Link to Oprah's site about the show. Summarized here all on one page:
From closets overflowing with unworn clothes to boxes brimming with crafts and knickknacks, experts estimate that nearly 6 million Americans have a hoarding problem that affects their quality of life. But what if you had so much stuff, just the trash weighed 75 tons? To put it in perspective, it would take 15 huge dumpsters to hold that much trash. Imagine this amount of junk taking up every room, every hallway and every inch of space in your home. It seems impossible to live this way, but a heartbreaking home video introduced us to a husband and wife nearly buried alive by clutter.
From the outside, Sharyn and Marvin's 3,000-square-foot house looks like a typical American home. Step inside, however, and the foyer has become a narrow passage walled by stockpiles of possessions. The kitchen is drowning in bags and boxes filled with unused items. The family room is unrecognizable, with every piece of furniture covered in heaps of miscellaneous belongings.
Sharyn blames herself for the clutter. "I'm a shopaholic and I just buy and buy and buy." She describes her home as terrible, uncomfortable and suffocating. Breaking down into tears, Sharyn admits she needs help. "I don't know how I've done this to myself, to my husband, to my family. I don't want them to hate me. If I were to die tomorrow and they were left having to contend with all this stuff, I think they would end up hating me the rest of their lives. I want to be free of the clutter that's taking over my life."
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Sharyn and Marvin's children, Jodi, Steve and Rich, say their parents' home wasn't always filled with clutter. "It gradually happened little by little," Jodi says. "I think as each one of us moved out, it got worse and worse. I was the last one out and after that, it just got really bad." At first, she says the hoarding was seen as a minor issue—only the basement and a back room were used for storage. Then, Sharyn filled the garage. "It went from a three car garage, going down to a two car, to a one car, to a no car," Jodi says. Over the next 10 years, Sharyn's hoarding filled the entire home.
Not only does the clutter create chaotic conditions, but Steve is concerned for his parents' safety. "God forbid there would be a fire or something and they'd have to get out," he says.
Over the years, Rich says he and his family have stopped visiting the house. Now, for the first time in five years, Rich steps into his parents' home.
 Watch Rich's return home. (will take you to Oprah's site)
"Holy shipwreck," he says as he enters the foyer. Having to turn sideways to squeeze through the mounds of clutter, Rich is stunned by the sheer amount of possessions. "This stuff doesn't mean anything, I mean—it's meaningless," Rich says. "She can't have space with nothing in it. This has consumed her. I feel sorry for anybody who has to live like this, I really do."
After touring the space that was still accessible in the home, Rich says he feels devastated. "I came in with energy. I came in thinking I could make a dent in this. I mean, you can't even make space. I'm wiped out. I haven't touched anything, I haven't lifted a thing—I'm wiped out. I'm physically and emotionally drained. It's overwhelming," he says.
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Sharyn admits that shopping is her weakness. "When I shop and I find a good deal, it's total excitement that I got something special for my money," she says. "I love seeing sale signs when I go into a store. It's like a magnet just drawing me to it. And I can find deals like nobody else can find."
She also loves to buy gifts for her friends and family—but instead of giving them away, she hoards them. "She'll buy gifts maybe six months, nine months, a year in advance," Marvin says. "And then when it's time to give the gift, of course she doesn't know where she put it."
Sharyn also has a problem with collecting. "I don't have one of anything in my house. If I have one pair of sunglasses, I have 10. And if I was going to learn I needed a pair of sunglasses, sometimes I wouldn't even be able to find one."
Like their daughter, Jodi, Marvin says he noticed the hoarding began as their children grew up and began moving out. "It wasn't like this 10 years ago," he says. "I think the empty-nest syndrome is probably really what started it. She was trying to replace the children with things." Marvin cannot pinpoint the moment he realized his wife was a hoarder and says it was a slow progression. "I'd be sitting on the couch and I would just look up and it was unlivable," he says. "I would ask her, 'Please, we have to start cleaning the house out. Please.' And she'd say, 'Okay, we'll start tomorrow, or we'll start Monday,' or whatever day."
Sharyn says she thinks that recent deaths in her family have also caused her hoarding to become more extreme. "I suffered a lot of loss of family members in the last couple years and I really think that has a lot to do with it—it's filling a void," she says.
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To help get their home back in order, organizational expert Peter Walsh, author of It's All Too Much, is sent in to literally dig Sharyn and Marvin out. Peter estimates that it will take eight weeks and a team of 100 people to rescue this home. But whether you have a team of 100 or a team of one, Peter says there is one key question all hoarders must ask themselves before taking out a single bag of trash—what do you want from your home?
