Enough already my ass

[candyshopgirl]

So have any of you seen this new show on OWN network(Oprah Winfrey network)? Its called enough already with Peter Walsh.So basically Oprah's organizer expert(yeah right) takes hoarders and cleans out their house. The difference between this show and the A&E hoarder is these people are clean. What pisses me off is Peter tells them they have to get rid of 95% of their stuff. And he gives them 5 mins to decide what they want to keep. He gave this woman 3 mins to clean out her shoes. And then after the 3 mins he dumps the rest into boxes. She said hey wait a min I have to go throught those, they are heels for work. And he sits on the box so she cant do it. I dunno this show just rubs me the wrong way.
And then they make over the rooms and sure they are beautiful but they seem so sertile and not warm and inviting.

[Greenday]

I'm not too surprised.

Then again, Oprah rubs me the wrong way a lot.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, doing that to a hoarder is not helpful. They aren't doing it because they just can't get around to cleaning their homes. They have a mental condition, and doing that to them is extremely traumatic.

That's just cruel and messed up.

[Squeaksmyalias]

Not only cruel and messed up but she might have actually NEEDED what he threw out. So now she feels bad about herself and needs to go buy new shoes for work? Nice, wonder how much stuff he made her get rid of that was needed but not in the first things to sort?

[AdminAssistant]

Well, remember, this whole thing is being done for television, and a woman having a nervous breakdown makes good television. I'm guessing that the vast majority of all that is staged. For all we know, as soon as the cameras were off, they let the woman go back through her shoes.

Also, any "We come into your life for a week and fix everything" show is very much faked. Extreme Makeover? They do build a house (usually in 9-10 days, not 7), but Ty Pennington only makes a presence on the first and last day. A friend of mine has volunteered a few times, and noted how little work the ABC folks do on those houses. With this show, they can't give the woman the time she needs to work through her disease and clean up her house because the TV personalities can't be tied up for that long. Got to move on to the next place and the next place.

And, this has to be said, as much sympathy as I may have for the woman, she's the one that invited the television crew into her home. And, at the end, she's the one who signed the paper giving them permission to air her image for broadcast. At any point, she could go to the producer and say, "Stop the cameras and GTFO of my home."

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Cleaning a hoarder's home does not fix the problem. The person still has a devastating mental disorder. I'd be interested in knowing if they are providing mental health support and aid?

That's like seeing a guy on crutches and "helping" him by getting rid of the crutches. Dude's still got a broken leg.

[CaptainJaneway]

There is another show called hoarding: buried alive which i think is now on fitv which use to be on dhc which was replaced with OWN.

I prefer this show over Hoarders one because they actually take the time and effort to help these people. They have a therapist do an intial visit with them. They also get the family members into therapy if needed. They also stay with them more than the two days that hoarders allows.

Also on hoarders i don't like that matt guy he is way too rough on some of these people. They don't seem to understand that these people have some deep mental issues that can not be fixed in 2 days.

[Kanalah]

My mom is a hoarder. Going in and cleaning out her house like that would just kill her. Trust me, I used to try to keep her place clean. She kicked me out for trying to help her, then got 2 more cats to add to the mess. Ugh. Now my sister lives in the hoarded house and my mom has moved in with my grandmother - like nothing happened. She blames me for her house being so messy.

It's a mental disease, like OCD. I have it as well, but I do my best to keep things cleaned and organized. I don't want my kids growing up the same way I did.

[MaggieTheCat]

I found the official website for the show and on it was a test you could take to see how much of a hoarder you are, so for shits and giggles I went ahead and took it. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being best, I think, and 10 being hardcore hoarder) I got a 5 and the test said that I was cluttered and needed to straighten up my life now before it got worse.

Here are a few things that the test asked, and my responses:
"How many magazines do you have?" I answered the middle response since I do keep all of the cooking magazines I get because, gasp, guess what, I use them. I have them stacked neatly and in order in my pantry but that doesn't count, apparently.
"Could you have a party tomorrow and not need to clean up?" Again I answered the middle response. I generally keep the house relatively neat but I do like to do extra vacuuming and picking up when our friends come over. If a friend came over unannounced the house is not in shameful condition and it wouldn't be a big deal, but when we plan to have guests over, we do extra cleaning right before-hand. Seriously, who keeps their house so impeccable 100% of the time that there's never any dust on the floor or anything at all on the living room coffee table?
"Are your kids' toys put away?" We don't have kids and there's no option to say so, so F you!
"Are there dirty dishes in the sink?" Yeah, my and my husband's cereal bowls from this morning when we had breakfast. Oh noes, I didn't wash them as soon as we were done with them, I'm a horrible hoarder!

