The psychologists and cleaning experts on "Hoarders"

I would want Matt and Robin on my team.

Must... tape... everything...

Such an interesting post, that I enjoyed reading…until the inevitable Trump reference. I’m seriously wondering when it will cease to infect every topic.

R1 Matt Paxton is actually a recovered alcoholic, gambling and drug addict himself—which seems hard to believe when you see him. He comes across as a suburban Mormon dad or something. His story is interesting. I think he has more patience and empathy for the hoarders because of his own background.

I don't care for Robin, her whispery baby talk voice grates. She was on almost every episode the most recent season aside from a couple with David. I also like him.

"I'm Dr. Melva Green, board-certified sic-iatrist."

My favorite is Suzanne Chabaud, though. I love her accent.

David Tolin is my favourite, but I can't stand Dorothy - she seems over the top, fake and hard to watch. Matt Paxton is very funny in outtakes.

I can’t stand these fucking empathetic enabling psycho-babblers. These hoarders need to be told that everything is going straight in the trash… end of fucking story.

r8 = "Dr." Laura

What's the worst thing that would happen if they cleaned out someone's place? The Hoarder would have a good cry and get over it,

It seems to be a similar mindset to those people on My 600lb Life where some kind of trauma has caused it to happen. My family has a couple of people who just can't let go of stuff and I'm dreading a potential divorce or some kind of trigger to turn it in to a complete hoarding disorder. I don't want to pay for a million skips to chuck it all out into.

Dr. Elizabeth Moore is awful. (I've been binge watching on YouTube.)

What do you call people who compulsively throw out everything when they move on to a new life phase?

I have a family member who can’t bear to be reminded of past events. She says it makes her too aware of the rapid passing of time. So she throws out EVERYTHING every few years.

That doesn’t seem normal, either.

It seems much better than the alternative, r13.

Stuff is stuff. It's really nothing more than a burden to those left to clean up when we die.

Anybody have a recommendation for some of the best episodes?

r15 this is my favorite episode.

[quote] What's the worst thing that would happen if they cleaned out someone's place? The Hoarder would have a good cry and get over it,

And then start hoarding again.

Most of those who live like this have intense, deeply buried anger issues stemming from serious trauma in their childhoods of at some point in their adult lives. Hanging onto everything, collecting as much as possible gives them a sense of control lacking in their lives. Invariably every episode includes some kind of explosion from the hoarder at family, friends and professionals. It's horrifying, deeply sad and irrational.

I can only stand to watch maybe 1 episode of shows like this or Intervention on A&E. They deal with complex mental and substance abuse issues and how it breaks down a family to its most desperate core. It’s too sad and upsetting for me to stomach.

No one can rock bat wing sleeves like Dr. Zasio.

Sometimes they really go for the sensational, like the time an elderly hoarder was found to have been shitting on the floor. Zasio must have said, in her concerned voice “Billy, your grandmother was defecating on the floor. How does that make you feel?” to her grandkids a half dozen times in the episode.

There are episodes that make you mad or make you sad. 90% of them had me gritting my teeth at stuff like the boneheaded hoarder who was crying about a broken plate that had been buried under 30 years of junk that got thrown away. Those kinds of fools made my blood boil.

On the other side was the episode with the woman who lived in a horrible home where the plumbing no longer worked. She was an older woman with health problems, who could barely walk, who couldn't wash herself and used adult diapers 24/7 due to her plumbing issue. She threw the diapers into her unusable bathroom after she relieved herself in them - the cleaners found a pile of diapers at least 5 feet high and the ammonia from them had eaten a hole in the bathroom floor. This poor wretch would tie herself to a commode (toilet) chair at night and sleep on it. I'm pretty sure they couldn't fix her house and she had to move in with her daughter, who had previously given up trying to get her mom help.

I also liked the chick who would piss and shit in jars and save them.

Then you'd see all the hunky college-aged cleaners out in the yard and street puking their guts out.

Yeah ... any episode that features an nonworking toilet is hard to stomach.

