How to NOT Get on "Hoarders"

Filed under: Your Home, Storage & Cleaning, Storage & Organization, Cleaning

Our writer watched six straight hours of the A&E show "Hoaders" -- but not without coming out with seven solid tips on how to avoid getting on the show. (and yes, a cleaner home herself).

We've all watched and drooled over the standard roster of beautiful homes offered up by HGTV. You've had apartment envy, you've felt superior to so-called "property virgins" and you've rolled your eyes at Candice Olson's drapey concoctions that look like they belong in the library in Beauty & the Beast. But the one thing that makes your heart skip a beat, fuels your superiority complex and motivates you to clean out your closets like nothing else is A&E's Hoarders.

Because really -- you can't feel bad about your cluttered desk when some old lady from Des Moines can't even get out from underneath the 493 mountainous stacks of scrapbooking supplies and income tax papers from the Carter Administration (she's "Buried Alive" as they like to say).

But after watching six terrifying hours of Hoarders last weekend, I had to take action. I went on a cleaning spree and took my desk from "borderline hoarder" to "soullessly minimalist."

Take a look:



Unsent thank you notes, unread magazines, unpaid bills, unwatched Netflix discs - if this desk had a name it would be "Failure," as it serves as a daily reminder of all of the things I've failed to keep up with, probably because I'm too busy sitting on my couch and watching TV instead of acting like a responsible adult.


And here's afterwards. So clean, and all it took was six hours of my life that I'll never get back spent watching people in gas masks haul a lifetime of someone's possessions out of a house and into a dumpster.

How can you avoid both becoming a hoarder and traumatizing yourself with an entire Saturday's worth of frightening television?

Follow these simple rules:

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Let it go.
Wilson Phillips may have encouraged you to hold on for one more day, but it's time to get over it. It's the one major rule espoused by cardigan-wearing, uptight closet organizers and obsessive compulsives alike -- if you haven't used it in six months, you don't need it.

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Watch out for accidental hoarding.
Say you liked cows when you were eight-years-old for some reason. Man, you were really into those cows back then, but then you did what every child does with their odd obsessions: you grew out of it. Unfortunately, no one seemed to notice. Twenty years later, it has become your "thing." Every gift you receive is cow-themed. You shower behind a cow-printed shower curtain and drink coffee out of a cow-printed mug that says something stupid like, "I need coffee to get me moo-ving." You've started questioning yourself. "Maybe I do like cows," you say to yourself. You don't. Get rid of the tchotchkes and send a bulletin to your loved ones: No. more. cows.

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Leave emotions out of it.
You may have loved that t-shirt you word to the last day of middle school, but you don't need to carry it around for the rest of your life like Jewish guilt, especially if you don't get any use out of it. It's great to hold onto a necklace from your grandmother you'll actually wear or a painting your father bought during his "bohemian" phase, but if the so-called cherished item is shoved in the back of your closet, you shouldn't hold onto it. Remember: Memories are in your head, not on a shirt that has the signatures of a bunch of thirteen-year-olds from Buffalo, New York.

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Recognize when things may be getting out of control.
If anyone has ever referred to you as "one beanie baby away from a nervous breakdown," you may want to start downsizing. Ask a friend or family member to come over and help you decide what to trash and what to keep. It's always good to get the opinion of an impartial party, mainly because they don't have any irrational attachments to that old ashtray you've been saving.

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Note the distinction between being a hoarder and being a collector.
There's a fine, fine line between being a hoarder and being a collector. How can you tell the difference? As with everything in life, it usually comes down to money. A book of valuable stamps is a collection. 400 styrofoam egg cartons is not. Recognize the difference.

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Get hip to technology.
Face the facts -- it's only a matter of time before Apple comes up with a microchip you implant into your head that allows you to watch a live stream of Corrina, Corrina, or whatever awful movie on cable to this week. So, with DVDs on the cusp of going the way of the dinosaurs, you probably don't need to hang onto those old VHS tapes. Same goes for CDs. Yes, listening to music on vinyl makes you seem interesting and old school, but no one is going to be impressed if you pull out your CD collection -- especially since it contains so much BBMak. Hold onto your favorites and get rid of the rest. And if you ever get nostalgic, I hear LFO's debut (only?) album is really cheap on iTunes.

You'll Never Be on "Hoarders" if you.... Purge Often.
No, this isn't a tip for people with modeling contracts -- the more often you go through your things and get rid of stuff, the less daunting it will be. And the more self-righteous you can act about it.

Feel better? I know I do.

Now go clean out under that sofa-bed. It's getting gross under there.

Check our more storage and cleaning advice:
Even Candles Have An Expiration Date
Cleaning-Obsessed Celebrities
Shout Color Catcher Review: Laundry Game Changer?

 

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