Most hoarders would keep their hoarding a secret from families and friends for years. The hoarding becomes intense and the hoarder often risks losing their home or relationships over it. Every episode has two hoarders in two different parts of the country. When they finally reach out to help, the hoarder gets a psychological help and a professional cleaner. The hoarder must decide to what to keep and get rid of. For most of us who don't have a hoarding problem, we don't understand why they can't get rid of obvious garbage. After the hoarder finally gets rid of the first item to the garbage, there is a breakthrough. Often, the hoarders end up fighting over little pieces of items. The hoarders and their loved ones must face the issue of the hoarding. Usually hoarding has nothing to do with the item itself, the underlying issues beneath the hoarder is usually to cover up the pain and agony. Hoarding has become more open in today's society. The relatives are often at their wit's end sometimes in dealing with the hoarder. They can't understand how difficult it must be for the hoarder to let something go.

... I guess because it is so common, plus my late mother in law was a hoarder. She had one shopping channel on her TV so much that its initials were burned into the thing. No matter what channel you changed to, there was the logo.The thing is, and maybe the show is picking subjects based on how well they will interest the audience, not whether or not they are true hoarders - some of these people are not true hoarders, they are just lazy or they have energy sapping diseases.I remember one subject in particular, a diabetic lady who had a couple of children, and her house was hideous. She had roaches, she had used diabetic needles just thrown on the carpet, unusable kitchen and bathrooms due to the filth, etc. Her husband had actually moved to a different residence, although I think he was not planning on divorcing the woman. The "Hoarders Cleanup Crew" came in and was throwing things away left and right and the lady did not care. Only when she was being reproached by the hoarder counselor did she react and then she would just storm out and sit in her truck.Hoarding is when you cannot bear to part with objects, even years old papers and pieces of string, because of some weird attachment. Hoarders are often shopaholics too, buying things that they do not need or even really want. If I know this, then I'm sure the psychologists on Hoarders know this.I remembered this one particular show with the diabetic because I am a diabetic and I recognize the indifference and total lack of motivation and energy that seems to come with type two diabetes, you just have to force yourself to do things and you cannot explain this to people who do not have this disease and have them understand it. None of this was mentioned as a mitigating factor on the show, because I think they wanted people to just see a fat lazy woman who would not help herself and who was endangering children so that people would get angry and not tune out and thus garner ratings.It really is repetitive after awhile, but for some reason it always interests me, like a bad accident you can't look away from.

After watching a handful of episodes of this show, I have concluded that many, if not all of the subjects suffer from serious mental illness and are being exploited. I know there is an on-screen disclaimer explaining the psychological condition of hoarding, but I don't feel that it justifies what follows in each episode.At first I was skeptical, thinking they were just slobs who had given up on cleaning their homes. But as I watched Adella in Episode One refusing to surrender any of her junk (and actually going out and collecting MORE out of dumpsters at night to replace what was being thrown away) and Gaye in Episode Two facing similar struggles, I realized that these people have deep-rooted and very tragic mental problems. I feel like the program is a bit sympathetic (in terms of the "experts" it brings in to help – though part of every episode is a mini-commercial for 1-800-GOT-JUNK), but shows its true colors through the editing style and ultimate presentation of these scenarios. "Hoarders" is, I believe, more interested in exploiting these situations for their entertainment value than truly helping people. The heartbreaking story of Sir Patrick in Episode Two is the perfect example; that man needs serious counseling, not to have a camera zoomed in on his face every time he breaks down in tears or struggles to rationalize some aspect of his very lonely life. I came away feeling like I had been rubber-necking alongside a car accident on the interstate, and I don't believe I want to play any further role in perpetuating programming like this by watching more.

Although I've one seen one episode, "Patty and Bill", this show will have me watching from now on, if I don't buy the DVDs first. Reality shows aren't my thing usually, but the situations shown here seem real enough and I really felt for the participants and more so, for their families.There's a lot compressed into "Patty and Bill", and the crew certainly put together something both engrossing and scary. The matter of fact way the team carried out the job to clean out the properties, with interruptions from Patty and Bill, must sure have taken a lot out of them. Of all those shown, I felt the most for Bill's daughter with her beautifully clean and tidy room amid what seemed like a builder's wreckers yard.As someone who's helped to similarly clean out properties though not to such a necessary degree of size and in such a short time, I salute all concerned. What they achieved in three days seemed amazing, despite the final results not bringing satisfactory conclusions in either case.