Edgewood Target Parking You know, there's a
2:40
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff there, but in the Target parking lot
2:43
Speaker 1: they have these huge glass recyclers there. And I meet
2:46
Speaker 1: up with the fellow Whinos about once every two weeks.
2:49
Speaker 1: We all shamefully toss in, you know, dozens of bottles
2:54
Speaker 1: of empty wine, so much dead yellow tail. Yeah, and
2:58
Speaker 1: we Now I don't drink that stuff, but we just
3:00
Speaker 1: we It's nice. It's sort of like a wine meeting,
3:06
Speaker 1: so much dead Paul Masson like a wine clatch. I'm like, God,
3:09
Speaker 1: what are you throwing away there? How was that right? Really?
3:12
Speaker 1: Have you gotten any recommendations from those chance encounters? It's
3:15
Speaker 1: literally happened where we're you know, I would meet a
3:17
Speaker 1: fellow why no, we're thrown away tons of bottles, And
3:21
Speaker 1: then we decide to own our shame and be like, hey,
3:24
Speaker 1: this one was pretty good, by the way, and start
3:26
Speaker 1: up a conversation and then I get maced, Yeah you
3:29
Speaker 1: take you take the bottle and go huh night train.
3:32
Speaker 1: Haven't heard of this one? Right? Okay, that is try
3:34
Speaker 1: and I like the handy grip of the bottle. I
3:37
Speaker 1: never tried night train. Did you have that, dude? It's
3:39
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare, is what it is. Yeah. I would
3:42
Speaker 1: drink the like you don't even sober up before you
3:44
Speaker 1: get a crushing headache from it. Right, it comes with
3:48
Speaker 1: a headache, that's what says. Um. What would I drink? Um?
3:52
Speaker 1: Mad dog mhm. Which you know there's a reason they
3:56
Speaker 1: are sold right next to each other. Yeah, can you
3:58
Speaker 1: even call those wine? No, it's not wine. It's wine
4:03
Speaker 1: like Prudo gets wine like malt liquor is beer. It's related,
4:07
Speaker 1: but it's drinking college. Sure. Remember the Nicky's big mouths. Yeah,
4:14
Speaker 1: and cold forty five came in like gigantic like bottles.
4:18
Speaker 1: That was one of the biggest attractions of it, you know. Yeah,
4:21
Speaker 1: it was expensive, man, that was that was our jam
4:24
Speaker 1: for a little while. I never got into this, I
4:26
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. Then't they have like the
4:28
Speaker 1: like a question or a trivia thing or something on
4:31
Speaker 1: the underside of it, the bottle, the lid. I don't know. Well,
4:34
Speaker 1: there were the little green hand grenade bottles, little barrels,
4:39
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know which came first or after
4:42
Speaker 1: it was either. I guess they switched to just the
4:45
Speaker 1: regular like uh, Coca Cola style twist off cap metal
4:52
Speaker 1: twist off, and I think they might. I think they
4:54
Speaker 1: did have something underneath it. Act there was something under there.
4:56
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like a poker game or a card
4:58
Speaker 1: game or you just liver disease. But before that then
5:03
Speaker 1: I think they had these really unique poll tabs because
5:07
Speaker 1: it was a big fat mouth, Mickey's. That's why they
5:09
Speaker 1: called it that Mickey's big mouth. So they had to
5:12
Speaker 1: have a very unique um bottle cap poll cap that
5:16
Speaker 1: was just sort of interesting. Back in the day, man,
5:20
Speaker 1: back in the day when I was I'm not gonna
5:23
Speaker 1: wrap now. And we're now refined with our beverage consumption,
5:28
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah we are. I only drink Call forty five
5:31
Speaker 1: out of a chilled glass. Now. I got a nice
5:33
Speaker 1: whiskey bar set up at home that's separate from the
5:36
Speaker 1: regular bar, Oh wow, with just like rise and Bourbons
5:42
Speaker 1: and Scotches and Irish, and it's very little additional. Uh.
5:48
Speaker 1: I've gotten out to where I will put in little
5:49
Speaker 1: drops of little tinctures and shrubs and things. Oh yeah, occasionally,
5:55
Speaker 1: shrubs are great. I made my own ones and it's
5:58
Speaker 1: actually worth the effort. Yeah. My buddy Eddie, you know Eddie,
6:01
Speaker 1: he makes his own. He actually does it in the
6:04
Speaker 1: in the bottle, but he will he'll do like a
6:07
Speaker 1: cherry bourbon or an apple like confused bourbon. Yeah. Those
6:11
Speaker 1: shrubs though, man, uh, it's actually not very hard and
6:15
Speaker 1: they last forever because what you're doing is basically I
6:18
Speaker 1: don't know if it's fermenting or pickling or something, but
6:21
Speaker 1: you're doing something to the fruit that you're mascerating with
6:24
Speaker 1: the sugar, and it just lasts forever. It's just such
6:27
Speaker 1: a nice little tangy pop. It's like kimchi. You gotta
6:29
Speaker 1: bury it in your yard for kind of. It's close
6:32
Speaker 1: to that, Actually it's not. It's like the Yankee version
6:37
Speaker 1: of kim chi, but with fruit and you put it
6:40
Speaker 1: in your booze. Well, this is all very hoardy, like, well,
6:43
Speaker 1: hold on, even before we get into hoarding, we still
6:46
Speaker 1: have another tangent to go on. Oh our earl buds.
6:50
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, let's let's announce it, okay, So Caroline Irvin
6:56
Speaker 1: and Kristen Conger seriously, Well, I know it was it
7:02
Speaker 1: was Conger, but she's since gotten married to she took
7:05
Speaker 1: her husband's last name, remember, No, of course, Kristin Conger. No,
7:09
Speaker 1: I don't know. If something tells me Conger did not
7:11
Speaker 1: take his last name, right, right, I can see that
7:13
Speaker 1: because then I would no longer be able to call
7:15
Speaker 1: her Congs, which I know she loved. That's true, and
7:18
Speaker 1: she was probably there the SoC Security administrates and thinking
7:21
Speaker 1: I can't do this. What about Chuck? She thought of
7:24
Speaker 1: that at any rate. Caroline and Kristen the former host
7:27
Speaker 1: of UM Stuff Mom Never Told You, which is now
7:31
Speaker 1: hosted by our pals um Emily and Bridget. That's right,
7:35
Speaker 1: So Kristen and Caroline went off on their own and
7:38
Speaker 1: they have now started a new podcast and this is
7:43
Speaker 1: the this is the grand announcement here on stuff you
7:45
Speaker 1: should know. That's right. It's called Unladylike and uh I
7:49
Speaker 1: have I've heard the trailer, so it sounds great and
7:52
Speaker 1: anything they're gonna do is gonna be great. They're just
7:54
Speaker 1: they're pros. They really like. Uh. I know, Stuff Mom
7:57
Speaker 1: Never Told You was started with Molly and Conger, but
8:01
Speaker 1: when Caroline came along, it really just found its true voice.
8:04
Speaker 1: No offense, Molly, and um, she just trashed her home office. Uh,
8:10
Speaker 1: it's just a great show and Unladylike is going to
8:12
Speaker 1: be awesome and a and I believe it's got a
8:14
Speaker 1: bit of a different flavor with interviews and stuff like that,
8:17
Speaker 1: but it is definitely going to be dealing with uh,
8:20
Speaker 1: feminism and women's issues and oh yeah, advocacy and their
8:25
Speaker 1: their logo is great. It's a big middle finger, which
8:29
Speaker 1: is just so them. Yep. So they have a site up,
8:33
Speaker 1: but I think you can get their podcast anywhere you
8:35
Speaker 1: get podcasts, that's kind of how it works. But they
8:38
Speaker 1: have a site as well called un lady Like dot
8:41
Speaker 1: ceo super British, not dot com dot ceo. Okay, that's right.
8:46
Speaker 1: So the best of luck, ladies. I'm sure it'll be great.
8:48
Speaker 1: And uh, you're always on our minds and in our
8:51
Speaker 1: hearts about that. It's so nice of you. Good luck
8:54
Speaker 1: Caroline and Kristen. It's gonna be great. Now, can we hoard? Yes?
8:59
Speaker 1: Long last, Oh let's take a commercial break show. Can
9:02
Speaker 1: you imagine Mollywood tresh her home office again? So we're
9:08
Speaker 1: talking hoarding today, believe it or not, everybody UM and I.
9:14
Speaker 1: Basically everyone is fairly well aware of hoarding thanks to
9:18
Speaker 1: a couple of high profile um reality TV shows about
9:22
Speaker 1: hoarders and hoarding UM and then there have also been
9:28
Speaker 1: appearances of hoarders in literature. So even before it kind
9:32
Speaker 1: of became like part of the cultural awareness, it was
9:35
Speaker 1: also already kind of there, like everybody thought, you know,
9:39
Speaker 1: there's some guy out there who has a house full
9:41
Speaker 1: of something that he picked up on the side of
9:43
Speaker 1: the road, and his it's just accumulated and he can
9:46
Speaker 1: barely get around his house. Like that was there before.