"Peace. Harmony. Neatness. Tidiness. A place to call home. A comfort zone I'm happy to be in," Sharyn says.
"A place that our family and friends can come visit—it's been a long time," Marvin says. So long, in fact, that Sharyn and Marvin estimate that they haven't had their friends over in 12 years.
Peter says Sharyn and Marvin must keep these things in mind as they decide what stays and what goes from their home. "So now this is the starting point, because constantly throughout the next couple of weeks, you have to keep coming back to what you want from this house," he says. "One of the biggest problems with clutter is that people focus on the stuff. And if you start there, you can never succeed. What's your vision for the life you want, the home you want, this room? You have to hold that in mind. Because without that, you're lost before you start."
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Peter and a team of six professional organizers begin the challenge of helping Sharyn and Marvin sort through their belongings. First up is the living room and dining room. "Ninety-five percent of what's in here has to go," Peter says.
He starts by dividing the front lawn into four sections: Keep, Sell, Donate and Trash. Peter makes Sharyn the director, and she gets to decide which pile everything goes in. As boxes and bags come bustling past her, Sharyn's anxiety level escalates. "I know I need to get rid of this. You've just got to give me a little bit of time," she says. As the hours go by, Sharyn is able to let go of many of her possessions…although some more easily than others.
The team makes a dangerous discovery—underneath five feet of junk, they find boxes of pasta rotting into the carpet.
As the first week of cleaning comes to an end, Peter gives Sharyn and Marvin three assignments to complete on their own the following week. He asks them to clear out their china cabinet, fill two garbage bags—one for charity and one for trash—once a day and demands that Sharyn stops shopping. Sharyn says she usually shops every day but she won't do it anymore now that Peter's here. "Not after this man came into my life," Sharyn says.
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For someone who hoards, sorting through possessions can be a painful process. An emotional moment sets in for Sharyn when Marvin discovers a wallet filled with pictures. Through her tears, Sharyn explains that this was her father's wallet. "It's just a small piece of my father that I have left," she says.
"That should have a place of honor and respect in the house, and yet it's buried in all this stuff," Peter says. "If you respect that so much, what's it doing buried in the stuff? So we need to pull that out and make sure that it has a place of honor and respect with the stuff in the house."
Peter explains that understanding value is a vital step. "When everything is important, I believe nothing is important," he says. "And so it's really critical to honor and respect the things that you say are of value. And if you don't do that, what are they doing in your home? And that was the problem here. Something of such huge emotional value was buried."
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Peter and Sharyn tackle the thousands of gifts she bought but never gave away. It's an important lesson in setting limits.
At the beginning of the process, Peter allows Sharyn one bin of gifts to keep. Sharyn says she needs more than that. "I'm wondering if six is enough," she says.
When Peter tells her she needs to come to a decision, Sharyn asks for eight bins, then 10. Peter refuses to bargain with Sharyn and urges her to pick a lower number of bins. "The reason I am pushing you is that if you don't set limits now, you will be in this position again within a year," he says. "I'm sorry to push you, but we have to start establishing limits because you have none."
Sharyn settles on eight. "It's just overwhelming," she says. "I don't ever want to be in this place again. Ever. Not ever."
Setting boundaries is an important lesson for everyone to learn, not just hoarders, Peter says. "It's easy to look at this and say this is so extreme, it's not me. But all of us are in this," Peter says. "If you don't have a limit for the number of holiday decorations in your garage or the dresses hanging in your closet or the number of tools on your work bench. If you don't limit your children or yourself, then this is the result."
"Wherever there is clutter, wherever there is chaos, wherever this is confusion in your own life, the message of this … is that there's always hope and that there is a way, no matter who you are, out of what appears to be no way," Oprah says. "Change is possible," Peter says.
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Dr. David Tolin, co-author of Buried in Treasures, is one of the country's leading experts on hoarding. He sat down with Sharyn to uncover the deeper psychological issues that could be contributing to her hoarding.
Dr. Tolin asks Sharyn how serious her problem is. "The highest number you can go to," she says. "And it's really, really gotten bad recently."
In the past two years, Sharyn says she's lost her brother and her sister. "I don't know if I'm trying to fill my life with things to replace the emptiness," she says.
"It sounds like you're trying to fill a hole, but the hole's not getting any smaller as you fill it," Dr. Tolin says. "In fact, I think I'm hearing the opposite, that if anything, it's getting bigger. You're feeling worse and worse."