It's hard to believe some people let their homes get into that state. The ones where they hoard possessions are marginally more understandable than those who don't even throw out literal trash.

r24 as someone who collects books (many of which I'll never realistically read), I think hoarding is a psychological defense against the fear of our own mortality. In my case, I think, "I cannot die until I read all these books." Maybe not consciously. But the physical books build a nice psychic barrier between me and death.

I've always liked the opening of Janet Frame's novel The Edge of the Alphabet:

"Man is the only species for whom the disposal of waste is a burden, a task often ill judged, costly, criminal — especially when he learns to include himself, living and dead, in the list of waste products. The creator of the world did not employ a dustman to collect the peelings of his creation."

R8, throwing away all the hoarder's stuff is about as effective as pouring an alkie's booze down the drain while they're out at the bar.

First -- they'll just get more.

Second -- you're adding to the paranoia all addicts have as a baseline. You're proving their suspicion that everyone's out to get them.

Third -- you can't throw an adult's stuff out without their agreement. It's essentially theft.

Addicts are absolutely hellish to deal with, but using the wrong tactics just makes the addiction worse. Rather than go in with a punitive attitude, it would be better to walk away and let the chips fall where they may.

Many of those houses just need to be set on fire, with all the junk still in them. Fuck cleaning.

I also like Matt Paxton.

"All of us are just four bad decisions away from shitting in a bucket."

[quote]Sometimes they really go for the sensational, like the time an elderly hoarder was found to have been shitting on the floor.

There have been several episodes where the hoarder was shitting and pissing all over the house.

I haven't watched in years, but I used to have a crush on Matt Paxton. I always hated it when they would pull out a decayed cat pancake from the piles. Animal hoarders are the absolute worst.

For me at least the best episodes are the ones where the people are ready to change and acknowledge their issues with hoarding. The little person who was hoarding with her parents and was continuing to do so after her parents died was a good one. The only one I can think of that hoarded things that had value was the lady who had the Barbie collection that was worth at minimum $500k. Once she heard that she had no issues with giving that crap up.

I hate the episodes where they clean out the house, only to find the house itself can't be salvaged.

Matt Paxton is the only one who doesn't coddle the hoarders. I love it when he yells at them.

Dr. Thompkins is DEAD TO ME so do not speak ill of him

DOROTHY is the best. She's always doing fat rails before she's filmed because her energy is insane. I don't know how she does it.

One of my favorite episodes is this insane frumpfrau in a wig. This is back when they would do a makeover in addition to the cleanout. She FREAKED OUT about the paint color and melted the fuck down, all while Dorothy was crashing from her high and looked like she wanted to fucking shank that cunt.

The one that really tore my heart out was Season 4, Ep 6, which featured an older guy with cancer living in a fire hazard house. Several times his daughter came by to try to help and he made it clear that, if he had to pick between a shithouse full of garbage or her, the garbage would win every time. It was so painful to watch her sobbing and begging for a scrap of his love, and see him totally unmoved. This thread jogged my memory, so I looked the daughter up, hoping there was a happy ending. I guess there sort of was -- he died some years ago and she is now a blogger and a maker of DIY music. I found an album online, "Marisa in Pink," and bought it. Really raw and confessional stuff.

I would love to see more art and music created by the families victimized by these hoarders. Between the hoarders and the "friends" telling you you should be "helping," they go through the tortures of the damned. It's the families I feel most sorry for. There needs to be an entirely different show, "Families of Hoarders," focusing on them. They actually might be helped. The hoarders themselves are almost all lost causes with permanently broken brains.

I love it when Dr. Melva Green changes wigs mid-episode.

This is a memorable episode.

The hoarder was an accomplished and educated woman who lived in a historic home.

She would bring home rubbish her neighbors discarded to this historic home.

She had friends who tried to help.

She wound up losing her home and most of the contents in it.

If she had sold everything in that home for one dollar before the eviction, she would have walked away with thousands of dollars in cash. Instead she tried to save everything at the last moment without regard to the value of the item. Trash she had found curbside was given the same value as an antique she had purchased during her career as an interior designer.

She chose to live in a van that was crammed with rubbish, with her pet.