9:50
Speaker 1: But thanks to those TV shows, which is actually which
9:53
Speaker 1: actually sprung out of the first real research on hoarding
9:59
Speaker 1: as its own disorder d UM from the early nineteen
10:02
Speaker 1: nineties by a Smith College psychology professor named David o'frost
10:07
Speaker 1: and then two of his students, Rachel Gross and Tamarra
10:10
Speaker 1: hardel Um. Those three people together actually form the basis
10:15
Speaker 1: of our knowledge about hoarding the disorder. They took it
10:19
Speaker 1: out of the cultural reference, they took it out of
10:22
Speaker 1: the realm of Freud and and they got it ultimately
10:25
Speaker 1: all the way up into the d s M. Five
10:27
Speaker 1: and two thousand thirteen, which is about the best you
10:30
Speaker 1: can hope for is an undergrad psychology student. Yeah, you
10:34
Speaker 1: get your d S M tattoo M to two yep uh.
10:39
Speaker 1: And I believe those shows. One was called Hoarders and
10:41
Speaker 1: one was called Jerry's Pizza Box Collection. No, Jerry's a collector.
10:46
Speaker 1: Well it was Jerry's Pizza Box Collection, Colin, I'm not
10:49
Speaker 1: a hoarder, right. It was a little little mouthie, little wordy.
10:54
Speaker 1: The log line was, if you're looking for a show
10:56
Speaker 1: about a hoarder, keep looking. But if you like pizza
11:00
Speaker 1: boxes and he doesn't speak eight seven central, be very
11:07
Speaker 1: David lynche In. Just this mute woman walking around pizza boxes, blackout,
11:12
Speaker 1: bar over most of her face everywhere. She would be great. Um,
11:16
Speaker 1: all right, so we'll go ahead and get it going
11:18
Speaker 1: with a stat here. Back in the day, I was statman,
11:23
Speaker 1: remember that, of course, So I'm gonna reprise that role. Okay,
11:28
Speaker 1: do you have a cape still? Oh yeah, that's on
11:31
Speaker 1: see Oh yeah, I see it's probably I couldn't see
11:33
Speaker 1: you weren't turned the right way. Uh well it's a
11:36
Speaker 1: it's a thin cape for broadfellaw uh so estimates No
11:42
Speaker 1: one really knows, because, like you said, it's very recently
11:45
Speaker 1: that it's been recognized as its own disease um and
11:48
Speaker 1: not a symptom of another thing, even though it is,
11:50
Speaker 1: as we will see later, very much co morbid with
11:53
Speaker 1: other other issues and mental illnesses. But despite the fact
11:58
Speaker 1: that we don't know a ton about the stats, there
12:01
Speaker 1: are estimates to say anywhere from point four percent two
12:05
Speaker 1: as many as five that's high. Is this humans or humans? Americans? Humans?
12:12
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, I think the general population, which that would
12:15
Speaker 1: make its prevalence higher than schizophrenia. Wow. Yeah, which I
12:21
Speaker 1: actually kind of believe if I stop and think about it. Well,
12:24
Speaker 1: the thing is, though you don't this is and we're
12:28
Speaker 1: going to talk about all this stuff, but it's not
12:30
Speaker 1: often the kind of thing that presents itself out in
12:33
Speaker 1: public because these people are hiding in their houses full
12:36
Speaker 1: of stuff. No. No. And one of the things one
12:38
Speaker 1: of the early misconceptions about hoarders that we'll see is
12:41
Speaker 1: that it was mostly older people who were hoarding. But um,
12:46
Speaker 1: it turns out that they're the ones who get thrust
12:48
Speaker 1: into the limelight because it's a progressive chronic disease r exactly.
12:54
Speaker 1: So by the time the news media becomes aware of
12:57
Speaker 1: this and drags these pour people out into the lime. Lie. Um,
13:01
Speaker 1: their their hoard has gotten very big and they have aged.
13:05
Speaker 1: So that's why we initially thought that just older people
13:10
Speaker 1: were hoarders. It turns out it actually starts far earlier
13:13
Speaker 1: in life. Typically. Yeah, like I show about a twelve
13:16
Speaker 1: year old with one corner of their room too messy. Yeah,
13:21
Speaker 1: just looking at it like this is gonna be huge
13:23
Speaker 1: one day. And we're joking here, but this is a
13:26
Speaker 1: serious mental illness. But we we joke about all kinds
13:30
Speaker 1: of things. So I don't want anyone to get upset
13:32
Speaker 1: about things like that. No, No, if you're new to
13:34
Speaker 1: the podcast, go listen to the comas episode. That'll set
13:39
Speaker 1: things straight. All right. So some of the symptoms of
13:41
Speaker 1: hoarding um, and we're we're going to get into also
13:44
Speaker 1: in a bit to the I Guess myths. And separating
13:49
Speaker 1: those two is really important because it's very easy for
13:51
Speaker 1: someone to very dismissively say, oh, they're a hoarder because
13:55
Speaker 1: they have a lot of stuff. Um. And my family,
13:59
Speaker 1: my in laws, well, let me let Steve off the hook.
14:03
Speaker 1: Specifically my mother in law, my grandmother in law, Mary,
14:09
Speaker 1: the eldest general of the stuff you should know Army
14:12
Speaker 1: and uh my aunt Sue, Sharon two and Mary. They
14:18
Speaker 1: have a lot of stuff and we call it the
14:20
Speaker 1: disease sort of as a joke, um, but they're actually well,
14:25
Speaker 1: they're not hoarders at all, but they got a lot
14:27
Speaker 1: of stuff they have a hard time throwing away, you know,
14:30
Speaker 1: the stuff that they had that they think someone in
14:32
Speaker 1: the family might want. But I think that stuff that's
14:36
Speaker 1: that's pretty typical. A lot of people are like that,
14:39
Speaker 1: and a lot of people have a basement room with
14:42
Speaker 1: a lot of junk in it out of being too
14:46
Speaker 1: busy or lazy, or maybe just a bit of the
14:48
Speaker 1: disease where you just like I can't bear to part
14:50
Speaker 1: with it even though I really should. But that is
14:53
Speaker 1: not hoarding. Well, so my question would be, then have
14:58
Speaker 1: you ever seen them and do you feel like they
15:00
Speaker 1: have the ability to clear out like the attic or
15:07
Speaker 1: donate some of the stuff like they can't they have
15:10
Speaker 1: the ability to part with the stuff. There have been
15:13
Speaker 1: pushes at various times, like when they're moving and stuff
15:16
Speaker 1: like that. Of course it's a good time to do that. Um,
15:19
Speaker 1: it is always a bit of a painful experience. But
15:22
Speaker 1: I think, like I said, everyone's got a little not everyone.
15:25
Speaker 1: Some people are so unsentimental that they'll just back the
15:29
Speaker 1: dumpster up and just empty their house into it and
15:33
Speaker 1: say I'll get a new drunk But um, it's a
15:35
Speaker 1: good way to move, Yeah, exactly, but they it is
15:40
Speaker 1: a little bit of a hard time. And very famously either, Um, Charlie,
15:44
Speaker 1: there Emily's grandpa who who left us on our wedding day. Um,
15:50
Speaker 1: he famously passed away with like you know, buckets have bent,
15:55
Speaker 1: rusty nails. But he was not a hoarder. He was
15:59
Speaker 1: legitimately one of these guys. He was like, I can
16:02
Speaker 1: straighten these and reuse them one day. And he believed
16:04
Speaker 1: in the value of just not throwing everything away, which
16:07
Speaker 1: is great. So let me ask you this though he
16:09
Speaker 1: would he would say kind of with pride, like look
16:12
Speaker 1: at all these awesome nails that I'm not wasting you chump, No,
16:16
Speaker 1: not at all. It was just um, was he ashamed
16:19
Speaker 1: of his bucket of nails? No, he would. He would
16:21
Speaker 1: occasionally get out a nail and straighten it and use it,
16:24
Speaker 1: and it was just everyone in the family knew, Like
16:27
Speaker 1: you know, Charlie, he did grow up in the Great
16:30
Speaker 1: Depression and as we will see. That is one of
16:33
Speaker 1: the myths that, oh, all these people just grow up
16:36
Speaker 1: in the depression, so they value things more. That is
16:38
Speaker 1: not the case. There's no tie to that. But he
16:42
Speaker 1: is one of those gentlemen who grow up in the
16:44
Speaker 1: Great Depression, and and I love that attitude. We're in
16:47
Speaker 1: such a disposable frame of mind. I think that they
16:51
Speaker 1: the depression thing has kind of come back for the
16:53
Speaker 1: generation behind us, where they value things a bit more. Good. Yeah,
16:59
Speaker 1: you know, because the posibility of products and just everything.