Sharyn says her hoarding has taken away the ability to have her family and friends come over. "I'm embarrassed to even let my kids in here," she says. "My granddaughter is going to be 12. She probably hasn't been in my house in the past six years. And my grandson is gonna be 5, and he's never been in my house."
Dr. Tolin says that Sharyn has been defining herself as a good grandmother based on what she buys, not what she does. "They need you. They need a grandma who's present and can have them over and can spend time with them in her house," he says. "And it sounds like [you feel] the best way for you to show your love for your grandkids is to buy things—not even necessarily to give them—just to buy them, because you're thinking about them. But the thought doesn't make you a good grandma. The actions do."
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Tragic events or feelings of loss could have also triggered Sharyn's urge to hoard, Dr. Tolin says. "You probably start with a person who's already vulnerable and several different levels to develop this problem, and then something happens that kind of pushes them over the edge," he says. "But, again, lots of people lose things, lose people, face losses, have bad things happen in their lives, and this isn't necessarily how they react. So it would be oversimplifying things to say that's the cause."
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Dr. Tolin also sits down with Marvin, who says that when he and Sharyn dated, her room at her parents' house was also cluttered. "That keeps on flashing back into my mind. I mean, I knew what she was like," Marvin says. "I guess I blame myself in a sense because she's my wife and I didn't know how to stop her from doing what she was doing."
Marvin says he feels like part of the hoarding is his fault, but he never knew how to put his foot down. "How do you do that? I mean, do I walk out of the house? And then what's she gonna do? She couldn't handle this by herself. There's no way. The most important thing is if you love each other. I mean, you can have the cleanest house in the world and if you don't love each other, you know, what good is it?"
Dr. Tolin says he sympathizes with Marvin's position. "On the one hand, it's easier for us looking at this for the first time and think, 'Oh, my God, this is shocking. Why don't you do something about this?'" he says. "But I also find it's awfully hard to win an argument about hoarding. I've tried and I lose all the time. And my guess is that Marvin's lost these arguments as well."
Dr. Tolin says Marvin is in a tough position. "On the one hand, he wants Sharyn to start working on this problem and clearing out the clutter," Dr. Tolin says. "But on the other hand, the more he pushes, the more it seems to drive a wedge between him and his wife. He's really stuck." |
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How can Sharyn's family help keep her hoarding in check so this doesn't happen again? "Sharyn's off to a great start, and I think what Sharyn and Marvin and the kids are all bearing in mind that is really important is that this cannot just be about the stuff. It is not about physical possessions," Dr. Tolin says. "If it were that simple, all we'd need to do is clear out the house and the problem would be solved."
Dr. Tolin says Sharyn needs to clear her head, not just her house. "She needs to really reorganize not just her possessions, but the way she thinks about her possessions. She needs to alter her behavior in a fundamental way so that this problem doesn't grow," Dr. Tolin says. "And the best thing for the family to do is support her without pushing. Because if they push, they're just going to get a push back."
The psychology of a hoarder is why Peter says you can't clean up someone's mess for them. "They just get more and more entrenched. It's like the argument. Once you start arguing about the stuff, someone has to win and someone has to lose. And I can guarantee it, the person who has all the clutter or the hoarder will never lose that argument ever," Peter says.
Peter thinks Sharyn is on the right path. "Sharyn's ready, she's agreed for ongoing help, the family have agreed to monitor it. Sharyn has agreed to get into some substitute activity, into some volunteer work. She stopped shopping," Peter says. "I think all the indicators are there that she is on track and that change is possible."
It took a lot of hard work, a team of people and a heavy duty cleaning crew… See the dramatic results of Sharyn's home makeover.
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Sharyn and Marvin lived in a tiny path between mountains of clothes, gifts and other debris in their home—until organizational expert Peter Walsh stepped in. With his help, a team of 100 people spent eight weeks digging out 75 tons of garbage from their 3,000-square-foot house.
The trash is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to all those dumpsters full of garbage, Sharyn and Marvin had accumulated 1,800 crates worth of toys, clothes, gifts, crafts, books and other belongings—enough to fill three semitrailers. A moment of truth finally comes for Sharyn when she sees all the things that had been crammed into her home displayed on rows of tables and bins in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse.
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Five weeks after Peter and his team began unburying their house, Sharyn and Marvin tackle the only room she begged Peter not to touch—the master bedroom. Piles of clothing swamp all the furniture, from the bed and chairs to an exercise bike.
