Have You Ever Been To A Hoarders House?

I've been to a few now myself but nothing like where I went 2 nights ago...I literally almost puked and had to hold my breath while in the confines of this woman's house! I went there to pick up a TV and dehumidifier and immediately when she opened the door I noticed the black mold right inside the threshold of the door. Then the smell hit me like a slap in the nose! Ugh, it was brutal, old moldy wood and carpet and (I'm gagging just thinking about it again) dust everywhere. I'm not even sure she was a hoarder, maybe just lazy (she did not appear to be a fan of dieting;)) The place wasn't cluttered up like you see on the TV show but everything was old and dirty. I have never rushed out of someone's house like that before! I usually make a little small talk and try to mention other items I take but this time I couldn't have cared less if she had a basement full of 486s! Didn't leave a card, just got outta Dodge!

Closest for me is a house that always puts stuff in the alley. These items have black widow spiders almost in every item taken. There yard has tarps covering piles and piles of stuff. In the front of there house is a row of fake Christmas Trees piled on top of each other stretches about 20 feet long and several feet high! Carport full of stuff... I always wondered what it is like inside.

Its a sad situation. I don't understand it but she needs help. Not saying to "drop a dime" but someone needs to intervene there. Fire hazard, fleas, rats. How close were nearest neighbors? Black mold is nasty!!

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Originally Posted by NJSouth

Its a sad situation. I don't understand it but she needs help. Not saying to "drop a dime" but someone needs to intervene there. Fire hazard, fleas, rats. How close were nearest neighbors? Black mold is nasty!!

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It was town homes so neighbours on both sides don't even have space between units. Didn't even think about reporting it, just never want to go back. She's in the next town over so I don't know anyone near her. As I mentioned she does not take care of herself, either. I don't like to bash people's appearances but if she doesn't have some glandular problem, she really needs to start doing some healthier things.

Yep I went into a small apartment the tentant abandoned just full of trash this person hoarded there trash. The odd thing was that it was all bagged up and didn't smell but there had to be a few hundred trash bags. There was about 20 mattresses and I told the lady I'm not touching any of it incase it had bed bugs and I told her she couldn't pay me enough to deal with it

I got to do a better one. A friend bought a bigger house because of his expanding family. The old people who had moved out of it had kept everything. There were lots of nice antiques and other good stuff, you just had to dig through piles of newspapers, magazines and paper bags all folded neatly. It wasn't garbage, just stuff. We found guns, vintage clothes, a few silver coins, antique toys and 300 lbs of wire clothes hangers!

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Originally Posted by AdmiralAluminum

Have You Ever Been To A Hoarders House?

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Yes, But I did not have to deal with the smell or too much of the mess
The house, located on Cape Cod, was on the early May Hoarding show on TV
I towed away both vans

yes
The house was in good shape and things were in order...now outside of the house was a different story acres of piles and piles and piles more outbuildings than you could count on your fingers and toes full to the brim.
at least 100 cars, trucks, heavy equipment in a row 1000 ft long, 20 or 30 boats, it was a lot to take in walking around...a lot to take in, I didn't see half from what I was told.
it was his life long collection.. and he wasn't ready to sell, gotta respect that.

NHS, that was my Grandfather to a T. My Grandmother kept the house and the front yard clean as a whistle. Everything not visible from the road was fair game for junk though.

He had 508 cars, 23 semis, 56 pieces of various heavy equipment (not including farm equipment), 48 tractors, god knows how many attachments for various vehicles, equipment, and tractors, 47 trailers from Semi trailers, to dump, trailers, to welding trailers, to car trailers, 39 oil/gas tanks to mount on stands, and piles and piles of appliances and other various things for shred.

