Diatribe: How Can Someone Let Their Mother Die Of Hoarding?
I admit it. I have a morbid fascination with A&E’s Hoarders and Hoarders: Buried Alive. Each episode of the Emmy-nominated program focuses on two different people who excessively acquire and are unable or unwilling to throw away huge quantities of items that appear to be useless and have no value. With the help of psychologists, professional organizers, family and friends, many people have found a way to live with what is surely a disorder.
I’m amazed by the filthy conditions in which these people live and raise their children. They often find themselves living without indoor plumbing, heat, air conditioning or functional kitchens and, instead, with unbelievable amounts of insects and vermin. And cats … there’s always cats.
I enjoy seeing them get help. I marvel at their families and how devoted they can be. They know their loved one has a problem but it’s so difficult to stop once it gets out of control. Most get help only when authorities become involved. Child Protective Services, neighborhood groups, local politicians and landlords have all been the impetus for positive change.
I don’t, however, understand how a child could let their parent die amid an uncontrolled hoard. Yet this is exactly what happened this week to a 72-year-old woman in Illinois. When his mother hadn’t been seen in several weeks, her son visited her home for the first time in twenty years to find that he couldn’t open a door and noticed a strong smell from the basement.
It was three days before emergency crews, dressed in white hazardous materials suits, found his mother’s decomposed body beneath at least a foot of trash on the lower level of her home. An autopsy found that she had died from heart disease. She died while her second son was living with her in the house. He, apparently, had wondered where she had gone.
Learning of this woman’s death will certainly put my television enjoyment in a new perspective. I’ve found myself crying after many episodes because the hoarder’s home is cleaned up and their family gains a sense of normalcy. On occasion, they feature hoarders that refuse follow-up treatment and viewers can tell that they’re, probably, still going to be hoarders. But they never show one that’s died from hoarding. This poor woman was literally a hoarder: buried alive.
I can’t stop watching those shows, too. I find my fascination often leads to something in my home being “cleaned out”. Also, I think about my hoard when I decide to keep something “because I may need it later”.
Same here. I watched three episodes one Friday night and brought a truckload of stuff to Goodwill the next morning.
i don’t know about them, but i can’t get my mother to do _anything_ she’s decided not to do. i’ve watched these shows -though i missed that one- and they are tragic, but the relatives aren’t to blame imo. you can’t make someone lead a healthier life.
Maybe you can’t make them … but you can TRY. He hadn’t been in her house in twenty years. He made no attempt , and took no responsibility for, her safety … let alone her health.
Yikes. Yeah, I just watched this show for the first time this past week, interestingly enough. I was horrified but fascinated, because I had never seen anything like it in my life. I mean, before watching, I thought I was a hoarder. I do keep some things, like special cards, pretty much forever. However, they are clean, there are no bugs in them, and they don’t take up more room than a shoebox. I feel really bad for these people. There’s a lot of mental illness there, and I’d imagine that one reason the son hadn’t visited in 20 yrs and the other hadn’t checked on his mother was because they have suffered a lot from her hoarding, and it is probably difficult and depressing for them to even try to talk to her. Really though, there is no excuse for letting your mother go missing for long periods of time when you live in the same house. I wonder if they ever talked?
Really really sad.
I’ve watched some of them. They are compelling, that’s for sure. And it is so sad the miserable lives so many people are living behind closed doors. It must be some sort of a brain chemical disorder that could probably be cured with medication and diet, etc. It’s just so sad that people are suffering like this.