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Post by joyinvirginia on Dec 30, 2010 1:45:53 GMT -5
There have been quite a few TV shows about decluttering and hoarding and housecleaning over the years, some still on, and one new one starting on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network that starts on Jan 1. Most of these shows I have enjoyed, some I have learned from, and some have been like watching a car wreck - you just can't look away. I want to hear what other posters think, which shows do you like, which do you avoid, and which ones do you wish would come back?
The new show coming on the OWN network is "Enough Already" with Peter Walsh. I love love love Peter! I have loved him and his approach to decluttering since he was on Clean Sweep. I get his monthly email newsletter and I emailed him when I was faced with cleaning out my mother's home. He responded to my email, I thought it was really nice. I love his books, and I am excited to see how his show will be.
Back quite a few years ago, Clean Sweep was on TLC, with several designers and decorators who rotated between the episodes. Peter Walsh and Angelo Surmelis were my favorites, tho I liked everyone on the show. The show focused on helping a family declutter two rooms, having a big yard sale to get rid of unwanted stuff, and redecorating the two rooms for the family, using furniture and items they already had. All this happened over two or three days, with a team including designer, organizer, carpenters, and I really liked this show because of the sorting/ decluttering process they went thru with the family, the yard sale getting rid of things, and I got some good ideas about storage and decorating from the show.
Clean House on the Style network has the same team of folks on most shows, with Niecy Nash as hostess giving the humorous approach of the show. Usually it is a family being helped, and they have to do a lot of work with sorting and deciding what goes on sale in a yard sale. The show staff complete cleaning and redecorating. The focus is more on humor than nitty-gritty of organizing or cleaning.
Mission Organization was on HGTV a few years ago. Every episode focused on one person or family with a specific organizational challenge. There were a variety of residences that people got help with, from very tiny city apartments to big famililes with big houses. The show followed one person or family working with one professional organizer over time. One of my favorites was Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, who specializes in apartments. He has a website, Apartment Therapy. I liked this show because it showed a realistic project over time, most of the work usually done by the homeowners.
How Clean is Your House? was a British show on BBC America, and then American episodes were on Lifetime, with Kim and Aggie. Kim was the housekeeper by profession, Aggie had the science background to culture all the different icky stuff in your fridge or around your house and tell you what horrible diseases you could catch from your unhealthy environment. They took a humorous approach, and did make the homeowners do some cleaning themselves, including kids if there were any. They did bring in a team of professional cleaners to complete the job in just a couple days. I got some good practical cleaning tips from this show. I do recall when Kim & Aggie first came to the US to publicize their show being on Lifetime, they appeared on Oprah and "helped" Carol (I think that was her name) who ended up having a bad experience. Kim especially was more interested in her wisecracks than in worrrying about the feelings of people on the show.
neat with Helen Buttigieg is a Canadian production, it shows on HGTV Canada and Discovery Home channels. Helen is a professional organizer who works systematically with an individual or family to organize their home. Helen does a lot of one-on-one work with the person or family she is helping, and they have to do most of the sorting and discarding.
Hoarders on A&E TV focuses on people with a serious hoarding problem, and the producers actively look for folks in a crisis situation who are willing to accept help in exchange for things being filmed. I recall one person who was filmed for the show posted here. The participants are given funds for aftercare with mental health providers or organizers or both. The A&E message boards for the show are unique in that the professionals who work with the hoarders discuss the episodes the day after they air and answer questions. I really like Matt Paxton, the "extreme cleaning specialist" who is on several episodes. He lives in the Richmond VA area, where I live, and local papers have done interviews with him. I like all the professionals on this show. Matt has said that the producers really work hard to match the hoarders with the professionals who will work best with them. There is a train wreck factor, like you can't look away from the wreck, but real concern for the feelings of the hoarder and affected family members also. And they are not afraid to show a clean-up failure. One guy who was living in a house his father had left him, Matt tried to help, and at the end Matt summed it up: The hoarder was very happy living exactly like he was living, and he did not want to change, and they were not going to change him; and the hoarder had the right to choose how he wanted to live. It was more to it, a complicated family situation, and we got to see enough that viewers understood - this was not something that was going to get "fixed" in a weekend.