When he died, I had some of my workers go scrap everything in the scrap/shred piles. I scrapped all of the vehicles newer than 1990 that weren't pickups or semis and the rest I go through personally when I have time and decide on what to do with it. I've fixed 30 of probably 320 cars left and sold them. I've made 4 pickups into trailers. I sold 5 semis for scrap and i'm parting out 15. 3 are in use at my company. All salvageable/working trailers have been kept. 7 were scrapped. 40 pieces of heavy equipment were scrapped and 6 are being parted out. The rest are either in use at my house or my company. 20 tractors were scrapped, 20 were sold to a local diesel mechanic and 2 work. 7 are awaiting my attention. All usable tanks were kept but, about 12 were scrapped.


I have miles and miles of all gauges of wire and more tools than I could ever need.

I've kept everything with a definite purpose and recycled everything that definitely could never be used again. All junk that was not metal went into a burn pile the size of ranch house which was burnt off 8 or 9 times and hazardous material went into a roll off container which was filled thrice.

The money from the scrap went to building a very nice shop on a piece of property he had already owned across the road from my house and the lack of junk in the yard made for a very happy grandmother. She didn't want any of the money because as you've probably already guessed my grandfather was a rich man. He grew up poor with dirt floors in a single room house and as a result he kept everything. He owned a nursery with 25 greenhouses, four automotive shops, five gas stations, a paving and grading business, he taught Soil Science at NCSU for 30 years and wrote quite a few books which my grandmother now receives royalties from.

He died last year in October at 81. He was a great man and the definition of the American dream

WOW, what a story!! His early life certainly left an impression on him!

I used to be a Firefighter/EMT and I have been to hoarders homes for both fires and medical emergencies.

We had a fire at a hoarder house and it took 4 of us to force the front door open so we could fight the fire.

Hoarders are almost all grossly overweight as well.

Hoarders are mentally ill and need serious help to get out of their situation.

I've been doing a TON of cleanouts and I'd say one out of six whole house cleanouts have been hoarders. The one in August was nasty. The whole house was a cat litter box....this stuff was in places I couldn't even figure out how a cat would do the duty there. I did find my coolest find so far at that house. A brand new, never opened, still in the box in the styrofoam in the plastic Nintendo Entertainment System! Box had to go but it was protected by the styrofoam. It was awesome to set that up and watch my son be the first person to play that Mario brothers game....that was a priceless moment. Been working with another hoarder in my town....sister discovered her living situation and we've been diligently, if not slowly getting rid of all her trash. She wears adult diapers and they just get thrown on the floor( this habit seems to have been broken as now they get put in trash bags and on the front porch for us to pick up, these issues take time and a lot of patience to fix)......talk about gagging. But these jobs pay very well for us.....so we do them.

I ran across a sister duo that were hoarders. It was in high school and I was doing my Eagle Scout project which consisted of helping repaint several older people with disabilities houses. One of these was a deaf-blind guy my dad knew who ran a candy snack stand down at the central post office (I wish I had a video of how that worked because it was set up so cool with a manual typewriter machine on the front for customers that would come up in braille for the guy. He also had card file boxes that had type of what the item that also had braille on it as well. A customer would go through the box, find the card, and hand it to Marvin.) When I and my crew were working at his house, I would spell out words letter by letter in the palm of his hand. It was slow but worked.

Anyway, Marvin had a dog who was older and after getting his house painted, Marvin was going to move into a retirement home. These sisters found out that Marvin was going to put the dog down when he moved and decided to kidnap it. They were going to take the dog when Marvin let it out to whiz. They weren't expecting for me and my guys to be there so that sort of broke things up as they were trying to lure the dog away. They drove a little station wagon that was loaded to the gills with stuff.

Fast forward a few months and they turn up in the news. These sisters were living in an older house not far from the post office in a more depressed part of town. Somebody who frequently walked past the place started to complain to the city about the stink coming from it. Official folks showed up and it turned up there were dozens and dozens of cats in the place with paper, cat crap, and other stuff up as high as these old gals could reach or throw. Under some power invested with the city, the place was commended and bulldozed within a couple of weeks. I'm not sure where the sisters ended up but I don't think either was around much longer...

I have been in many, many hoarder homes. I don't even smell them anymore.