The expert in ops pic resembles Lorraine Bracco.

More than one spoon is hoarding.

R37 - I remember that episode -- that woman was a lost cause. She had beautiful, large house stuffed to the gills with excess stuff from her decorating days... lamps, chairs, curtains, fabric, dishes, knickknacks, etc. She just threw anything she didn't use into the house until it was full to the brim. When the decorating jobs slacked off, she could no longer afford this huge place and it was bought by a nice gay couple who arranged for the show to help her remove all of the stuff she'd accumulated.

While the cleaners were there, she nitpicked over every scrap they tried to get rid of, saying this chair/lamp/statue was worth MONEY! and she couldn't let it go. She wasted the 2-3 days they gave her for their help being completely in denial that she had to leave and her stuff was going to the dump. Finally the show told her their time with her was up soon and if she wanted at least a few things removed, point them out. She had a meltdown and then refused the shows help and got some nice church-going neighbors to help her as the dump trucks were pulling up to the property. She ordered those neighbors around in a frenzy, piling things on the sidewalk and saying she was going to put them in storage, when she hadn't even arranged to rent a storage unit and not listening to warnings that the city would not allow her to leave her items on the street for any length of time.

She had a mini breakdown as the dump trucks pulled up and went into pity mode, telling the show staff that she would drive away in her van, and "figure something out", which sounded like a suicide threat. I think the show ended with her standing near her van, looking defeated. I had no pity for her... I wonder where she is now.

R40 here - I may be confusing R37's details with a different episode. So many hoarders with such similar stories.

My favorite was the 9/11 Hoarder who was "carrying all of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on my shoulders."

She then threw a coniption fit when they tossed her 'Darth Tater' Mr. Potato Head Star Wars toy.

R41, tis the same episode

These people just need a good beating.

This episode, Shanna / Armageddon Lady, is probably the grossest I've seen.

Shanna / Paxton / Zasio: Both she and her mother (deceased) had been pissing and shitting and storing same in plastic bottles. Don't ask me how they got shit into the bottles. A funnel? Zasio declared Shanna incompetent (mentally) and house was a loss.

Armageddon Lady / Paxton / Green: Her house looked clean compared to Shanna's house. Her son and his bitchy wife came over and tempers flared. She was a holy roller, but Dr. Green shut her down and said: "Would the Lord be pleased with this (your mess)?"

Kevin McCrary, son of old-time celebrities Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg. Dr. Chabaud and Dorothy.

Kevin's parents are dead and he lives on a spendthrift trust.

NYC apartment. Can't open the front door, so he climbs up the fire exit stairs. He spends his time on a bench, outside on the street. Cuts his own hair using parked car side-view mirrors to see what he's doing.

Landlord comes over and says he's going to evict ... in ten days. But never does evict. WTF?

For some reason, this episode was hilarious. Maybe because I knew this guy actually had money.

Dr. Charbaud bears a striking resemblance to Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro

Shanna was one of the filthiest people ever on this show. Her house was such a legend of disgustingness in her town that the neighbors had to come over and see it for themselves.

I like all of the psychologists and cleaning / organizational experts featured on the show.

Cory is probably the most short-tempered, but the situations warrant that.

Matt would be my favorite organizational expert. He has an iron stomach. He was calmly helping Shanna discard jugs of piss and shit. Actually, the worse job was going on outside the house, where workers had to "decant" the jugs into some kind of huge vat. I'm surprised none of those jugs exploded.

My favorite psychologist is Dr. Chabaud. I had a hard time placing her accent, but I guess it's Lousisanan.

I walked past Robin Zasio at the airport once. I always liked her. That episode she did with the rats was nuts. She was really kind to that poor man. He was the victim of a horrific murder. Just really sad.

[quote]My favorite psychologist is Dr. Chabaud. I had a hard time placing her accent, but I guess it's Lousisanan.

It is. She is from New Orleans. She had a bad stroke back in 2017, but she recovered and is back at her practice.

Even when she's dodging piles of human shit and garbage that's infested with vermin in those hoarder houses, Dr. Robin Zasio is always perfectly dressed, coiffed and made up. I admire that about her.