There were a couple more that I picked the "middle" answer for, none that I picked the "worst" answer for, and several that I picked the "best" answer for, and I still got ranked as a hoarder. Apparently to NOT be a hoarder, you have to be OCD about having everything clean and in its place 100% of the time. I don't see how any normal person could pick the "best" answer for every single question all the time -- who doesn't keep stuff on their table, or stick their home insurance policy in a folder and then forget about it after a while?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If you ask me, Oprah Winfrey is a lot of what's wrong with society.

She's not the Queen of the world, not Jesus Christ. She's a talk show host. So why do so many people hang on her every word and tune in to the shows of her friends (Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Suze Orman) just because they're her friends?

When she finally ends that talk show of hers, I won't miss it one bit.

[wagegoth]

If you ask me, Oprah Winfrey is a lot of what's wrong with society.

She's not the Queen of the world, not Jesus Christ. She's a talk show host. So why do so many people hang on her every word and tune in to the shows of her friends (Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Suze Orman) just because they're her friends?

Oprah has so many personal issues that she really needs to shut down the show and get help, but the adulation she gets feeds some need, and a lot of screwed up people identify with her. I mean, a bunch of viewers got upset because she lost weight, because they couldn't identify with her anymore. That is completely eff'ed up. Well, now she's fat again, so I wonder how much her audience will change.

[ArcticChicken]

Extreme Makeover? They do build a house (usually in 9-10 days, not 7), but Ty Pennington only makes a presence on the first and last day. A friend of mine has volunteered a few times, and noted how little work the ABC folks do on those houses.

Plus I've heard plenty of stories about people then loosing those houses because they can't afford to pay the heating bill or there's still a mortgage on the property and they can't pay that, or whatever. Mind you, I haven't done a lot of digging to find out if it's true, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

a lot of screwed up people identify with her. I mean, a bunch of viewers got upset because she lost weight, because they couldn't identify with her anymore. That is completely eff'ed up. Well, now she's fat again, so I wonder how much her audience will change.

If I told people I identified with Jerry Springer (another talk show host), they'd probably recommend I seek professional help.

So why are these Oprah-holics any different?

[AdminAssistant]

Plus I've heard plenty of stories about people then loosing those houses because they can't afford to pay the heating bill or there's still a mortgage on the property and they can't pay that, or whatever.

Yeah, I know one of the KC families either lost or almost lost their house because they couldn't pay the taxes and utilities on it. They *did* lose the new cars that were given to them, IIRC. And then there's the other problems that come from...building a house in matter of days and not letting the foundation or framework settle.

Ugh. "Reality" TV.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Could friends come over right now? Depends on the friends. I'm doing laundry, and right now my tiny living room is full of baskets and folded laundry. I would rather nobody see my flimsies all over the damn room. But the room's otherwise clean. I like nice open spaces in a house. (and to the CS member that was actually over at my house a couple weeks ago for a few minutes and saw that unspeakable disaster that was my front room...well...me and the husband had words about that Sunday afternoon. That was a damn shame and I am mortified that you saw that. So much for my request to "not fuck the house up while I'm gone". )

Sound like some of those questions are misleading.

Frankly, I recognize some of my own tendencies in the people in those shows. I am not a hoarder...but I bet I am walking a fine line. I don't hold onto shit like I used to (I used to be poverty stricken, I have a feeling that has some bearing on things), but I do often find myself having conversations with myself in order to make myself be okay with tossing shit out. I have to say things to myself like "Have you even used this ever? Will you even remember this thing? Can you buy this if it turns out you DO need one?" I have to do that.

There but for the grace of God go I. It scares the hell out of me. My dad is a hoarder, but my mom's got him enough under control it's limited to his two workshops outside. And fortunately, he's got enough OCD contamination phobias he would never hoard food in a million years. It's not out of control, floor to ceiling, "oh my Lord in heaven this man is off the rails" hoarding, but it's bad enough his shops are almost too cluttered to work in. I'm sure I get the tendency from him. He gets mad if you say "Dad, wouldn't you rather have the space than the [fill in the piece of random crap he could just go out and buy if he needed to].

On the flipside, he's incredibly resourceful and builds cool things out of junk. And he invents helpful items. So I can totally see where he might go "Huh, I could make x out of that."

But let me tell you, when you recognize that if your cheese slips off your cracker just a little bit more than it already is, that crazy broad doing the dumpster dive could be you, it's a sobering thought. Hopefully, recognizing it for what it is will stave it off.