Hasta La Ideas

Last night, A&E aired its first episode of its series “Hoarders.” The show will air weekly on Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET/9:00 p.m. CT.

I didn’t write about it beforehand because I was nervous about how the show was going to treat the subject matter. Hoarding is a psychological disorder and compulsive hoarders should be under the treatment of a licensed medical professional, and I was afraid that the mental health issues would be pushed aside for the shock and awe of the homes.

After watching the first episode, I have to say that they did go for shock and awe — the show actually began like an episode of the fictional drama “Law and Order” and the music added during editing makes the show sound like a horror film — but, they did mention some of the underlying issues of the psychological disorder. And, in the show’s favor, they used trained professionals to help the hoarders on the show. One of the professional organizers in the first episode is NSGCD-certified Geralin Thomas, whose writing you have seen here on Unclutterer and whose work I greatly admire. So, even though you might not have seen it in the episode, I feel confident that the hoarders were treated with respect off camera and at least in Jill and Ron’s case the hoarders are receiving continuing help.

Unfortunately, I followed the Twitter streams of people responding to the show as they were watching it and was horrified by what some people were saying. Many people were judging the hoarders as being “bad” and “disgusting” instead of individuals, real people, who are suffering from a psychological disorder. I hope that in the coming episodes the show works more diligently to educate viewers about the mental health issues that hoarders experience and treat the issue with more respect (less horror film sound effects and shock-and-awe editing). I also hope that they provide more information about what happens after the initial cleanup and medical treatment that is available for hoarders. As it is now, it seemed that most viewers were just interested in looking at piles of stuff and A&E definitely catered to them.

Instead of the link at the beginning of the episode that referred hoarders to InterventionTV (I’m not kidding, they directed people to a site about how they can be on a reality television show), we at Unclutterer recommend the following resources:

• OC Foundation
• Squalor Survivors
• Children of Hoarders

Hoarding is a topic that we at Unclutterer feel should be part of the uncluttering conversation. Hoarding is a serious medical condition, usually linked to obsessive compulsive disorder, which can take over someone’s life and living space.

The other day, I discovered the website Hoardhouse. It is a project being assembled by a group of journalism students at Columbia University. From the their website:

All three of the authors are very curious about the issue of hoarding and how it impacts the lives of New York City residents.

This project will explore the hoarders, psychologists, social workers, and cleanup specialists for whom hoarding is a defining phenomenon.

The final version of the site will be live by March 23, 2009.

While readers of Unclutterer may be familiar with hoarding, it is a psychological ailment that still isn’t understood by much of the general public. It is encouraging to see these journalism students working to increase public awareness about the disorder’s damaging effects.

If you or someone you know struggles with compulsive hoarding, please try and get help from the following resources:

• OC Foundation
• Squalor Survivors
• Children of Hoarders

Once again, hoarding is a disorder that should be treated by a licensed medical professional.