17:03
Speaker 1: Just pulling a dump strip to your back door and
17:05
Speaker 1: pushing your stuff out as a means of moving. Yeah,
17:08
Speaker 1: we're like, I'll just that thing didn't work. Well, I
17:10
Speaker 1: could probably get repaired, but screw it. I'll get another one.
17:12
Speaker 1: It's only twenty bucks. Things like that, Like it kind
17:16
Speaker 1: of drives me nuts. So I'm oh, wait, my phone
17:19
Speaker 1: has has a new version of my phone has just
17:22
Speaker 1: come out. So now the company that made my phone
17:25
Speaker 1: is remotely slowing my phone down, so I have to
17:28
Speaker 1: throw it away and go buy another one. That's definitely
17:30
Speaker 1: part of the problem as well. You know, it's funny.
17:34
Speaker 1: I can totally see Grandpa Charlie saying everybody gather around
17:38
Speaker 1: getting a nail out of his rusty nail buckets, straining
17:41
Speaker 1: it and just driving it right through the webbing of
17:43
Speaker 1: his hand as a party trick. That's what I thought
17:47
Speaker 1: of when when you said, yeah, every once in a a
17:50
Speaker 1: while he get a nail out and straighten it and
17:52
Speaker 1: use it. That's what I would think. You know, what
17:55
Speaker 1: were the people that he's a beenhead? People that would
17:58
Speaker 1: drive the nail through there? Yeah, the blockhead That's what
18:02
Speaker 1: it was. Blockheads. Yeah. I can't believe you did a
18:03
Speaker 1: whole podcast on that. That shows a good one too.
18:06
Speaker 1: Um alright, So number one on the symptoms though, uh
18:10
Speaker 1: is you literally have an inability two to get rid
18:15
Speaker 1: of things and to stop acquiring things. So you may
18:18
Speaker 1: if you go into a hoarder's home, you may go
18:21
Speaker 1: into their closet and see a wrack of clothes with
18:24
Speaker 1: tags on them because they're like, oh, just this is
18:27
Speaker 1: on sale. It's such a good deal. I feel like
18:30
Speaker 1: I just have to get it and then it's unworn
18:32
Speaker 1: a decade later. Yeah. So, so the early researchers David
18:36
Speaker 1: Frosten is two students um Tamra Hartle and Rachel Gross.
18:41
Speaker 1: They initially I think it was specifically Rachel Gross and
18:44
Speaker 1: David Frost. Sorry, but they that first study that they
18:47
Speaker 1: did on hoarders, they assumed that, um, it would be
18:51
Speaker 1: all just junk like stuff nobody could possibly want, and
18:54
Speaker 1: they were really surprised when they toured some of their
18:57
Speaker 1: their study participants homes and found like stuff still in
19:00
Speaker 1: the package, like clothes, perfectly fine clothes that had never
19:03
Speaker 1: been worn, but piles up to the ceiling that we're
19:07
Speaker 1: now had now taken over the kitchen, you know what
19:10
Speaker 1: I'm saying. That's the difference between being like, oh, this
19:13
Speaker 1: is actually a pretty good deal, I could use this
19:15
Speaker 1: someday and hoarding. They they basically won't pass up a bargain.
19:19
Speaker 1: It's one of the ways that they might acquire something.
19:21
Speaker 1: My mom has a little bit of that, you mean.
19:24
Speaker 1: I went through an open house once and I've never
19:28
Speaker 1: seen more clothing owned not just by one person, by
19:33
Speaker 1: several families put together. But it was just one lady's clothes,
19:37
Speaker 1: and like they had built on like an addition to
19:39
Speaker 1: their attic and their garage top and that was just
19:43
Speaker 1: filled with clothes more close than anyone could possibly wear.
19:46
Speaker 1: And we noticed that like some of them still had
19:49
Speaker 1: the tags on. Were like, God, this lady has so
19:51
Speaker 1: many clothes. Now, looking back after researching this, I'm like,
19:54
Speaker 1: she definitely had a touch of the hoarders disorder. I
19:59
Speaker 1: guess she had a little bit of the hordes. Yeah,
20:02
Speaker 1: it didn't spill out into the rest of her house,
20:04
Speaker 1: so either she it was just a touch of it,
20:08
Speaker 1: or her family was keeping it in check. But there
20:12
Speaker 1: was definitely you you wouldn't believe me if I if
20:15
Speaker 1: I told you how many just sweaters and shirts and
20:17
Speaker 1: dresses this lady had. Give me a number, how many sweaters? Sweaters?
20:26
Speaker 1: I know you're one of your superpowers of sweater guestimating right,
20:30
Speaker 1: sweaters and chili beans. I would say, just from what
20:34
Speaker 1: we saw, she easily had two hundreds something sweaters easily.
20:39
Speaker 1: And those were just the sweaters. Man, that's not including
20:42
Speaker 1: like tops, blouses, dresses. She had so many clothes. Yeah,
20:48
Speaker 1: my friend Ryan, I won't say his last name, he uh,
20:52
Speaker 1: his dad very famously had a h and I don't know,
20:56
Speaker 1: you know what I asked him last time I saw him,
20:58
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the answer now, but at one
21:01
Speaker 1: point his dad had like warehouses with stuff because he's
21:06
Speaker 1: like a dream hoarder. Yeah, but I don't know if
21:09
Speaker 1: it was hoarding either, because as you will see there
21:11
Speaker 1: as we go on, there are very specific definitions, and
21:14
Speaker 1: just because you want warehouses full of stuff doesn't necessarily
21:17
Speaker 1: mean you're a hoarder, you know. Yeah, what was his stuff?
21:21
Speaker 1: I don't know, huh. I'll find out and follow up.
21:26
Speaker 1: But getting back to the inability to stop acquiring, one
21:29
Speaker 1: of the key points about not getting rid of stuff
21:32
Speaker 1: is they're holding onto things with no value at all,
21:35
Speaker 1: like even sentimental value. Like when you have stacks and
21:39
Speaker 1: stacks of newspapers and magazines for for decades and decades.
21:44
Speaker 1: Those don't hold sentiment about sentimental value, any monetary value
21:49
Speaker 1: unless you happen to have like the moon landing stuff
21:51
Speaker 1: in there or something. Um, you know, it's just it's
21:55
Speaker 1: like literally it's junk, right, it can be. It can
21:58
Speaker 1: also be stuff that like is actually useful and somebody
22:01
Speaker 1: would want this unopened, unworn dress or something like that. Right,
22:05
Speaker 1: So it can go either way. But the point is
22:07
Speaker 1: they can't stop acquiring stuff. They can't help themselves. That's
22:12
Speaker 1: that's part one, Part two, And these things are part
22:14
Speaker 1: and parcel with one another is they can't bear to
22:18
Speaker 1: give any of it up, like you said, even if
22:21
Speaker 1: it's totally useless, even if it doesn't have any actual,
22:24
Speaker 1: real emotional value. But that is a big one that
22:27
Speaker 1: a lot of them point to, is like they say, well, no,
22:29
Speaker 1: this means a lot to me or um. Another another
22:33
Speaker 1: explanation or another rationalization among hoarders is that like they're
22:37
Speaker 1: they're they're just kind of stockpiling. They might need all
22:40
Speaker 1: these clothes one day, the event that never happens, right exactly,
22:46
Speaker 1: and um. The other one I think is that they
22:49
Speaker 1: use it as a reminder. Apparently there's a um there's
22:54
Speaker 1: a correlation between faulty recall or um inaccurate memory or
23:01
Speaker 1: a lack of trust in one's own memory and hoarding.
23:04
Speaker 1: And so some hoarders will say, well, I keep this
23:07
Speaker 1: to remind me that I have to do this in
23:08
Speaker 1: the future, remind me to get in touch with this person.
23:11
Speaker 1: So they imbue importance into all these objects that from
23:15
Speaker 1: the outside are junk. And apparently the stuff that they
23:19
Speaker 1: imbue these objects with is just rationalization. It's necessarily really
23:24
Speaker 1: valuable in the way that they feel like it is
23:27
Speaker 1: to them totally. Another symptom is that and this one
23:31
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious about we should talk about it
23:33
Speaker 1: is that is the stuff is disorganized and very disorganized. Um, However,
23:40
Speaker 1: I would think that you could be a hoarder and
23:44
Speaker 1: also be very and maybe be anal retentive and have
23:49
Speaker 1: everything organized. But does that immediately disqualify you? From what
23:53
Speaker 1: I understand it does. Yeah, you can have a lot
23:56
Speaker 1: of stuff and even very odd stuff, and if you
23:59
Speaker 1: or organize it, that's a huge symptom of hoarding that
24:03
Speaker 1: you're not. That's the a box is not being checked
24:06
Speaker 1: and would probably preclude you from a diagnosis of hoarding
24:10
Speaker 1: because they think that it has to do with your
24:12
Speaker 1: ability and the brain to make decisions. It's supposedly stems
24:17
Speaker 1: from perfectionism, which we'll talk about. But this this inability
24:21
Speaker 1: to make decisions about you know, what to keep and
24:24
Speaker 1: what to throw away and being so paralyzed by it
24:27
Speaker 1: that you just don't make the decision at all, and
24:29
Speaker 1: all this stuff accumulates. That also extends to organizing and sorting.
