Listen to the Stateside story here.
For a while, the show Hoarders was popular on cable.
A show about people who just can’t stop hoarding things in their homes. Bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms are piled high with paper, dishes, clothes, food. Doors can’t open. Sometimes there are too many animals in the house. People with hoarding disorder put themselves – and sometimes others – in danger.
The TV show resolves the issue with a lot of drama and tears, and the problem, at least what the viewer sees, is all taken care of in one or two episodes.
But life doesn’t work that way, and for a long time, there just wasn’t a lot of help available for people with hoarding disorder.