Ninety-five percent of all that stuff must go, and Peter gives the couple only 20 minutes to decide which clothes to keep. "The first step in organizing is to purge the stuff you don't need or wear or use," Peter says.
As Sharyn struggles to part with the mounds of clothing, Peter asks her why she buys so much in the first place. "I go crazy. If I get [a shirt] in red, I have to get it in the other colors, too. I get them all," she says. "I hate myself [when I get home] because I don't know where to put it."
Once Sharyn's 20 minutes are up, it takes eight hours for the team to take all the discarded items out of the house. When they're done, the lawn is covered with 21 bins of purses, 16 bins of shoes and two piles of clothing almost as tall as Sharyn.
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Underneath all that clutter, Peter says the team uncovered something that posed a major health risk—black mold. "We actually asked Marvin and Sharyn to move out of the house," Peter says. "One of the problems with clutter is air can't circulate in a space, and so mold grows very easily."
Besides being nasty to look at, Peter says black mold can cause a variety of health problems. During the cleanup, he says he developed a fungicidal infection that spread from his leg to his scalp. And Sharyn had complained of a mysterious cough that Peter says lessened as the house became cleaner.
"It's not that unusual because the clutter just physically causes so many problems," Peter says. "Eighty-one percent of people who have hoarding problems have physical health problems related to the clutter, respiratory problems."
To combat the black mold that infiltrates every room of the house, a crew of mold experts came in to sanitize every surface. All the carpets and upholstered furniture were thrown away, and several walls were replaced.
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Of all the rooms in Marvin and Sharyn's home that are drowning in clutter, the 1,000-square-foot basement is the worst. Surveying the mountains of belongings, Sharyn says she thought 50 percent of them would remain—but Peter has a much lower number in mind. "If 5 percent stays, it will be a miracle," he says.
Beneath the piles of baby clothes, crafts and papers, Peter and Sharyn discover three couches, a treadmill, an exercise bike, a pool table and three TV sets. In addition to the mildew and mold they encounter, Peter finds even more health hazards, including mice nests. "I found food from 1994," he says. "There is nothing in here that is worth your health. None of this is safe for you."
While Peter and Sharyn tackle the basement, Marvin confronts his own hoarding problem. "I've never thrown away a bank statement," he says. Marvin begins shredding 35 years worth of financial documents by hand, until Peter decides to have them all commercially shredded instead. "You're holding onto credit card statements that go back 35 years," Peter says. "You have a thing with paperwork that is exactly the same as Sharyn stuck with all the [belongings]."
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Once all the unwanted belongings are cleared from Marvin and Sharyn's house, Peter and the team rent a 10,000-square-foot warehouse to hold a gigantic rummage sale. Piled on dozens of tables are stuffed animals, office supplies, clothing and accessories—including 3,000 handbags and 3,000 pairs of shoes.
Before walking their mother through the warehouse, Peter shows Sharyn's three children, Jodi, Steve and Rich, the sea of belongings. "This is unbelievable," Rich says.
When Peter takes Marvin and Sharyn in to see their rummage sale, Sharyn is stunned by the sheer number of things she sees piled on the tables. Then Peter reveals a second room with almost as many items as the first. "It's sick. It is so sick," Sharyn says. "I feel like a monster has been unleashed. But for the life of me, I cannot believe I even had that path to walk [in the house]."
Watch as Sharyn sees the warehouse for the first time.
Now Sharyn has a choice, Peter says—her stuff or her family. "There is either quantity or there is quality," he says.
"My family. I love you guys so much," Sharyn says. "I thank you for putting up with me. Nobody else on this earth would have put up with me."
Before the family left the warehouse, Peter gave Sharyn five minutes to take anything she wanted. Then, a major breakthrough occurred—Sharon took nothing. "This is my past, and you and this whole crew and my family are my future," she says.
As the family walked away from their past, Peter opened the doors to the largest rummage sale we've ever seen. In just four days, warehouse was completely cleared out and a total of $13,000 was raised!
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Once the two months of sorting, throwing away and cleaning are finished, Sharyn says she feels like a new person. "This cinderblock feeling from my shoulders has been lifted," Sharyn says. Free of the excess belongings, Marvin says he and his wife are finally getting their life back. "I've seen a tremendous change in Sharyn," he says. "She just has no want, no need to even walk into a store."
5 Stages of Change For Compulsive Hoarding
Even though the clutter has been removed, Peter and his team feel the job is still unfinished. Sharyn and Marvin need a fresh start in order to establish their vision of a home filled with peace, family and harmony—and the team has something very special in mind!