People are like "Why can't their stuff be thrown out?" They're brain damaged and disordered. Their brains dont work properly. Even if you threw away everything, it doesn't help them. And the hoarding would begin again.

By the time this show arrives, they are all at risk of being evicted from their homes. Their income and savings often goes directly to buying new stuff that ends up in their garbage pile. Sometimes the homes and land have value--letting them stay there and letting the state kick them out would result in them losing everything. They'd be homeless. And old. And they're so crazy and in need of psych care that no relative would let them stay in their homes.

The show actually works well because the cost of clearing their homes and yards can cost over $50,000. Or more. Have you ever hired a junk removal company? They'll charge you $1000-2000 just to remove many pieces of old furniture. These hoarders often require two dozen or more trucks to throw their shit away....and it costs money to pack up and pay for those trucks. So it gives them an opportunity to get psychiatric care, some hand holding, and a fresh start inside their house as well as psych care for the exasperated relatives.

I always feel so sorry for the relatives. They've been dealing with psychological abuse from these hoarders for years and are at a loss as to what to do. That's why they call the show.

And the hoarders are very often such nasty, angry people. They care more about their garbage than their families. The way they lash out at their families, who are only trying to help them, is awful.

My dad and his wife often semi-taunt us “kids” by saying things like, “you’ll have to deal with all this after I’m gone.”

This makes sense when you consider their whole lives have revolved around sticking it to other people.

Cheating on their spouses, evading child support, using their vote to stick it to Bkack people, refusing to pay taxes… ultimately fucking their kids with all their hillbilly clutter.

They’re scum and always have been, despite being born into the most privileged generation in US history.

They’re trash, darlin’.

No shit R53. Just last Friday I had one of the junk removal companies pick up my old large sofa and a disassembled computer desk. They charged me $300.

Matt Paxton has a new show, "Legacy List", dealing with historic homes, preserving the antiques and hidden treasures there. I'm glad. He seems happier on it. He was a voice of reason on Hoarders but he was always kind about it. Almost always.

The compulsion that leads some people to hoard their own waste (a la Shanna and the diaper lady) is vile but also fascinating. I wonder what drives people to do that, and what they get out of it, psychologically.

I find Dr. Zasio patronizing

[quote]Matt Paxton has a new show, "Legacy List", dealing with historic homes, preserving the antiques and hidden treasures there. I'm glad. He seems happier on it. He was a voice of reason on Hoarders but he was always kind about it. Almost always.

Now that sounds like a show made for DL! I hadn't heard about that. Love Matt.

Anyone remember the one where the bullish mom had a daughter named Cherish and the husband just got sick of it and started throwing everything away and that chick started beating his ass? That was funny.

Also the one where a woman had some food item for over 30+ years in her fridge and she just had to "taste" it so she did and Matt nearly vomited.

Or some broad lost her false teeth in a pile of rubbish, found them and put them in her mouth without rinsing them off?

Am I remembering these correctly?

Fred and Mary have one of the more repulsive houses

Psychologist Dr. Joy Browne said she stopped visiting mother who was a hoarder.

Here's another classic episode

I liked the woman who left the cleaning crew to go to the local Salvation Army and shop for "nice things" fir the newly cleaned house.

The doctor assigned to that episode threw a shit fit!

Hanna at r64 is one of the most unhinged people I've ever seen.

R30 I had a crush on Matt too, for reasons I can't explain (he is not my type at all). In some of the earlier episodes, Dave Tolin was also very sexy, though he got doughier as the show went on.

The gay couple was incredibly patient with Sandra (R37/R40), although I could tell that the taller guy was REALLY tired of her and close to going full cunt. The shorter one seemed more taken in/manipulated by her bullshit.

You can see the torment in the eyes of the mental health specialists. They know the outcome after the cameras stop rolling. :(

I was helping my grandmother box up things she didn't need for the consignment shop. She had a meltdown down when I tried to put a stack of unused cup saucers (the cups are long gone) and an old ashtray (she stopped smoking decades ago) in the box.