24:35
Speaker 1: You can't make the decision about what you go where
24:37
Speaker 1: or what goes with what. You just can't just you
24:40
Speaker 1: can't make decisions when it comes to your material possessions.
24:44
Speaker 1: That's a huge hallmark of and I think a cornerstone
24:47
Speaker 1: of hoarding. The diagnosis. I'm gonna take issue with that
24:50
Speaker 1: one officially then on the record, Like you could had
24:54
Speaker 1: literally have every single symptom, and you just might be like, no,
24:58
Speaker 1: all the newspapers go here, and all this stuff goes here,
25:01
Speaker 1: and it's literally caving in on me, and I can't
25:03
Speaker 1: get rid of any of it, and I'm ashamed of it,
25:05
Speaker 1: and I have no quality of life. Um, but I'm
25:08
Speaker 1: anal retentive. Like, so I'm officially taking issue. No one
25:12
Speaker 1: cares well you. I mean, you make you paint a
25:15
Speaker 1: pretty good picture in that. In that sense, I think
25:19
Speaker 1: if you if you have stuff organized, it's probably not
25:24
Speaker 1: having it's probably not taking over your life, maybe financially,
25:27
Speaker 1: maybe time wise, but like you could still have people over. Um,
25:31
Speaker 1: your husband or wife isn't leaving you as a result,
25:34
Speaker 1: your kids aren't ashamed to bring friends over to play.
25:38
Speaker 1: Who knows, but yeah, I don't think from what I
25:42
Speaker 1: understand tho, as far as the psychological community is concerned,
25:46
Speaker 1: if you can organize, you're probably not a hoarder. I
25:49
Speaker 1: think all those things you just mentioned could still happen
25:52
Speaker 1: if you're organized. Yeah, and this is just my dumb opinion.
25:57
Speaker 1: It's it's possible. Though. I might sort of show called
26:00
Speaker 1: Chuckstum Opinions just to follow up each week to this. Yeah,
26:05
Speaker 1: I get it all out. Uh number three did you
26:09
Speaker 1: get a little Josh saying Number three is the hoarder
26:14
Speaker 1: feels ashamed? And we talked a little bit about this
26:16
Speaker 1: here and there, but that is definitely one of them.
26:18
Speaker 1: It's not like you walk into a hoarder's house and
26:22
Speaker 1: they're like, have you seen my collection of dead goldfish
26:27
Speaker 1: floating in bowls? Um, Although that'd be a weird thing.
26:30
Speaker 1: Although animal hoarding will get to this definitely thing that's
26:33
Speaker 1: like trapesing along the line of performance are right, But
26:38
Speaker 1: this is the thing is you feel ashamed and that
26:40
Speaker 1: can feed the beast. So you gather all this stuff,
26:43
Speaker 1: you accumulate it, you feel really guilty about it. And
26:46
Speaker 1: then one of the things that hoarders do is it
26:49
Speaker 1: makes them feel better to collect the stuff, so then
26:51
Speaker 1: you start hoarding more. And they and the grabster wrote
26:55
Speaker 1: this one right, So the grabstre is said, it's you know,
26:58
Speaker 1: it's really not unlike an alcoholic drink, you get ashamed.
27:01
Speaker 1: Do you feel those feelings of shame, so you drink
27:04
Speaker 1: to sort of feel better or forget right. So like
27:08
Speaker 1: alcohol is to an alcoholic or um like somebody who
27:13
Speaker 1: eats for comfort. These these people acquire stuff for comfort
27:20
Speaker 1: or like their material possessions are like food to somebody
27:23
Speaker 1: who eats um as comfort. Right, Yeah, and but they
27:27
Speaker 1: do feel ashamed of the whole thing, Like that's a
27:30
Speaker 1: huge thing. And that's also, like I was saying, what
27:32
Speaker 1: differentiates them from collectors. Even if you have a collection
27:35
Speaker 1: of some really weird stuff, if you, you know, want
27:39
Speaker 1: to show it off to people and you really value it,
27:43
Speaker 1: you you're a collector. If you are ashamed of your collection,
27:49
Speaker 1: your hoard um, and you don't want people to see it,
27:52
Speaker 1: and you know that it's weird, but you just can't
27:56
Speaker 1: do anything about it, that's a symptom of hoarding. That's
27:59
Speaker 1: one of the reasons also why it makes it such
28:01
Speaker 1: a terrible mental disorder, because the people who are hoarders,
28:07
Speaker 1: they're not they're not like off their rocker or something
28:10
Speaker 1: like that. They're not mentally impaired, they're not like out
28:13
Speaker 1: of touch with reality. They they are they have enough
28:17
Speaker 1: perspective to feel shame about the state that their life
28:20
Speaker 1: is in because of these material possessions that they can't
28:24
Speaker 1: get rid of and can't stop accumulating. They can't do
28:27
Speaker 1: anything about it, and that's what makes it just such
28:30
Speaker 1: a sad disorders. They're aware of this and then feel
28:35
Speaker 1: shame as a result. Yeah, they're incapable of change. Well,
28:39
Speaker 1: I think that. I don't know if incapable is the
28:41
Speaker 1: right word. But with the right help, they're capable. But
28:44
Speaker 1: I think on their own they're generally incapable. Yes, well
28:47
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. I'm not saying. Do you seek
28:49
Speaker 1: treatment and you still can't stop that happens to uh.
28:53
Speaker 1: And then finally, another symptom is that you are it
28:56
Speaker 1: is really impacting your life. So um. You may have
29:00
Speaker 1: rooms in your house that you can't even use anymore,
29:03
Speaker 1: Like I can't take a bath because that's where I
29:05
Speaker 1: keep the backing peanuts, or I can't use the stove
29:08
Speaker 1: because it has seven microwaves that I bought that are
29:11
Speaker 1: still in boxes stacked on it. Um. And you will
29:15
Speaker 1: a lot of times they will, like like a snow plow,
29:19
Speaker 1: just dig a path through their home just so they
29:22
Speaker 1: can get around where they can get around. Yeah, apparently
29:26
Speaker 1: among hoarders or among psychologists who study hoarding, it's called
29:29
Speaker 1: they call them goat paths yea. And they can be
29:33
Speaker 1: dangerous too. Hoarders have been known to have died sure
29:35
Speaker 1: from there they walking along their goat paths in this
29:38
Speaker 1: stuff on either side, just coming down on top of
29:40
Speaker 1: them and pinning them and suffocating them. Yeah, and this
29:43
Speaker 1: and this is the point to where you talked about
29:45
Speaker 1: where uh they impacting your life. They don't get out much,
29:50
Speaker 1: maybe because they don't want to leave their stuffcause they're
29:52
Speaker 1: afraid of family member might come over and and take
29:55
Speaker 1: things they are hold up. They don't have anyone over, uh,
30:00
Speaker 1: because of the shame. So it's just, um they are.
30:05
Speaker 1: They're literally trapped by their things, yeah, figuratively and and literally.
30:10
Speaker 1: And they also um their Their houses will also very
30:15
Speaker 1: frequently be in disrepair, not just from the the collections
30:19
Speaker 1: of stuff taking over rooms and just totally changing their meaning,
30:22
Speaker 1: but also like if you have a hot water heater
30:25
Speaker 1: and it breaks, you're not gonna let some repair man
30:27
Speaker 1: come over. You don't know him. You know, he might
30:30
Speaker 1: touch your stuff, he might take something, or you feel
30:34
Speaker 1: so much shame that you just won't even invite a
30:36
Speaker 1: stranger to come in and and and fix your hot
30:39
Speaker 1: water heater, so they'll just live without hot water forever. Um.
30:43
Speaker 1: They may also it's it's super sad man, it will
30:46
Speaker 1: like because of documentary television, because the reality television. I
30:50
Speaker 1: think horders have kind of gotten reputation as people are like,
30:53
Speaker 1: go look at those freaks, you know. Um, But if
30:57
Speaker 1: you really start to dig into it, and I'm sure
30:59
Speaker 1: some of these was do this from time to time too,
31:02
Speaker 1: it is an extremely sad condition. It just makes you
31:07
Speaker 1: want to help them when you come across him, you know.