Hoarding: Buried Alive is the TLC imitation of Hoarders. I don't like it as much, because of the production style. It has a narrator and sounds more clinical and detached, and it seems like it focuses on the train wreck factor more than anything else.
I would be interested to hear what everyone else likes or does not like about shows like this, what if anything have you learned, or do you avoid programs like this?
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Post by clutterbuggles on Dec 30, 2010 10:17:14 GMT -5
I've only seen How Clean is Your House - and there are some aspects that I like and others that I really don't. I like the petri dish reality check. I think a lot of us (in general, not just us chronically messy people) don't realise all the micro organisms we're sharing our homes with and that it's not always a case of it causing a major illness (like salmonella or E.coli) where it's blatantly obvious. But there's also dermatitis and respiratory illnesses that can be caused by it as well as a host of other things, plus creating complications for even more. I think everyone does things that are not very healthy for us. But I also think it can be taken to the other extreme as well when people aren't allowed to build SOME natural immunities to things, too by trying to live in a germless environment. So the scare tactics work, but for some - probably those without the tendency to be messy - it could push them to the other extreme.
I also like the fact that they do what the set out to do. And I like how they've approached the majority of the people they're helping. There have been plenty of shows where I can really relate to the clear feeling of being overwhelmed and others where I can also relate to the defensiveness and defiance and flippant attitude towards their squalor. But I know it's a defence mechanism.
But at the end of the day.... I have to wonder if it can work in the long term. It might work for two weeks, but then if I know someone is holding me accountable I put more effort in. What happens after the follow up? What happens when there's no threat of Kim and Aggie turning up on the doorstep with another camera crew? Even if the threat is there - how long before they let their guard down? You can take a team of 20 into a house, gut it, scrub it to within an inch of it falling down, but at the end of the day - the stuff didn't mess up the house. The person bringing the stuff into the house messed the house up. But they're not decluttering the person who lives there - just their stuff. I know that they do show the person helping out with the cleaning process and I'm not dissing people who do hire help or ask for help to get the job done faster. But I do have to wonder if a massive overhaul is enough in the long term to really beat the bad habits. I'm sure it's definitely EASIER to maintain and to see the hotspots when it's really super clean and feels good that it went from pigpen to paradise (to steal a book title) so quickly. But I'm not sure it would work for me in the long term. All it would take is for me to get depressed again or sick and it would start slipping and I'm not sure it would feel much like 'my accomplishment' if I'd had a couple dozen people come in and do it for me. It would remain something that someone else had done for me and something that someone else could fix. If that makes any sense.
And the last thing I don't like about these shows in general is the responses that I've seen from other, less messy, people. Those who have a super sob story (tragedy that fed depression which lead to things getting so bad around the house) will get the condescending tuts of compassion. But a lot of the time I hear things like 'Why would someone WANT to live like this?' 'How could they live like that?' 'How does someone let it get so bad?' 'They should be sent to jail or fined for the hazards they created for their family/children/neighbours...' 'They must be stupid if they don't know how to clean.' 'They must have serious mental illness to let it get like that and probably aren't fit to live on their own.' The one that hit me hardest was 'I'd commit suicide if my house looked like that.' I'm sure some of the people featured have actually had the same thought while they were living in squalor. I'm sure some of us have, too. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have. And the sad thing was that the only thing that kept me from going through with it at the time was that my older brother had lived in a sort of squalor before he died. He'd had to move in with my sister on short notice, so literally every possession was crammed into boxes without rhyme or reason. The room was crammed full of mountains of boxes and the few items he'd unpacked didn't have anywhere to be stored. Six months later he died in an accident at the age of 32. Six months after he died my sister asked me if I would come and help her go through some of his boxes. She still couldn't bear to go in there. So I went and I got through about 2/3 of the boxes. And in every single one of them, I found something that I know for a fact my brother would have been mortified to know that his baby sister had seen or learned about him that he'd hidden from us. I still love and miss my brother, but I never told anyone about the stuff that I found because it felt like leaving my brother that little bit of respect by keeping his secrets was probably the most loving thing I ever did for him. Despite being absolutely at rock bottom and wanting to be dead, I couldn't do it simply because I knew that someone was going to have to do the same thing for me if I did. I didn't know what they would find that would shock or upset them, I didn't know what they would think of me because of how I was living, I didn't know how it would tarnish their memory of me.
