What's it about? Right now I'm thinking of those sick people who hoard thousands of animals to 'save' them, yet are unable to care for them and often let them die a gruesome death.
It's a reality show about compulsive hoarders. Some of these houses are just... awful. Filthy. Things packed to the ceiling and spilling out of their houses. They go in and help them clean it up.
When I was a kid I had a friend whose mom went from being a normal housewife to slowly becoming an animal hoarder over the years. Just as we started high school and it started to get noticeably bad to the point that the mom couldn't successfully lie about it anymore to authorities they moved to another town four hours away. That was the last I knew of them. Of course back then (80s), nobody knew animal hoarding was a mental illness or that this was something that could happen to people. It was just very weird watching it happen and how it wrecked their lives. I've always wondered what happened to that family, especially my friend.
My mother was one, and watching it up close is, yeah, bizarre. She had to be hospitalized for unrelated reasons just as it was starting to hit critical mass, and that was terrible, but also kind of a boon for the animals, for me (as the person struggling to take care of her animals, because she wouldn't, and often actively undermined my efforts to take care of them, because it wasn't real to her), and for her.
There was this one episode where these two old people had like over 40 cats living in their house on top of the normal hoarding mess. They were facing prosecution for animal cruelty and they had animal control in there to help get the cats out. In the end they pulled 70+ cats from the place. At least 30 of those were skeletons.
These were two old people. The lady had had a stroke and the man didn't look too stable either. They adopted strays in addition to the cats they chose. I don't think they had any, or many, neutered. I just don't even know what to think in a situation like that, you know? It's a pretty sad and emotional show all around but this episode was particularly heartbreaking for me.
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Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 04:33 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 05:00 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 06:50 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 07:06 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 07:28 pm (UTC)(link)These were two old people. The lady had had a stroke and the man didn't look too stable either. They adopted strays in addition to the cats they chose. I don't think they had any, or many, neutered. I just don't even know what to think in a situation like that, you know? It's a pretty sad and emotional show all around but this episode was particularly heartbreaking for me.
Re: hoarders
(Anonymous) 2011-05-14 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)http://animal.discovery.com/tv/confessions-animal-hoarding/