31:09
Speaker 1: And then one other thing is they're also very frequently
31:12
Speaker 1: in debt. Say it gives the example of, um, if
31:17
Speaker 1: their kitchen is just totally covered and stuff and they
31:20
Speaker 1: can't get to the oven any longer, they have to
31:22
Speaker 1: order take out, which is much more expensive than grocery shopping.
31:26
Speaker 1: So their finances are very likely impacted by the their
31:30
Speaker 1: hoarding behavior. Good point. Should we take a break, Yeah,
31:34
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it, and we'll come back and
31:36
Speaker 1: talk about some of the myths right after this. All right,
32:09
Speaker 1: So we talked about some of the truths UM. And
32:13
Speaker 1: some of the myths are as follows. And you mentioned, um,
32:17
Speaker 1: well you mentioned the first one that it affects only
32:19
Speaker 1: older people. UM. Another one is the hoarders are are lazy,
32:24
Speaker 1: and that is just not true. UM. They in fact,
32:28
Speaker 1: they may be very busy in there with while they
32:33
Speaker 1: may not be organizing, they may be moving things around
32:38
Speaker 1: and obsessing about it and or you know, they also
32:41
Speaker 1: might be on the recliner just hoping they don't get
32:44
Speaker 1: caved in on. But the stuff point is, stuff isn't
32:47
Speaker 1: there because they're lazy. It's a mental illness. That's a
32:51
Speaker 1: big one. UM. Another another early idea about hoarders is
32:57
Speaker 1: that the reason they hoard is be because they had
33:00
Speaker 1: some experience previously in their lives where they came face
33:04
Speaker 1: to face with deprivation or scarcity. And so now, yeah,
33:09
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, or their dad lost his job when
33:13
Speaker 1: they were a kid, and like their family really went
33:15
Speaker 1: through a hard time. So now as a as a UM,
33:19
Speaker 1: in response to that experience, they're just trying to get
33:22
Speaker 1: their hands on everything they can and they don't want
33:24
Speaker 1: to throw anything away. Apparently, that is absolutely not the
33:27
Speaker 1: case that that the UM science doesn't bear that out
33:31
Speaker 1: at all, and then they do think that they are
33:34
Speaker 1: connected to some sort of difficult event previous in life,
33:38
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with deprivation
33:42
Speaker 1: UM at any point like they they may they may
33:45
Speaker 1: have been wealthy. I read it and Nautilus, I think
33:48
Speaker 1: a Nautilus article on hoarding, and they profiled this guy
33:52
Speaker 1: who was quite well off and he hoarded UM and
33:57
Speaker 1: I don't think he had ever gone through any financial hardship,
34:00
Speaker 1: and that's apparently par for the course. Well, one of
34:03
Speaker 1: the things that says one of the traumas could be
34:05
Speaker 1: excessive discipline, which I thought was interesting because Freud, and
34:10
Speaker 1: I know he said it's been mentioned. It's not a
34:12
Speaker 1: new thing, like it's been in everything from Dante's Inferno
34:15
Speaker 1: to Silas Marner in eight sixty one, UH, and Freud
34:19
Speaker 1: talked about it uh in his day. But here's the
34:23
Speaker 1: thing is, everyone says Freud was way off UM, but
34:27
Speaker 1: he thought it could be as a result of overly
34:29
Speaker 1: harsh toilet training, which I thought was interesting because while
34:34
Speaker 1: that is not true, if it came from excessive discipline,
34:38
Speaker 1: and you were excessively disciplined while toilet training, you know,
34:42
Speaker 1: maybe he wasn't that far off. Yeah, you're right, he
34:45
Speaker 1: probably wasn't. Like I said before, the guy was one
34:48
Speaker 1: of the history's great thinkers. It's just you shouldn't use
34:52
Speaker 1: the phrase anal character when you're describing what the problem
34:56
Speaker 1: was with hoarding, which he did. He did, But you
35:00
Speaker 1: make a really good point actually that he he Maybe
35:03
Speaker 1: he wasn't that far off. But if it is discipline,
35:07
Speaker 1: overly harsh discipline and adolescence, I think that's a big one. UM.
35:11
Speaker 1: I think the loss of a significant other, of a
35:15
Speaker 1: close family member, UM, some sort of loss of UM
35:21
Speaker 1: love is it can trigger hoarding behavior, and some people
35:26
Speaker 1: has been known to bring bring the disorder on as well.
35:29
Speaker 1: I can see that like I lost that thing, but
35:31
Speaker 1: I can keep all this like that I can control, right,
35:34
Speaker 1: And that also would explain why they tend to imbue
35:38
Speaker 1: emotional attachment into their possessions, you know, like these things
35:42
Speaker 1: are these things equal love to me, and now I
35:44
Speaker 1: can hang on to them and they're never going to
35:46
Speaker 1: leave me. Yeah, I'm telling you it's a very sad disorder.
35:51
Speaker 1: What another myth is that it's a symptom of o
35:54
Speaker 1: c D obsessive compulsive disorder. For many many many years
35:58
Speaker 1: were just now starting to understand more about it. But
36:01
Speaker 1: for many years they thought it was either just straight
36:03
Speaker 1: up was O c D or was just an offshoot
36:08
Speaker 1: of it. Um, But like you said, with the D
36:10
Speaker 1: s M, it is its own distinct disease, but it
36:13
Speaker 1: can be co morbid with O c D and other
36:17
Speaker 1: things like anxiety. So it's UM, I see why people
36:21
Speaker 1: get that confused. Yeah, you know, there's some study took
36:25
Speaker 1: away the criteria for UM, took away the hoarding criteria
36:30
Speaker 1: from O c D, right, So it just gave these
36:33
Speaker 1: people a checklist to determine whether they had O c
36:36
Speaker 1: D or not, but took hoarding out of the equation,
36:40
Speaker 1: and hoarders tended to to not qualify for O c
36:43
Speaker 1: D only like six percent of them do or something
36:46
Speaker 1: like that. So it's connected in some cases, but definitely
36:49
Speaker 1: not in all cases. And it's certainly not just an
36:51
Speaker 1: offshoot of O c D itself, like you're saying, right, Uh.
36:55
Speaker 1: And then finally, and of course, because this is a
36:59
Speaker 1: a disease, and um, just because you finally get a
37:04
Speaker 1: family member in there against all a lots to clean
37:07
Speaker 1: everything out of there, that does not cure you of anything.
37:11
Speaker 1: No I saw that. It just says, first of all,
37:14
Speaker 1: what a horrible experience that would be for the poor hoard.
37:17
Speaker 1: The county comes in or some family members come in
37:20
Speaker 1: with some tough love and just clear all your stuff out.
37:23
Speaker 1: So that's number one. But number two apparently they say, okay,
37:27
Speaker 1: well I've got a lot of space to fill. Now
37:29
Speaker 1: I better get to work. Like that's the result of it. Supposedly,
37:34
Speaker 1: so it's a chronic disease, chronic condition, and supposedly recurrence
37:39
Speaker 1: of this is a hundred percent in all cases without treatment. Yeah,
37:44
Speaker 1: the grabstre emailed this woman named Lisa Hale co Um sorry,
37:48
Speaker 1: founding director of the Kansas City Center for Anxiety Treatment
37:52
Speaker 1: and also a junct associate professor at University of Missouri,
37:56
Speaker 1: Kansas City. So fighting hay seeds the stacks seeds. I
38:05
Speaker 1: think Haysey didn't that a derogatory name for Kanson. It
38:09
Speaker 1: depends on whether they own it or not. You know,
38:11
Speaker 1: okay um, I'm sure we'll hear. But yeah, she she
38:16
Speaker 1: said that it approaches like that is that is straight
38:21
Speaker 1: up proof that that cleaning things out and while the
38:24
Speaker 1: family member, well, a county just says there directive but
38:27
Speaker 1: while a family member might think, oh, I've helped them, Um,
38:31
Speaker 1: you you really haven't. If that was your solve, No,
38:35
Speaker 1: you you're probably the Other part of it, too, is
38:37
Speaker 1: if you come in there all tough love and you
38:40
Speaker 1: need to get your act together and you're just being lazy,
38:42
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? And clean their stuff out for them?