So I do kind of enjoy the shows and I have learned some great techniques, but I don't like the freak show that the media kind of makes it out to be. Yes, I think it's great that they got help. Yes, I think it's exceptionally brave of them to do it in front of a camera. There are some the shows might be encouraging to watch. But there are others who have a very schadenfreude attitude towards it - and that I find a bit upsetting.
Best tips I've learned from HCIYH -
Soaking cotton wool (or paper towels) in cleanser to hold it in place when something needs to be soaked for a bit. (e.g. vinegar on a cloth wrapped around a tap covered in limescale or bleach on a cloth wrapped around a pull cord that is filthy)
Shaving cream on walls or other areas that would get marked by drips. I used some undiluted cleanser on a cloth once and wiped my mom's painted bathroom cupboard doors once. It was SO obvious that it had been wiped and there were lighter lines where the drips had run down and where I'd changed directions. Shaving cream just works so well - but it's a bit like painting. You can't stop at just half a wall or you'll see the colour difference and if you don't do it pretty much all at the same time you'll end up with a bit of a gradient effect.
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Post by AnnieOkie on Dec 30, 2010 11:56:07 GMT -5
I can't say that I have watched the housecleaning shows. But the hoarding shows are really difficult for me to watch. I get depressed when seeing what the people are going through. I can identify with the overwhelming feeling of where to start or what to do with everything. Although I don't consider myself a hoarder by definition, I just hate the feeling I get when I watch these people dealing with their messes. It's almost like having to go through mine all over again.
I know it can be helpful for others, I just cannot watch it.
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Post by success19 on Dec 30, 2010 14:22:09 GMT -5
Haven't seen all of them - but can't see any now due to cable service getting rid of many channels on basic - really the shows motivated me to declutter/toss tons of stuff in pursuit of my dream - so for me they are a good thing - wish I could see some more to help me get rid of the rest and figure out how to store what I need to easily - which I kind of know anyway - but it would help motivate me.
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Post by clutterbuggles on Dec 30, 2010 17:08:28 GMT -5
Haven't seen all of them - but can't see any now due to cable service getting rid of many channels on basic - really the shows motivated me to declutter/toss tons of stuff in pursuit of my dream - so for me they are a good thing - wish I could see some more to help me get rid of the rest and figure out how to store what I need to easily - which I kind of know anyway - but it would help motivate me. Try YouTube - there are lots of episodes uploaded there in parts, but don't get too distracted!  |
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Post by penguinectomy on Dec 30, 2010 17:46:30 GMT -5
And the most recent episodes of some of them are on the channel's website (like Hoarders is on A&E's site).
The only one I've really watched is Hoarders, and I watch it online every week since I decided to address my underlying hoarding problem. It's motivating, because I could so easily right now be in exactly the situations they show, and have been in the past, and don't want to forget that. I get very angry at the folks who are resistant to change, or who struggle over getting rid of things in the face of real suffering on the part of their family members. But really, it's an expression of my anger and intolerance at myself, and of my feelings of guilt and shame that I impacted my son's life through my hoarding. It's also much easier to see other people's thinking errors than it is to see my own, but when I catch myself agreeing with one of the hoarders on the show, I know that's an area I need to pay attention to. I also really like the therapist/extreme cleaning specialist combinations. They're so respectful of the person and also of the family, and so loving yet firm. They recognize how hard it is, and are really good at defining victory in small steps.
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Post by brenda on Dec 30, 2010 23:59:19 GMT -5
I like watching them because hearing other peoples excuses wakes me up to my own. Seeing just how bad it gets for some people helps keep me on the straight and narrow.