She kept all of my 2nd step-grandfather's clothes up to 6 years after he had passed. She also still has centerpieces from my cousins wedding (she was married 15 years ago, had two kids, got divorced and lost her ex husband in a car crash 4 years ago)

Last time I checked, the plates were still there but the ashtray is now missing. It also doesn't help that she is special needs and starting to show signs of alzheimer's/dementia.

It's profoundly tragic. I understand the attachment. Memories are attached to personal objects. Sometimes that's all we have left. We will all deal with loss.

R71 true, but the reality is that those memories we attach are mere projections. It's normal human behavior to do this, but in a hoarder, this impulse and attachment is malignant—it completely consumes them. They are slaves to every shred of what they accumulate. It is a mental illness. What is most confounding to me are the types who hoard garbage and their own waste—that to me seems like a whole different breed from your typical "collector" type of hoarder.

I think it has to do with losing something or not keeping tracking of something and then vowing to never let it happen again.

Also some types of hoarders are also greedy in on their ways. They hoard food if offered some. Or take two or three of something when just one is the norm.

Some are just poor/cheap. These are the ones who take extra napkins and straws and ketchup packets everywhere they go.

These are the ones Ive tangled with in real life.

And the mega hoarders are just freaks. They don’t seem to understand that it’s really extreme. They are always minimizing instead of trying to see it from others point of view.

There is no objectivity. Like we are wrong for insisting they can’t live like this.

Disagree. Usually a negative, life altering event that makes one hoard. Usually. It can happen to you.

What types of life altering events? Like losing something? A career? Loved one?

Loved one. Health scare.

I've noticed several subjects on Hoarding: Buried Alive who went off the rails after losing either parents or children.

R70 - my mom is 85, my dad was 88 - he died the beginning of June. By the end of the month she had bagged up and donated all his clothes.

I love this series, and the hoarding stories make me anxious because I tend to be obsessively clean and orderly. But through it I’ve recognized I had a tendency to acquire certain things and an disorganized in certain ways I am becoming more disciplined. After a health scare and as I’ve aged, I have realized too much stuff is just an albatross around your neck, so am minimizing and focusing on figuring out what I no longer need,

A lot of the hoarders who appear on the show have atrocious personalities

They're nasty, abusive assholes r80. With many of them I just think "fuck those people, let them live in their filth."

Anyone else think Cory with the cleaning service is kind of hot?

He was but he often has a big cold sore on his lip so not so much! 🦠 🤢

[quote] Also the one where a woman had some food item for over 30+ years in her fridge and she just had to "taste" it so she did and Matt nearly vomited.

I remember that episode. That really wasn't that gross, compared to a lot of other things I've seen on Hoarders.

The rat man ep really bothered me. I’m almost glitching thinking about it now.

Hoarding runs in my family. My grandfather hoarded and so did my brother. Now my father is living in clutter as well. I think I side-stepped it but I’d love to take part in a study to see if there truly are abnormalities in the brain regions supposedly affected.

In both of my family cases, we hired outside help and it was worth every penny. The psychological toll it takes on loved ones is enormous. That is often overshadowed by the sputtering brains of the hoarders themselves.

Some warning signs:

People who bring things home from dumps

People who won’t let you in their homes

Messy cars

Messy desks

I like Dr Zasio too. That show has a terrible makeup artist and makes the women look like their makeup was applied with a spackling tool. It makes them look awful, especially Dr Zasio and Sr Melva Green, who are very attractive anywhere but on Hoarders.

I like Dr. Zasio as well. I find her hilarious. Very chipper but does say what's on her mind.

In the Shanna episode (hundreds of jugs of urine and feces), Dr. Zasio told Shanna that this was the first time she "suited up" to go into a house. Zasio is like Paxton, iron stomachs.

Obviously Shanna never heard the old adage, "Don't shit where you eat," no?

Yes - Dr Zazio’s makeup is awful. Combined with the bad lighting, it makes it look like they applied old cake frosting inside of foundation.