For seven weeks, Sharyn and Marvin moved out of their home for the cleanup. When they finally return, the home is not only clutter-free, it's completely redecorated! Walking into the house, they discover a brand new living room. "It's gorgeous," Sharyn says.
Because black mold destroyed 75 percent of the furniture, Broyhill fully furnished the entire home. Lowe's ripped out the old moldy carpet and replaced it with shiny new hardwood floors.
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Before Peter and his team stepped in, Marvin confessed he and Sharyn had not used their dining room in more than 12 years. Now its beautiful, clutter-free décor makes it so inviting that family dinners will become a tradition once again!
While many of the decorative items are new, Sharyn's own dishes are arranged beautifully on the perfectly set table. "One thing that's really important is that the things you own, you have to honor and respect them," Peter says. "Your beautiful dishes—the beautiful things that you own, displayed with honor and respect."
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Since they are going to be using the dining room so much now, Sharyn and Marvin must have a place to prepare all those meals—a newly furnished kitchen. "This is gorgeous!" Sharyn says. "It is so gorgeous!"
The clutter in the old kitchen concealed crumbling cabinets and decaying countertops. So Lowe's redesigned the space using Shenandoah cabinets and Zodiac countertops. State-of-the-art stainless steel appliances from GE's Profile line replace the old, broken ones.
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Peter sets up a sensible solution to Marvin's paper problem in the beautifully redecorated family room. He designates a specific area for paperwork, including small bins for incoming mail and a shredder for unwanted items.
"Throughout the house everywhere, you need to constantly think of the vision you have for that room and stick to the limits," Peter says. "If you do that, you can maintain this home."
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Sharyn and Marvin had not seen their bedroom furniture in years—until Peter helped them move mountains of clothing. Once the room was cleared of clutter, a team from Lowe's removed all the carpeting and the team replaced the mold-covered drywall and even added new windows. "They've transformed everything in here!" Sharyn says.
Now Marvin and Sharyn can enjoy the sanctuary of their master bedroom, complete with the sleep area and a seating area by the fire. "The function of this room is the room that drives your relationship," Peter says.
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Also in the master suite, Sharyn and Marvin's bathroom gets a major facelift with new cabinets and fresh, clean towels. "It's beautiful," Sharyn says.
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To help Sharyn stay within the limits that Peter set for clothes, shoes and accessories, Lowe's outfitted their new closets with ClosetMaid Storage Solutions.
"You agreed that the focus moving forward are the things of value rather than the things that have cost you so much," Peter says. "You choose either the stuff or your life. And that's a choice you have to make every day."
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It was the worst room in the house. The basement was 1,000 square feet of fleas, black mold and mice nests. "Before you go into the basement, I want to remind you, there were so many health problems in this house because of the clutter," Peter says. "This was an unhealthy hell hole."
Now, the basement is a beautiful gathering place. Peter brought in a few functional pieces from Broyhill to help Sharyn define strict limits for her favorite hobbies. There are two armoires designated for gifts, along with a wrapping station. "This is all the paper you need. When you finish one roll, you can add one roll," Peter says.
A crafting area is set up in the middle of the room. Below are rolling carts that hold supplies. "If you pull one of these out to use it, it's returned. And in each area at the end of using things, it goes back to its home," Peter says.
The family's old sofas also create a relaxing area where the children can play.
So how do Sharyn and Marvin see themselves using the basement? "Very wisely and very carefully, and I will take care of everything. I will put everything back," she says.
"This is a house to be proud of," Marvin says.
Sharyn and Marvin's garage was so stuffed, it hadn't seen a car in years.
Now, a Gladiator System from Lowe's helps keep Marvin's workstation in order. There's a special tool zone and steel cabinets for cleaning supplies. Lowe's also installed gear wall panels to keep tools accessible but out of the way.
There is also a special slip-resistant floor. "And now with winter coming, you can park your car in the garage," Peter says.
"Oh, my God," Sharyn says. "I could live out here."
Steve, Jodi and Rich's childhood bedrooms had been locked for a decade—no one but Sharyn had been inside. Now, each room has been redone with a special purpose in mind.
Rich's old room is first. "This is for my guests only. I am not allowed to put any of my belongings in any of these drawers," Sharyn says. "I can't wait to see who the first guest is
going to be."
With bunk beds and a baby bassinette, Jodi's old room is tailor-made for grandkids. "I can't wait to have my grandchildren spend the night," Sharyn says. "I'm ready." 
