That's an understatement!

When she giggled when the men chased the rat? There's nothing giggly and cute.

The pest control guy looked so shocked and annoyed. He was like "this isn't cute and funny. These aren't mice like at Disney Land. These are RATS and they can hurt you. They don't have bladders so when they urinate they urinate anywhere. On your clothes, in your food, and it will seem invisible because you can't see it."

I didn't know rats don't have bladders. :eek:

ETA: I chuckled when she said "you don't get a book for its cover" a la "don't judge a book by its cover"

If you cared about those books and other materials you wouldn't let rats take over these items.

rats don't have bladders? that's insanity!

I just googled, because rats are a mammal, and not to have a bladder would be an anomaly. They do have bladders, but no bladder control. That makes more sense. And EWW!

Still... rats aren't cute nor are they something to giggle about. I hate "Hoarders" because I always want to smack some sense into those people. My ex was borderline - I remember when we divorced and sold our house I had to spend hours with him going though stuff that wasn't mine trying to convince him that it wasn't important. And, the house was also full of stinkbugs (I had moved out all my stuff by then, but still) not as bad as roaches or rats, of course.

Thanks for researching that, AOII Lisa. I knew rats are "of the devil" so I figured that's how they could be bladderless mammals. LOL. I guess the pest control guy meant having a bladder is practically pointless if you can't use the bladder.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The "little person" who hoards with her mother. They have slept in the same bed together for years. They spent 20-22 hours per day in bed. They eat, watch TV, play with the dogs...in the bed. The dogs also lay in the bed with them.

That is gross and disgusting beyond the hoarding.

There is a scene in this episode where it sounded like they were laying in the bed nonstop farting. LOL. Maybe they were grunting. I don't know.

The daughter is grown yet trapped in perpetual childhood. Being a "little person" makes it difficult for people to take you seriously as an adult. Hoarding with your parent and sleeping in the bed together makes it even more difficult. It reminds me of The Great Child and The Dire Mother in (the 2001 remake of) "Thir13teen Ghosts."

I had to stop watching this show.

Oh yeah...I think I've seen that episode before. She's the one who had the water-damaged/moldy law school books that she said were still good, right?

I remember seeing one episode where this lady was taking her on feces and putting it in plastic shopping bags because she couldn't get to her bathroom. She was urinating in coffee cans. That was the nastiest thing I had ever seen.

I watched reruns yesterday.

A morbidly obese woman in Canada had decayed food, a rotted refrigerator, and dog feces all over the house. It was a nice house if not for the hoarding and fecal matter. The cleaning crew were choking and fighting back vomit.

This article reminded me of that episode: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...s-home-n132031

Did you see that a woman died recently because her floor collapsed under the weight of all of that stuff? What was she hoarding, pennies? They had to cut a hole into the house so they could use a backhoe to get the stuff out.

Quoted so you people can read the news article I posted. ;)

Tonight's episode was vomit worthy. This man's house had hundreds of thousands if not millions of roaches. Everywhere. Literally. In the spice rack. In the layers of his bed. All over this man's clothes and body.

I admit I sometimes watch the show, but am always repulsed at the hoaders with the worst hygene/health issues, especially when kids are involved.

Do you think hoarding is a "new" problem compared to say, a 100 years ago when they did not have as much "stuff" to worry about? I had never heard of anything this extreme until I saw this show. I tend to throw away most expendable things...sometimes to my detriment, so I am fascinated by anyone who would hoard.

That's a good question. Do you ever watch American Pickers? Some of the people they buy from have been "collecting" for decades.

Hoarding (under various names) has existed for generations. Somewhere on GC, maybe in this thread, there is a link to a website on the history of hoarding. I can't remember the name but generations ago a man died in his huge house or apartment because he was buried under tons of stuff.

American Pickers highlights why some collectors make it a point to not display hoarding tendencies. Collecting is hoarding once it becomes disorganized and/or dirty and obsessive and overbearing. Hoarding is discussed by more mental health organizations as a sign or symptom of other mental health conditions (including OCD). That also helps some collectors carefully draw the line between collecting and hoarding.

I do watch American Pickers...good comparison. However, I never made the connection to hoarding. My thoughts were that the collectors were idealistic businessmen/women with poor business plans...maybe they are hoarders?

Have you ever watched Storage Wars? Another interesting show. I find it fascinating that there are enough relinquished storage units across the country to warrant blind auctions.

And thank you DrPhil for the history/explanation!

An example of a history of hoarding:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/ment...ses.htm#page=0

...300 cats and the occasional raccoon? The two brothers story was unreal as well.

Well it's off to bed for me...here is to hoping this clean freak will not have hoarding nightmares... :)

When I'm watching American Pickers, there are some clues that convey a "hoarder" mentality. Hoarder -- when they are very reluctant to sell anything, even though they have tons of stuff, a lot of it is rusting or sitting outside, they say they have plans to restore an item but you can just tell they'll never get to it, etc.

Not hoarder -- someone who may have a ton of stuff, but it's generally in good shape and displayed nicely; their possessions are leftovers from a closed business and they definitely want to get rid of the stuff; they talk about trading/buying/selling/making a profit and don't express an "I'll have some use for this someday" mentality.

Sometimes I wonder what the homes look like, when you see how much stuff they have in the yard and sheds. On the other hand, sometimes I don't, because you just know it will probably be bad....

I got the willies just reading this. I would die if I had roaches, I've seen exactly one in my house that zoomed behind the fridge. I yelled for my husband to come pull out the fridge, bracing myself for the waves of roaches I knew were living behind there, but there was just the one little guy who was quickly dispatched. We'd just gotten our monthly farmstand delivery of locally grown produce that day, so I'm guessing that's where he came from. Not that it made me feel any better about the food that I got...

We just moved from one house to another this weekend and I threw out some stuff of mine as I do with every move because I get tired of hauling things from place to place, but yet I noticed there were boxes of the same old crap coming with us - mostly my (new) husband's mom's junk. And I do mean junk. Cheap and tacky ceramic figurines, cracked old dishes, dusty fake flowers - JUNK. And stuff I packed in boxes for the "yard sale" that we never had were all unpacked and had to be repacked again. Plus items that I actually threw out (like an old rolling pin that was in the house when we moved in) reappeared in the piles of things to move. BUT, he actually did put some items out in front of the house with a sign "FREE" so I guess that's progress.

Marathon on Discovery Fit & Health. We've discussed most of these episodes in this thread.

Hot mess. Out of the 6 episodes I watched this evening, the episode that still bothers me the most is the woman who found rats cute and claimed she was an eternal law school student.

I flat out stopped watching this show. I.cant.

I enjoy watching the show. as a neat and organized person I find it... Unbelievable. I can understand that hoarding is a mental disorder but I get crazed when the inhabitants don't throw away animal feces.