R89 for what it's worth, Robin also has a lot of sun damage to her skin, which her makeup seems to accentuate—the price you pay for being a California girl who wasn't persistent enough with her sunscreen.

I am assuming based on her last name that Robin is ethnically Italian--not exactly known for aging so well.

Mer a guy on Grindr recently and his hotel room was completely trashed with clothes strewn in every corner and just a complete rats nest and he’s only been staying there a few days.

These people are nuts. It’s like rodents nesting.

I was about to ask if Chrissy was still alive but realized that was Intervention. Wrong show. Although it could've been a Hoarders crossover with way she lived.

[quote]My reaction to Cory Chalmers is mixed, but he lost points when I found out he was a hardcore deplorable.

He is? How disappointing!

I'm Doctor SuZAHN CharBEAU and I specialize in hawding disawdahs

They rarely, if ever, go into the hoarders' diagnoses, but I wonder how many of them (especially the more extreme ones who save their own piss and shit and/or just go on the floor) have schizophrenia

I believe this is Dr. Robin Zasio's husband. She's a lucky bitch.

Remember when they found a homeless man LIVING INSIDE the persons HOARD?!

r93, not only is she still alive, I believe she multiplied!

Tolin, Paxton, and Chabaud seem like the craziest in real life.

I never liked Zasio.

R100 Suzanne Chabaud seems a bit kooky, but I like her. I actually like Robin Zasio because she has a very calm energy about her.

I swear I can smell those houses through the tv screen.

Two of my siblings have OCD which manifests itself in compulsive shopping. They are both just one emotional tragedy away from becoming candidates for the show. My sister went out of town on a training course a month ago and asked me to throw away some stuff she had put aside as she knew she wouldn't be able to let it go. I couldn't take it to a charity shop otherwise she would just buy it again.

Although I am neat and tidy -- almost obsessively so -- I fear that I have some hoarding tendencies that will come out after my parents die. My saving grace at the moment is that I'm a renter and don't have much storage space in my apartment. I find almost as much pleasure in purging stuff than in acquiring new things.

r101 I read somewhere that Michael Tompkins is the least hands-off of the psychologists. He basically shows up when his segments are filmed but doesn't do much behind the scenes.

I just watched the episode that takes place in southern Louisiana and features Augustine and her daughter Susan. I have a feeling that Dr. Chabaud was seeing the family in her private practice before the episode was filmed.

It's too early for me to be on DL. r104 should have read "Michael Tompkins is the MOST hands-off"

Augistine was one of the most loathsome hoarders, what a piece of shit she was.

To me its the sickest show on the lame discovery network. The hoarders obviously have something mentally wrong . But it is a show designed to humiliate the people, how can putting your embarrassment on tv for all the world to see help these people ? Answer is = it doesnt , it just earns their pissed off relations money and a sense of " i told yoy so ! "

The ones that seemed to do the best on the show are ones that are dealing with unresolved grief over losing a loved one. IDK maybe they respond to therapy better or it’s the only major reason/issue they have in regards to hoarding.

r107 they all consent to appearing on the show, plus receive tens of thousands of dollars in free services.

We used to revel in the times "Pax n' Zas" were a team on an episode. Hoarding PERFECTION!

Augustine was one of the most loathsome hoarders to appear on the show, but both of her kids seemed mature and relatively well-adjusted (unlike Hanna's kids)

From Salon (2016)

[quote]Remember when they found a homeless man LIVING INSIDE the persons HOARD?!

Beg pardon?

According to a Redditor who worked with Dr. Zasio: "The therapist was extremely cold and withholding. She'd only interact with [my father] on camera, but in downtime she'd ignore him/the rest of the family while we were waiting in the production van. She also had frequent blow-ups, a chihuahua she'd scream at, and crazy control issues. The crew didn't like her at all."

Oh yes, R113. The hoard was outside and about 8 feet high. All debris and discarded items. When they started to remove it, they found a homeless man sleeping under the hoard and he had been living there for at least a YEAR!