38:46
Speaker 1: First of all, that's basically abuse. I don't even know
38:48
Speaker 1: if you need to qualify with basically. I think that's
38:50
Speaker 1: abuse of a mentally ill person. But secondly, um, all
38:57
Speaker 1: you're doing is driving that behaved your That's a very
39:01
Speaker 1: stressful event, and the the um the way they deal
39:05
Speaker 1: with stress is through hoarding behavior. So all it's going
39:08
Speaker 1: to do is just turn the notch up on the
39:10
Speaker 1: hoarding that they're doing anyway, and you can probably say
39:13
Speaker 1: goodbye to ever seeing them again after that too. Man,
39:17
Speaker 1: what a terrible situation. Apparently we'll talk about, you know,
39:20
Speaker 1: treatment in a minute, but one of the key factors
39:23
Speaker 1: and treatment is that the family and friends and loved
39:26
Speaker 1: ones of the person who's hoarding and now undergoing treatment,
39:30
Speaker 1: they have to go through therapy themselves. Because it's I'm
39:34
Speaker 1: sure quite easy to look at this with disgust, horror,
39:38
Speaker 1: UM anger, Like, what is wrong with you? Like, I
39:40
Speaker 1: know that that's a natural reaction, but you have you
39:44
Speaker 1: can't follow through on that. You have to approach it
39:47
Speaker 1: from a place of understanding or else all you're going
39:49
Speaker 1: to do is trigger the hoarding behavior even further. Yeah,
39:52
Speaker 1: for sure if you go in their guns, blaze in
39:55
Speaker 1: with your broom and your and your dumpster. Uh yeah,
39:59
Speaker 1: it's just gonna get worse. You just crumble that person. So, UM,
40:03
Speaker 1: what causes this is really interesting because UM, we don't
40:10
Speaker 1: know for sure and there are they have been everything
40:13
Speaker 1: from UM lesions on the brain in certain studies that
40:18
Speaker 1: they found UM could account for it two chromosomal defects
40:24
Speaker 1: to possibly genetics UM, because they found that it's uh
40:30
Speaker 1: other illnesses or at least a behavior as part of
40:33
Speaker 1: other illnesses that are definitely genetic, and hoarders are more
40:37
Speaker 1: likely to have other family members who are also hoarders.
40:41
Speaker 1: Of hoarders surveys say that they have a family member
40:44
Speaker 1: who as a hoarder, which is way more than the
40:46
Speaker 1: general population. Yeah, so we have no idea what the
40:49
Speaker 1: really underlying causes, but we do know it's what's called
40:53
Speaker 1: and this is what um, what Hail said who had interviewed,
40:56
Speaker 1: is that it is a neuropsychiatric condition and it is
41:00
Speaker 1: it's all about like you were talking about earlier, these
41:03
Speaker 1: processing challenges UM, not being able to process visually, organizationally,
41:08
Speaker 1: emotionally and your brain connections aren't aren't working right. Yeah,
41:13
Speaker 1: I remember hearing years ago like that they would stick
41:16
Speaker 1: these these poor people into the wonder machine and talk
41:19
Speaker 1: to them about getting rid of their possessions, saying like,
41:23
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine you know this room, and
41:25
Speaker 1: think about all of your newspapers. Now, which newspaper do
41:27
Speaker 1: you want to get rid of? And these people would
41:29
Speaker 1: experience basically physical pain, huge spikes and their levels of
41:34
Speaker 1: stress just thinking about this. But when you said the
41:37
Speaker 1: same thing about somebody else's stuff, they had no reaction whatsoever.
41:41
Speaker 1: It's strictly their stuff and their attachment to it. And
41:45
Speaker 1: another study by David Frost showed that when you give
41:50
Speaker 1: somebody who is a hoarder something um and say this
41:54
Speaker 1: is yours now I think he gave out key chains,
41:57
Speaker 1: their attachment to it was immediate, it like right right
42:01
Speaker 1: when they knew that they owned the thing and it
42:02
Speaker 1: was theirs. They were now as attached to as if
42:05
Speaker 1: they'd had it for fifty years it was as important
42:08
Speaker 1: to them. So there's a lot of stuff going on
42:10
Speaker 1: in the brain, and it does have to do with attachment,
42:13
Speaker 1: decision making, finding um comfort and de escalation of stress
42:18
Speaker 1: through these material possessions as well. Um, But they just
42:22
Speaker 1: don't quite know what did it? Was it a bad
42:24
Speaker 1: experience as a kid? Are are you born with the
42:27
Speaker 1: chemical balance that doesn't begin to show its symptoms until adolescence.
42:32
Speaker 1: It's just too new, Like it only became its own
42:34
Speaker 1: thing in the d s M five, which came out
42:36
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen. But it is in the d
42:39
Speaker 1: s M now, which means that insurance companies will pay
42:42
Speaker 1: for treatment for it, which means that a lot more
42:44
Speaker 1: people are going to be studying it than they ever
42:46
Speaker 1: were before. Man, I can't imagine anything more torturous than
42:52
Speaker 1: being strapped in an MRI machine, which is already stressful
42:56
Speaker 1: and confining, and then having to quiz people on anxiety
43:01
Speaker 1: inducing mental illness, right like, you know, we're getting rid
43:05
Speaker 1: of this thing now, and I'm sure they're they're just
43:08
Speaker 1: like want to like bust out of that thing, you know. Yeah,
43:12
Speaker 1: it's like it's like torture, just like, and it's valuable research.
43:16
Speaker 1: So hats off to the people that do that, and
43:20
Speaker 1: and the people that like, the people that administer it,
43:22
Speaker 1: and the people that are brave enough to go in
43:25
Speaker 1: there and and seek that treatment. Yeah. Oh yeah, hats
43:27
Speaker 1: off to him for sure, Man, literal hats off, because
43:30
Speaker 1: you can't wear a hat in an MRI machine. You can,
43:34
Speaker 1: you can only wear a mesh helmet, that's right. Um. Well,
43:37
Speaker 1: there was one other kind of general explaination hypothesis that
43:42
Speaker 1: explains hoarding um floating around, and that is that we
43:46
Speaker 1: all have this innate evolutionary instinct to gather stuff. Yeah,
43:53
Speaker 1: I really like this, Like it's just it's just what
43:56
Speaker 1: It's part of our mammalian heritage. And and they think
44:01
Speaker 1: that in people who hoard, this instinct has basically gone haywire,
44:06
Speaker 1: like some snaps connected with another synaps that weren't supposed
44:09
Speaker 1: to be connected. Now, all of a sudden, this thing
44:11
Speaker 1: that's a natural thing where you know, you go to
44:13
Speaker 1: the grocery store, you buy some stuff, you keep it
44:16
Speaker 1: in your refrigerator for a week, turns into you can't
44:20
Speaker 1: get enough Sunday circulars to possibly stave off these feelings
44:26
Speaker 1: of anxiety. Yeah, it's cool. Little uh story reference was
44:32
Speaker 1: like an animal saving food for the winter. Do they
44:36
Speaker 1: work extra long to prepare for a possibly long winter,
44:40
Speaker 1: but stay out there and are are more more vulnerable
44:43
Speaker 1: to getting eaten by the cheetah while they're collecting stuff?
44:47
Speaker 1: Or do they say, you know what, I'm gonna go
44:49
Speaker 1: ahead and get in the cave. I've got enough stuff. Um,
44:53
Speaker 1: eventually there will be that long winter and those animals
44:55
Speaker 1: will die out. So you know, over the course of time,
44:59
Speaker 1: the a long winter evolutionary trait will be the one
45:03
Speaker 1: that's passed on. Yeah, it's really interesting. The guy whose
45:06
Speaker 1: paper he based that on. You should see this paper. Man,
45:10
Speaker 1: It's got like sigma everywhere and he's talking about squirrels
45:13
Speaker 1: gathering nuts. But there's all these really complex math and
45:16
Speaker 1: statistical formula that he's got on on his paper. But
45:20
Speaker 1: the the overall gist of it is pretty fascinating and
45:22
Speaker 1: it proves or it definitely lends credence to the idea
45:27
Speaker 1: that it is a naturally selected evolutionary trait to gather
45:31
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Most of us, though, have this
45:35
Speaker 1: cut off point where we know I don't need anything
45:38
Speaker 1: more than this, or anything more than this is irrational
45:41
Speaker 1: and people who hoarde definitely don't have that cut off point. Yeah,
45:44
Speaker 1: we have a room in our house that is full
45:47
Speaker 1: of stuff, and it's not hoarding. It's we don't have
45:52
Speaker 1: a place for this stuff. We live in a you know,
45:57
Speaker 1: eighties something year old craftsman and that you know, those
46:01
Speaker 1: houses just don't have the closet space and the storage space.
46:04
Speaker 1: We don't have a garage. We do have an addict
46:07
Speaker 1: that has us some stuff, and in theory, we could
46:12
Speaker 1: probably move all of this stuff up there, but most
46:14
Speaker 1: of this stuff we kind of need access to more often. Um,
46:19
Speaker 1: So we're not hoarding, but it's it's just like our
46:23
Speaker 1: house is small, and we could go you know, the
46:25
Speaker 1: other route and be go a little more minimalist for sure,
46:28
Speaker 1: and get rid of this stuff, trust me. But um
46:31
Speaker 1: but if you don't want to, you don't want to,
46:33
Speaker 1: well yeah, but I mean it's um, it's a problem
46:36
Speaker 1: when we have a guests in the night, which is
46:38
Speaker 1: not often because that's our quote guest room. I got
46:41
Speaker 1: to you know, I was gonna say, you guys need
46:44
Speaker 1: to get to the container store. No, A lot of
46:47
Speaker 1: the stuffs and containers. You need a container for your containers. Uh.