I especially like Clean House because of the redecorating element to the show. I find it kind of sad when on some shows they clean but it still looks like a dump.
Brenda
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Post by BetsyMarie on Dec 31, 2010 1:04:40 GMT -5
I have really only watched the two Hoarder shows. Some I can watch closely and learn, others are too disturbing and I can't.
I have only been watching them this past year. I"ve also seen a couple on Oprah. They all are great motivation for me. Whenever I watch, I want to start cleaning immediately - instant motivation. In fact, it was Hoarders that got me on my current hard run of decluttering (since mid Sept), and if they are showing several episodes in a row, I can work for hours.
Since these programs seem to be popular, I would suspect people I know watch them and it occurred to me that since I don't let anyone inside the house (besides family)(and the cats) that our friends might be thinking we live 'like that'. That thought alone has been a great motivator for me to do the work so I can let generic people in again.
I sometimes get so irritated with some of the hoarders who just won't get rid of such obvious junk... till I remember the problems I've had getting rid of some things. The programs have helped me make some correlations/solutions about my own possessions.
I do think since most are in binds of some sort, and have volunteered to get their houses cleared out, that they would be more cooperative. But then I'm not in their shoes. I am often disturbed when I see some apparently choosing their 'stuff' over their own children.
I have been seeing ads for the animal channel about a series about hoarding pets that is to start soon. Somewhere I believe I heard that 40% of hoarders also hoard animals.
It is like watching a train wreck.
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Post by DreamTrue on Dec 31, 2010 1:50:02 GMT -5
I have found the hoarder shows extremely helpful. I really had an AHA moment, realizing that my grandmother, who was the sweetest, kindest person on earth had a hoarding problem, and that it was passed down to my mother, and then down to me. I am determined that I am not going to let it continue or get worse in my home. I am going to turn it around for the sake of my children.
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Post by procrastinator on Dec 31, 2010 15:48:19 GMT -5
Clean Sweep was a favorite of mine, but only the episodes with Peter Walsh. I found he had the most useful tips and rationales for dealing with clutter. I don't believe I get OWN but I'd be interested to see the show.
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Post by paperpiler on Dec 31, 2010 16:18:46 GMT -5
I love the old episodes of How Clean Is Your House on YouTube (with Aggie and Kim). For some reason, Peter Walsh gets on my last nerve...and always has...so I never watched Clean Sweep.
I've watched most episodes of Hoarders. My favorite moments come from when a fellow hoarder on the show says something I can relate to profoundly, and I think, "Ding ding ding ding ding. How come I never realized this in ALL these years?" Those are breathtaking moments.
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Post by CaringFriend on Dec 31, 2010 17:36:24 GMT -5
...I don't believe I get OWN but I'd be interested to see the show. I just learned this week that the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) is the former Discovery Health Channel. So, if you got that, you'd get OWN. |
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Post by success19 on Jan 1, 2011 18:42:28 GMT -5
I think it depends on your geographic area what channel it will be on. I just get basic in my area.
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Post by howardsgirlfriend on Jan 1, 2011 23:16:46 GMT -5
My journey out of squalor began with watching Clean Sweep. Until I watched that show, I never dreamed that:
-Other people had problems with clutter.
-These people were nice, ordinary, people.
-They were willing to show their clutter on TV! Heck, I've had plastic surgery on TV, but I would NEVER go on one of these shows--I'm too self-conscious about my squalor!
-The hosts could help them learn to declutter less painfully. I had never decluttered without a major crisis being involved.
-They could learn skills to help organize their stuff more easily.
-There could be a happy ending, instead of just a reduction in shame, and the certainty that I couldn't "pass for normal" for very long.
Watching more episodes helped me muster enough courage to start attacking my own squalor.
For the next couple of years, I watched every show of this genere I could find. They kept me motivated and reassured; often it felt as if I had a supportive friend helping me get our house in order. I haven't watched as many for the past 6--9 months, since I've seen most of the episodes and don't seem to need the external support as much--I've internalized what I needed.
