If you're feeling blue about your situation in life, watch some "Hoarders."

That's all. I watched an episode last night. The same can be said for "Addiction."

You want to even feel better about your life?

Go into one of their houses.

It'll make you question humanity.

Every day at work, I enter the home of at least one hoarder.

Not cool.

In reply to Woody:

Man, I don't think I could do a job that involved me going into people's homes for that reason.

I attended a few back in Oz in the job, nothing cool about that at all

You are just watching the wrong shows. Try one of them picker shows where it isn't "Oh my god look at this junk" in a bad way. It is "Holy crap, Look at all this awesome junk!"

My friend is a hoarder. I can't go into his house. You can tell hes ashamed of it but can't stop.

This kind of thing freaks me out. I was behind a volvo wagon the other day that was so loaded down with stuff that the suspension was fully compressed.

Imagine one of these things in a wreck. The amount of projectiles in the vehicle are bad enough but imagine what all that excess weight could do to another car in the accident. The Volvo I saw had to have at least 1000lbs of crap in it.

Wow. Left turns must be impossible to see what's coming from the right side.

Mr Wallens has just explained most reality TV.

Reality TV is one of the reasons I cancelled my cable. I know humanity is slowly losing all dignity and respect for itself, I just don't need to watch it for entertainment.

I won't watch those. My wife's maiden aunt Julie was a classic. NOBODY allowed to enter her house. I did some plumbing repair for her on the outside. Had to take a whiz, had to go to the convenience store. She passed a few months ago, a nice model A was in her garage, and several real pieces of art were also found. Yet the electric had been off for a year, no running water, and she would not permit anyone to help. Her van was very close to being like the one shown above. Sad. Don't need to watch that for entertainment.

Yeah, I've seen a few cars like that around....

It's worse when they roll into your shop.....

"That's the box from the girl scout cookies I bought from my niece in 1991."

"That's the pile of kleenex I blew my nose into when my sister died."

"That's the plastic bag I was holding when I heard my favorite soap got canceled."

"That's the bag of chips I opened right as Conway Twitty came on the radio."

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"All of these things are special to me."

Woody wrote: *Every* day at work, I enter the home of at least one hoarder. Not cool.

I get about two a week. I hate it. I can't fix your damn TV when you have garbage stacked around it higher than it.

Almost all hoarders have an underlying psychological disorder or traumatic life event that causes them to hoard. Most of them are afraid to get the help they need until it has consumed their life and home with garbage.

I have several friends who work on the show and they say the thing you miss on TV is the smell. The sound guy is an old friend and he sent me a picture of him and the grip in full hazmat suits getting ready to go in for the shoot. He also told me of one show where the hoarder was smoking crank while they were shooting. That didn't make it to air.

That said the stories are heart breaking. They don't deal with issues until it destroys their life just like any other addiction.

z31maniac wrote: Mr Wallens has just explained most reality TV.

And maybe that's why I rarely venture past Law & Order.

Drama is based on reality.

I was friends with a guy when I was young who lived in a "hoarder" house. It was terrible to go over. There were little 6 inch wide paths leading around. The family was really well off too, so the piles kept growing...

I work with a guy like that. He makes good money, hoards, and is cheap to a fault. His taurus stationwagon is piled high to the roof with junk

We call him "pockets" behind his back.. you can guess why

I just hope they combine Hoarders with American Pickers. Wouldn't that be something?

I have to admit that I have to work pretty hard at not becoming a full-on hoarder. I have a habit of becoming sentimentally attached to stupid things. I also keep things around in case I'll ever need them. I tend not to throw anything that might have some use at some point, and never toss them. You should see the broken car parts I keep around in my shed. There have been some occasions that I've used something, but for the most part, it's stuff that should either be trashed or scrapped. But I keep the stuff, even though I'll likely never have a use for it.

I think some of it comes from having my dad throw away quite a bit of my stuff when I was younger. Mostly for no rhyme nor reason. He especially seemed to like getting rid of stuff that I worked to buy with my own money. Bikes, video games, DVDs, you name it, he's at least tried to get rid of it at some point. This wasn't for discipline, either. He'd just randomly take stuff from me and get rid of it.

I'm still not on the best terms with him.

I used to take an elderly lady grocery shopping every week. Lived in a large trailer that was packed with stuff and uncounted cats. In the summer I had to hold my breath and put the grocery bags just inside the door. Had another. Almost as bad.

Lesley wrote: Reality TV is one of the reasons I cancelled my cable. I know humanity is slowly losing all dignity and respect for itself, I just don't need to watch it for entertainment.

Same here.