46:52
Speaker 1: And what we do, it's funny when we do have
46:53
Speaker 1: the occasional guests, they are invariably very very close friend
46:57
Speaker 1: or family member, and so they understand and we clear
47:00
Speaker 1: the cut path that's very to the bed. They're like,
47:04
Speaker 1: just dive over onto the bed. And then when you
47:08
Speaker 1: when you wake up and you want to get up
47:10
Speaker 1: to call us and we'll lower the crane harness. That's right.
47:13
Speaker 1: But where we are adding not adding onto our house,
47:16
Speaker 1: but we're we're finishing the basement. So hopefully that will
47:20
Speaker 1: be the solve because we're gonna have some lots more
47:23
Speaker 1: good storage down there. There you go being bang boom,
47:28
Speaker 1: except we're having to do house construction, which is the
47:31
Speaker 1: worst right for your stuff. Um, all right, should we
47:35
Speaker 1: take one more break? Yeah, all right, let's do that,
47:37
Speaker 1: and we'll come back and talk just briefly about the
47:41
Speaker 1: very famous call your brothers and then hit on animal hoarding,
47:44
Speaker 1: which could be the saddest of all hoarding. M all right,
48:20
Speaker 1: we would be remiss if we didn't mention the Langley
48:22
Speaker 1: Homer and Langley Collier. Uh. We you said you want
48:26
Speaker 1: to do a full show on them. This will be
48:29
Speaker 1: the second time we've covered them. When did we talking
48:31
Speaker 1: about him before Bizarre Ways to Die? Oh wow, which
48:36
Speaker 1: is literally a nine year old episode. Yeah, that is old.
48:42
Speaker 1: So I would say we could probably still get away
48:45
Speaker 1: with a full episode because if you listen to the
48:48
Speaker 1: one in April two nine, in the segment on the
48:51
Speaker 1: call your Brothers within that minute episode, then you would
48:55
Speaker 1: probably appreciate a more flashed operasion. I would love it.
48:58
Speaker 1: But just the broad strokes of it are that Homer
49:02
Speaker 1: callier Um went blind older in life or later in life,
49:08
Speaker 1: and his brother Langley took care of him. Well. Langley
49:11
Speaker 1: was a hoarder and accumulated more and more stuff, and
49:14
Speaker 1: eventually Langley died. He was crushed by his stuff and Homer,
49:20
Speaker 1: who was a percent depended on Langley Um, starved to
49:24
Speaker 1: death in their brownstone and they were found separately, uh
49:28
Speaker 1: weeks apart, this in Harlem, New York City. And if
49:32
Speaker 1: you just look up pictures of this and the cruise
49:36
Speaker 1: and the removing of things, it's really something else. And
49:40
Speaker 1: there's actually a little park there named to call your
49:41
Speaker 1: Brother's Park. Then in early two thousand's, uh, there was
49:45
Speaker 1: a push to get that changed because they were like,
49:48
Speaker 1: we should not name a park after these guys. But
49:53
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, let's still name that.
49:55
Speaker 1: I tried to. I don't think that went anywhere, but yeah,
49:58
Speaker 1: let's definitely do a uh. And in fact, I think
50:01
Speaker 1: it was called call Your Syndrome for a while too.
50:02
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, for a while. I mean they were pretty
50:05
Speaker 1: famous because all the New York papers got in there
50:08
Speaker 1: and like printed all sorts of pictures and they had
50:11
Speaker 1: like just a fascinating story. All right, now, we might
50:15
Speaker 1: as well finish on the saddest of notes, which is
50:18
Speaker 1: animal hoarding. And um, we're not talking about well, it
50:23
Speaker 1: could be crazy Cat Lady, but not necessarily. I think
50:26
Speaker 1: she's an archetype of animal hoarders. Right, So in this
50:30
Speaker 1: case we are talking about and I know you've seen
50:33
Speaker 1: stories probably on the news here and there. Um, these
50:38
Speaker 1: are people that that hoard animals to the extent where
50:42
Speaker 1: it's just like the other stuff. It is, Uh. Their
50:46
Speaker 1: house is often filled with feces and smells of ammonia,
50:51
Speaker 1: full of maybe fleas and ticks. Can't have people over. Uh.
50:56
Speaker 1: And and it's one of the saddest because it's these
51:00
Speaker 1: people can't bear. They think they're doing the right thing, yeah,
51:04
Speaker 1: writing these animals, but they're not because these animals almost
51:09
Speaker 1: time are very much suffering. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's like hoarding.
51:13
Speaker 1: But you know, your your newspapers and plastic grocery bags
51:18
Speaker 1: don't suffer with animal hoarding. The hoarder suffers and the
51:21
Speaker 1: animals suffer as well because no matter how great the
51:26
Speaker 1: intentions of the animal hoarder are, and apparently that is
51:29
Speaker 1: the one of the basis of animal hoarding is that
51:33
Speaker 1: they really do have the best of intentions. They feel
51:36
Speaker 1: like they're rescuing the animals that almost wants. They're taking
51:39
Speaker 1: them into their home. Yeah, they're they're feeding them, they're
51:42
Speaker 1: caring for him. The problem that is they can't stop
51:44
Speaker 1: acquiring them, so it reaches a point where the animals
51:49
Speaker 1: they can't possibly there's not enough hours in the day
51:52
Speaker 1: to properly care for all the animals. And even if
51:56
Speaker 1: you had help and you, um, you had the money
52:00
Speaker 1: to buy food and and um veterinary care for all
52:06
Speaker 1: these animals, there's still a huge factor in that these
52:09
Speaker 1: animals are living very close together in ways that they
52:13
Speaker 1: should not be. That's not natural for them. So they're
52:15
Speaker 1: stressed out all the time. Yeah, and another one of
52:19
Speaker 1: the hallmarks could be not always, but a lot of
52:22
Speaker 1: times these are people that are um left alone in life,
52:26
Speaker 1: either from being widowed or divorced, or just their their
52:31
Speaker 1: family has gone, or they just may have a trouble
52:34
Speaker 1: interacting with people. And these animals uh in this article
52:37
Speaker 1: ecent they call it a conflict free relationship, and they
52:41
Speaker 1: surround themselves with this thing because it's it's filling them
52:44
Speaker 1: with something that they can't get oftentimes out of humans, right,
52:50
Speaker 1: which is unconditional love. The problem is, again, it is
52:54
Speaker 1: very sad because there's that extra component, the extra very
52:57
Speaker 1: important component of suffering animals. But and when people hear
53:01
Speaker 1: about this stuff, you just immediately like like kind of hiss.
53:05
Speaker 1: And the people who who do this when you hear
53:08
Speaker 1: about it on the news and don't really know what's
53:10
Speaker 1: going on. But again, when you dive into the psychology
53:14
Speaker 1: behind it, it's extraordinarily sad because these people have the
53:17
Speaker 1: best intentions for these animals, and even while they're caring
53:22
Speaker 1: for these animals, they are they're suffering as well through
53:26
Speaker 1: this indecision like do is do I love this dog
53:29
Speaker 1: or or is this one my favorite or should I
53:31
Speaker 1: adopt it out? And they just can't decide, so they
53:33
Speaker 1: just avoid the decision and just acquire more and more animals,
53:37
Speaker 1: again to the detriment of all of the animals involved. Yeah,
53:41
Speaker 1: and just like with regular hoarding, um removing these animals
53:45
Speaker 1: because by the time you see it on the news,
53:46
Speaker 1: it's probably because um that the county is in there
53:50
Speaker 1: and animal control is in there and you see them
53:53
Speaker 1: these sad, sad stories where they're literally taking out these
53:56
Speaker 1: like dogs clearly suffering from malnutrition or cats or whatever,
54:01
Speaker 1: and um, that does not solve the problem. You know,
54:03
Speaker 1: they have to seek therapy. And just like with with
54:07
Speaker 1: object hoarding, UM, if you're a family member confronting them
54:12
Speaker 1: being angry, even though this one is probably even tougher
54:15
Speaker 1: to not be angry. If you're an animal lover, you
54:18
Speaker 1: need to just keep that in check and try and
54:20
Speaker 1: be compassionate and help them so you can help the
54:22
Speaker 1: animals as well. Right, so there are some stats on
54:25
Speaker 1: this animal thing. Where where did you get this? Where
54:27
Speaker 1: was this problem as a good article? Man? I wish
54:29
Speaker 1: you hadn't asked. I'll tell you. By the time you're
54:31
Speaker 1: done with the stats. All right, UM, I'll just take
54:33
Speaker 1: through a couple of these. Every year, thirty five hundred
54:37
Speaker 1: hoarders animal hoarders come to the attention to the authorities,
54:40
Speaker 1: two fifty animals affected each year. This one is really sad.