My favorites are How Clean Is Your House and Neat, though I like them all. Helen Buttigeg is so kind and gentle, that I could watch her even at my weakest. Some of the things I like about HCIYH are:
-There's almost nothing too filthy to clean. The only 2 items I saw them proclaim as too unsafe to clean were a freezer that had been off for several years, and a refrigerator that was so dirty that the bacteria had created a biofilm. Everything else is cleaned, treated respectfully, and admired--even the most humble items (the pull string from a light fixture!)
-Kim and Aggie encourage the participants to admire their work frequently, even if it's just that the cleaning rag had some grime on it. I never savored such modest accomplishments before.
-Especially with the episodes filmed in Great Britain, they almost always use homemade cleaners. A squirt of liquid soap and some table salt can go a long way.
-They show the filth that many other shows don't, except for "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive." HCIYH is the only show that shows toilet filth, pet mess, moldy food, clumps of hair, etc, AND has a "happy ending."
Most of the homes they clean are pretty modest by U.S. reality TV standards. They look like real homes--sometimes they're apartments, houseboats, or the rooms behind a business. All of them look great when they're done, without bringing in a bunch of new furniture. Of COURSE, if you have a big house and clean it up and fill it with new furniture, it will look better.
I discovered that I actually LIKE cleaning! I much prefer it to decluttering.
Admittedly, the decluttering on HCIYH happens mostly off-camera. Everything's boxed away, removed, and put in storage. I needed to learn to declutter more than I needed to clean, so I also watched shows that emphasized that part of the process. Neat has the the most useful information about decluttering: sorting, decision-making, discarding, etc. I also like that they have to cope with the weather more than the shows filmed in Los Angeles--more like my part of the country.
I will not watch animal hoarding shows--the distress me too much. We have 4 cats and 4 dogs, and could easily have more. We both have weak spots for animals.
Something amazing occured last week. I was watching an episode of "Hoarders," and talking about it to my DH of 17 years, when he said, "Hey, I just realized you identify with these people, don't you?" I was dumbstruck--had no idea that he didn't know this before. He's been right here with me in the squalor the whole time, and he didn't know.
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Post by TML on Jan 2, 2011 9:07:36 GMT -5
I watch most of the ones you mentioned except I have never been able to find episodes of Clean Sweep and I don't watch animal hoarding. I have one cat and he is a terror to keep up with each day.
There are certain episodes of hoarders that I watch (some over and over until it sinks in). When I looked at hoarders I saw some people trying to buy happiness. They would go out shop like mad and find that perfect item that would just make everything right then go home and toss it in a pile with the other perfect items they usually bought from Target and it sat there adding to the mess in its Target bag (among a sea of Target bags). Watching a couple of specific episodes of hoarders and clean sweep finally got it though to my inner ID that you can't buy happiness.
It also struck me how alike people are even though many of the problems were different. That pretty much everyone wanted to live in a house they were proud of and that felt like their castle. No one wanted to live in a filthy mess it was just that things got out of hand for whatever reason and poeple could not handle it (and the degree of out of hand and not being able to handle it varied with people). I saw I was not alone and the statistics sighted were 1:10. Quite a few had good jobs, wonderful families, beautiful fixed up lawns ... from the outside it looked like everything was pulled together the type of family I might say I wish I could be like that ... then you see inside and know that a lot of people are struggling no matter what you may see on the surface.
There are a few episodes/families that really speak to me and I use them on my ipod to be my cleaning buddies. As they work through their issues I am cleaning too. Kim and Aggie episodes are not really on my cleaning body list but I do like get natural product tips and tricks plus as it has been said before they can make the worst of things look brand new. So if I am struggling with an area I look for Kim and Aggie episodes on youtube that may be similar.
(funny note on the above when I originally posted it I said ... I dont watch animals hoarding..rather than animal hoarding. My cat has tons of toys and if one goes missing he goes crazy kitty. he likes his stuff and he likes it all piled around him. When I picked it all up and gave him a few to play with (and will rotate them) he was not pleased. If he had his way we sould be knee deep in cat toys and cat items).
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