Steve's room has been transformed into a home office, complete with a mail system to help Marvin stay organized.
The room also serves as a place of honor for Marvin's mother's hutch, a piece that is meaningful to the entire family. "She would feel proud of seeing it where it is. I feel proud seeing it where it is," Sharyn says.
The hutch makes Marvin feel like his mother is with them. "I know my mother's here with us in spirit. This brings her so much closer to us," he says.
Peter says this is the perfect example of treating your possessions with respect. "If something has a value to it, then treat it in that way. And what happens is many people get caught holding onto memory stuff or I-might-need-it-one-day stuff," Peter says. "And if you don't create the life you want, if you don't create the home you want, who will? And that's what this comes down to. [Oprah] keeps saying, live your best life. But it's also about, create your best life. I think that's what we've seen here. And that's the lesson for everyone. Stuff has a promise. But go for life. Don't go for the stuff."
 Sharyn says it's amazing to be free of the clutter that plagued her for so long, but she says it took some time to adjust to it. "It's only been a week, but I feel like that never existed. It's like I know it's back there somewhere," she says. "I know everybody has their demons in one way or another. I dealt with it. I'm not saying I'm 100 percent cured, because the stores are always there and I'm trying to stay out of them. And I'm doing a really good job."
Now, Sharyn says she looks at possessions differently. "You're supposed to own your stuff. Your stuff should not own you. And obviously you can tell my stuff owned me," Sharyn says. "It was overwhelming. There were many times I wanted to start cleaning things and doing things and I would go out and buy the bins and buy the racks and everything. But when you don't even have a space to start in to do that, it's impossible."
Looking back at all the things she had, Sharyn makes a promise to herself and her family. "I was a sick person and there was a monster inside of me that had been unleashed and I will never, ever do this again," she says.
If you or a loved one has a hoarding problem, but you don't have a team of people to come in and help, what can you do to help get organized?
Peter says to start small. "Just the two trash bags a day. If you just walk around the house for 10 minutes a day. Fill one bag with trash. One bag with stuff going to [charity]. At the end of a week, a couple will have 14 bags of trash and 14 bags of stuff for [charity]."
Most importantly, Peter says you have to stop shopping and respect the limits of your space. "Look at the stuff you have and ask, does this help me live the life I want? Your best life? And if it does, keep it. If it doesn't, you have to let it go," Peter says.
Peter says people can learn two important lessons from Sharyn's story. The first? Look to a support group. "Sharyn got to a point through a loving family of seeing the need for change," he says. The second is to seek professional organizing help. "Look around. There are organizers around the country who can come in and help. The National Association of Professional Organizers. Check them online. They have people in every city across the country."
Professional Organizers specializing in chronic disorganization
Treatment Centers & in-person support groups
Online support groups for compulsive hoarding:
Squalor Survivors Community
Messies Anonymous: Mt. Vesuvius Method- Mt. Vernon Method
FLY Lady (Finally Loving Yourself)
Obsessive Compulsive Foundation Support Groups
Peter says Sharyn is a great inspiration to others. "I think there's a massive change here, and I said that to you during the break. Just physically, emotionally, just in talking to Sharyn, there's a massive change," he says. "It's an ongoing process, and I think Sharyn's committed to that. And that's why I have great confidence that change has happened here and permanent change."
Changing a lifelong habit is a difficult
thing. Even after clearing one's home,
many people who hoard have to always
keep on top of their hoarding behavior.
People can and do change and it is
possible to say one is over something
like this, but until we know more about
what causes this, we won't know what
a "cure" will look like. One important
component to successful treatment is
not only to clear out each room, but to
learn how to live and be comfortable
with a cleared room.
-Randy Frost, Ph.D., Expert on
Compulsive Hoarding
Dr. Tolin says Sharyn isn't cured, but she's off to a great start. "There are a lot of people watching this show who are suffering from the same kind of problem and they are gonna have to struggle with this for a while," Dr. Tolin says. "It takes time and it takes commitment, not just today, but tomorrow and next year and forever."
Dr. Tolin says you don't need a team of professionals to clean out and refinish your home to make progress. "It would be nice, but people can make these changes on their own. It takes a little more time, it takes a lot of effort. But they can do it step-by-step," Dr. Tolin says.
If you think you have a compulsive hoarding problem, take the quiz below:
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Do you have a problem with compulsive hoarding? Use this self-assessment to find out.
For each question below, choose the word that corresponds most closely to your experience during the past week.
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