54:46
Speaker 1: Of animal hoarders have disease, dying, or dead animals on
54:49
Speaker 1: the premises at the time. UM. That can be cod
54:53
Speaker 1: more of it. Up to four actually is about of
54:56
Speaker 1: the time, um. Object hoarders are also hoarding animals. UM.
55:00
Speaker 1: And like I was talking about being being lonely or
55:04
Speaker 1: widowed perhaps or divorce, seventy percent of animal hoarders UM
55:09
Speaker 1: who the authorities know about are females or single, widowed
55:14
Speaker 1: or divorce. So the thing is is that's skewed differently
55:18
Speaker 1: for some reason. Apparently, if you just go out and
55:21
Speaker 1: sample the community, hoarding is pretty much evenly divided among
55:25
Speaker 1: men and women. I'm not sure why we typically think
55:28
Speaker 1: of them as women, but apparently for animals are in
55:30
Speaker 1: general in general, well this is animals specifically, So okay,
55:35
Speaker 1: I guess there may be some sort of deeper compassion
55:39
Speaker 1: from women. I don't know who knows, but I don't
55:41
Speaker 1: want to, uh to undermine the efforts of the Anxiety
55:46
Speaker 1: and Depression Association of Americas. Of course, whose site this
55:50
Speaker 1: came from. Yeah, thanks very much. Uh those great stats,
55:54
Speaker 1: good website. Yeah. So let's talk real quick about treatment
55:57
Speaker 1: of all kinds of hoarding. Um, that's big one is
56:00
Speaker 1: they family intervention and loving support is a huge part
56:06
Speaker 1: of it, because hoarders apparently don't initiate treatment themselves even
56:11
Speaker 1: though they know that they're suffering. Typically, Um, but apparently
56:15
Speaker 1: talk therapy is proving to be the best treatment for hoarding.
56:19
Speaker 1: And that's where, uh, say, a cognitive behavioral therapist talks
56:23
Speaker 1: you through your own beliefs about things like, well, you
56:27
Speaker 1: know what will happen exactly if you have to give
56:30
Speaker 1: away your your plastic grocery bags, and that you they
56:34
Speaker 1: make you say it out loud, and when you say
56:36
Speaker 1: it out loud, maybe there's a little part of your
56:38
Speaker 1: brain that's like, wait a minute, that does sound a
56:40
Speaker 1: little cookie And maybe they said, well, really, what you
56:43
Speaker 1: just said, even if they did happen, even if that
56:45
Speaker 1: negative outcome did happen, is that really as as bad
56:49
Speaker 1: as it sounds in reality? And they just kind of
56:51
Speaker 1: talk you through your beliefs while at the same time
56:54
Speaker 1: basically dragging them out into the open so that they're
56:58
Speaker 1: not just in your head anymore. They're out there and
57:00
Speaker 1: you kind of have to evaluate them in a different
57:03
Speaker 1: way speaking with this trained professional. Yeah, and I would
57:07
Speaker 1: imagine they, uh, it's probably a ghost slow thing, like
57:11
Speaker 1: maybe next week you bring in something that you care
57:13
Speaker 1: about and we're gonna we're gonna get rid of it together. Um.
57:17
Speaker 1: I doubt if it's like they have some talk therapy
57:20
Speaker 1: and then they just go through and clear the house out.
57:22
Speaker 1: It's probably very gradual thing to heal someone of this. Yeah,
57:27
Speaker 1: but I think it is gradual, like you said, and
57:29
Speaker 1: against family has to support it because you know, they
57:32
Speaker 1: may give the person they say, like your therapist knows
57:35
Speaker 1: exactly how you feel every Thursday at two o'clock, you know,
57:38
Speaker 1: I mean you're there for an hour. Um, probably more
57:41
Speaker 1: than that if you are a diagnosed toward er and
57:43
Speaker 1: you're undergoing treatment. But the point is it's not an
57:47
Speaker 1: impatient treatment. You go back home afterward and they give
57:51
Speaker 1: you homework, and if you're a chronic hoarder, you're probably
57:54
Speaker 1: not going to do the homework. So you need to
57:56
Speaker 1: have family saying, well, didn't doctor so and so say
57:59
Speaker 1: you need to start to clear this room out this
58:02
Speaker 1: week and just just kind of be there and know
58:04
Speaker 1: what's going on and support the treatment as well, and
58:08
Speaker 1: not just leave them to their own devices. Yeah. And
58:10
Speaker 1: the hoarders that have no family and support system, those
58:13
Speaker 1: are the ones that are just so tragic because they're
58:16
Speaker 1: the least likely to get help and seek help and uh,
58:20
Speaker 1: you know, potentially die a very kind of sad, lonely
58:24
Speaker 1: life surrounded by their stuff. Yeah. I think those are
58:26
Speaker 1: the ones that are the ones you see on the news,
58:29
Speaker 1: the ones that don't have family and friends anymore. Yeah.
58:31
Speaker 1: So I guess the upshot of all this chuck is
58:33
Speaker 1: that if you know a hoarder, um, maybe go be
58:38
Speaker 1: nice to them and see if you can help them out,
58:40
Speaker 1: because they are most likely suffering calm passion. Yeah, there
58:44
Speaker 1: you go. If you want to know more about hoarding,
58:47
Speaker 1: you can type that word in the search bar bring
58:49
Speaker 1: up this excellent article by Ed Grabanowski on how stuff
58:52
Speaker 1: works dot common. Since I said that it's time for
58:54
Speaker 1: a listener mail, short and sweet is what I called
58:58
Speaker 1: this because cracks me up. Occasionally when someone is just
59:01
Speaker 1: cracked up by some dumb thing we said I know
59:05
Speaker 1: this one. Hey guys, you made my day once again.
59:07
Speaker 1: I spent December listening to Christmas music. Me too, by
59:10
Speaker 1: the way, Oh man, I was done in week one. Yeah,
59:14
Speaker 1: I can. I can muscle through generally for the most part.
59:18
Speaker 1: Not because eventually and we can go. It wasn't the
59:22
Speaker 1: Christmas spirit, just Christmas music this year. I was like,
59:25
Speaker 1: I can't take this at all. Yeah. Yeah, eventually I
59:28
Speaker 1: have to say, all right, we need to like turn
59:30
Speaker 1: on Radiohead or something. And that's why I go to
59:33
Speaker 1: because she'll go she can always listen to radio Head. Yes,
59:35
Speaker 1: she's like, I love Radioheads Christmas album. Oh my god,
59:38
Speaker 1: can you imagine? Um? Now, I'm just hearing various versions
59:44
Speaker 1: of that in my head. Very nice. Um. So I
59:50
Speaker 1: spent December listening to Christmas music, so I got behind
59:53
Speaker 1: on my podcast. I'm currently listening in reverse to December.
59:56
Speaker 1: I was just striving to work listening to Cake and
59:58
Speaker 1: I almost had to pull over because I was laughing
1:00:00
Speaker 1: so hard at the conversation about oven doors. Josh, I'm sorry, Chuck,
1:00:05
Speaker 1: do you have a window in your oven door? Josh?
1:00:08
Speaker 1: Of course? What am I a communist? Between that and
1:00:11
Speaker 1: Chuck baking in his dishwasher. You two made this a
1:00:15
Speaker 1: perfect day. I gotta say I cannot wait to see
1:00:17
Speaker 1: you next week again in Portland. My stuff you should
1:00:21
Speaker 1: know Bingo board is ready travel safe and that is
1:00:24
Speaker 1: jin Hunt Jen. By the time this comes out, we
1:00:26
Speaker 1: will have just been in Portland and um maybe we
1:00:29
Speaker 1: have even met you. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed the show.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: I hope everybody in Portland enjoyed the show. And as
1:00:35
Speaker 1: a follow up, I don't know if I officially said
1:00:37
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're saying this. I think I posted on Facebook,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: but I definitely do not have an oven window. No,
1:00:43
Speaker 1: Chuck is officially a communist as an oven without a window,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: and I've never seen anything like it before. It's like
1:00:49
Speaker 1: a tank. It's great. Yeah, it's a good look an oven.
1:00:52
Speaker 1: I don't want to see that jump cooking. Okay, Well,
1:00:56
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us to
1:00:57
Speaker 1: let us know how we cracked you up, we love
1:01:00
Speaker 1: of hearing about that. You can tweet to us s
1:01:02
Speaker 1: y s K podcast. You can send us an email
1:01:05
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and as always,
1:01:08
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