R114 yikes. I like Dr. Zasio, at least as she present herself during the filmed segments. To be fair, it is a job, and she's probably not required to be doing therapy with these people in-between shooting. Who knows what her contract looks like—she likely has limitations set in place by the network (and to be fair, working with these people on camera alone is a huge mental undertaking, even for the most seasoned therapist. They probably need some space in-between filming). I presume the psychologists they have on the show are always involved in setting up the aftercare with local therapists (although, let's be honest--most of these people forgo any followup therapy anyway).

r114 isn't surprising at all.

Dr. Zasio strikes me as a type of person that I know well.

[quote]I fear that I have some hoarding tendencies that will come out after my parents die

You could do what I do. Every time you buy something, you have to throw something in your house out.

It got to the point where I ran out of things I was okay throwing away and now I don't buy anything. It gives you and 'either/or' mentality about stuff which helps to not buy unnecessary items.

The person who said that about Dr Zasio my just have been disgruntled. Some of the hoarders seem to have terrible repressed rage issues and it all seems to come out when they have to be confronted with their issues, so it makes sense they would find negative things about the therapists.

I don't really think the show is exploitative - those people probably would just die in their hoard without the help and cleaning something like that up is tens of thousands of dollars in skip fees and labour. Also, watching the show can help other hoarders realise they have a problem.

I'm not impressed with Dr. Zasio and have no question that IRL she differs significantly from her on-screen persona

I met Dr. Zasio about two years ago. She came into the store where I work not long after a day I spent binge-watching Hoarders while I baby-sat a kitten.

She looked familiar and I told her I was sure I knew her from somewhere. She said, "Oh, you may have seen me on Hoarders, I'm a psychologist."

"Yes!" I said. We had a nice conversation. I live in Northern CA, she lives in Sacramento. I told her I thought hoarders must be terribly difficult to treat and she said that they certainly were. She was friendly and very nice, I was favorably impressed.

Dr. Zasio must have Google alerts enabled

I am not a Dr Zasio fan either but a lot of those hoarders are a seething ball of rage and denial, so I would not be surprised if one is lying about her. It's a form of transference.

^^^ or maybe it was someone like Carol and there's a reason she was hiding from the family.

I watched this Hoarders marathon (YouTube) of episodes featuring Cory Chalmers. One of the episodes featured a guy named Ron and his daughter, Marisa. Ron was a retired teacher and somehow thought that Hoarders was going to help him organize all of his stuff and relocate his stuff into storage units.

Anyway, Marisa blew up at Cory. She has a blog and she said that, after a blow-out with her dad, Ron, she wanted to leave and Cory made her stay (for the sake of reality TV drama). Hence, the blow-up.

You just want to smack the shit out of so many of these hoarders. They care more about their piles of garbage than they do their own families. They're awful people.

Every so often Dr. Tolin lets his professional demeanor slip a little bit and he gets frustrated and snippy with the hoarders because he's so fed up with trying to deal with them.

I would get frustrated with them too r127

OP, please stop using "empathetic" when you mean "sympathetic" or "pandering for the camera."

Oh, dear.

Stop hoarding your soft-fuzzy Frauness. It wounds.

If I had to choose, I'd much rather see a therapist like Suzanne Chabaud than like Robin Zasio

It's unique for a long-running reality show to essentially maintain the same format and crew (the cleaners and psychologists) for its entire run.

Some of the most memorable (and worst) hoarders weren't even the messiest. In particular, I remember the old lady professor from Wisconsin who was absolutely adamant that she keep cottage cheese that was eight years old. When they did a follow-up visit with her years later, the returning psychologist noted that her new house smelled just like her last one - of rotting food.

Then there was Nora a hobbit-like, mousy retired school teacher that had maybe the neatest hoard ever shown on the show. Her house and driveway were packed with container boxes full of books, toys, craft materials, and school supplies. All of it was well-maintained but she was drowning in it. (She even got a black eye on the show when a stack of boxes collapsed on her). Yet she refused to give up anything. She even flat out told her daughter that she'd rather keep her stuff than see her or her grandkids ever again, even though obstensibly all her hoarding was intended to be gifts for her family. Nora was nuts.

I like watching Hoarders. It makes me feel like my house is clean.