Holding on to the Extreme

Have you ever seen an episode of the A&E TV show Hoarders? It’s a show about perfectly normal-looking people who live in perfectly normal-looking houses who become overwhelmed by their possessions. Their problems start when what appears to be an innocent collection of baseball cards takes over the attic.

Meanwhile, a pile of magazines stashed in a closet forces its way into the hallway before claiming the living room. But that’s nothing compared to the sacks of bargains—beautiful new clothes with the price tags attached, shiny red blenders, and Star Wars figures still in their boxes, all of which conspire to push the car out of the garage and into the front yard. Add in a few bags of trash that can’t find their way to the curb for pickup, and the next thing anyone knows, the people residing in the house are trapped.

Most end up sleeping on top of a pile of dirty clothes because they can no longer find their beds. Of course the situation wouldn’t have gotten so bad if their army of non-neutered cats hadn’t continued to spawn new litters of kittens. Before the occupants knew what happened, their house became a mewing, mildewy, macabre mess, a mess you’d think they’d love to be rescued from, but no!

When a concerned family member tries to remove so much as a cobweb, the trapped inhabitant protests, “But that’s Sylvia, my favorite spider. I couldn’t possibly part with her. Her work has been hanging on my walls for years!”But by the end of the show, after a professional cleanup team sorts through the massive contents of the house, clears away the carcasses of a few expired pets, and hauls away the trash, a miracle happens. With their belongings no longer piled to the ceiling, the homeowners walk from room to room admiring the fact that, yes, their house does have a floor, and even a couch you can sit on!

One woman gushes, “I have so much space that I can now open my refrigerator door!” while a man admits, “With the hallways passable, I don’t have to use the outdoor toilet in the backyard.” Another amazed homeowner looks around at her now livable space and says, “I had no idea I’d let things get so bad.” Really? You didn’t notice the smell of your dead pets or that you had to climb over a mountain of clothes and newspapers to get to the kitchen? Somehow, I believe their admission of blindness because I’ve seen this same blindness at work in my own life.