and taking them apart. just like everything. lunch containers, soda bottles, you name it. everything you can buy at the grocery store, you bring it home and it was all there. a lot of paperwork. people have a huge problem with what to do with paper. the crew begins carefully sifting through the debris room by room. we don t take the snow shovels and just haul the stuff into a trash can. we actually go through everything. we re going through those papers looking for stocks and bonds and photographs and birth certificates and things like that. the removal takes a seven-person crew three days to complete. we left him in really good shape. the cluttering client avoids eviction. and just months after the cleanup, they receive an unexpected call. out of the blue has a conversation with ron and says, i want to call and thank you for saving my life. shortly after we did that
seems easy, clean it up. but with a hoarder, it s just not that simple. you don t move stuff. she would be very hurt, first of all, she d be angry, she d be hurt at the disrespect to her and her things. she d be ashamed. it would be kind of like her worst fears coming true right then and there. it would just make the problem worse because it would make her more defensive of everything else. and would make her fight harder to keep it. dr. morrison has not treated jessica s mother but has dealt with many similar cases. if you were to go into the home of someone who hoards and you were to clean out everything, not only would that make the person incredibly vulnerable and distressed but it would not solve the problem. but the person would reclutter and rehoard. the first step is to have them get the motivation to want this. looking at all the seemingly unmovable piles, jessica wories about the future. just walking through the
day-to-day life mentally draining and physically exhausting. it takes ten times more work and effort to do simple things than it should take, to take a shower, you have to get all your stuff from your bedroom, make sure you have your flip flops on, step over your baby gate, walk to the other end of the house. i don t walk around barefoot. i don t want stuff on my feet. it just flat-out grosses me out. to cook anything, i have to go to my fridge in my room, get everything i needed, get all my utensils and bring it into the kitchen to prepare my food, then clean it and take it all back to my room. to sweep and mop, i have to do a quarter to a third of a room at a time. i have to move everything away from where i want to mop, which can take 45 minutes to an hour sometimes. mop, wait for it to dry, put it all back and then do the next section. it s very exhausting and very stressful. to an outsider, the solution
but he assured all his clients that their identities will remain confidential. you couldn t open the door 90 degrees, maybe 30. this lady had a hard time getting into her own door. as soon as you got in the door, it is stacked from the floor to the ceiling. i remember having a difficult time walking through the front door. and being amazed that she was in a wheelchair. and the first thing i thought was, how does she get in and out? the disaster masters make their way around the packed home to assess the severity of the problem. behind the door, up against the wall in the closet, still stacked to the ceiling and little paths back into the living room. kitchen in the back. you could barely walk into the kitchen. it was a mix of construction material like tiles, plaster, to repair walls, tools and things that she had recently purchased as gifts. just a complete mess. everything came home, nothing
it s at the far end of the house. i ve separated myself off from the house with a heavy duty shower curtain and baby gate to keep the barrier between myself and the rest of the house. i keep everything in my room now, all my personal belongings because if i leave them out they ll get destroyed and destroyed very quickly. either stuff will get put on top of it and it will get crushed. her pets might get hold of it or destroy it. things will get dirty. the pets also contribute to something that isn t caught on camera. a smothering, noxious odor permeates most of the home. the overwhelming smell of ammonia from cat urine combined with pet hair makes breathing difficult. unlike other areas, the air in jessica s room is much cleaner. it doesn t hurt to breathe in this room. your eyes don t burn. your nostrils don t burn, your throat doesn t suddenly hurt. you don t feel like someone s sitting on your chest. with the house in such disorder, jessica finds