Lights, Camera, Hoarders on A & E!

Did you catch Monday's episode of Hoarders? I can finally let the cat out of the bag and tell everyone that I had the pleasure of assisting Geralin Thomas filming this episode which aired on A & E on January 4, 2010. It was very exciting first of all to meet Geralin and work with her. It was also exciting (and at times unnerving) to work with the production company and cameramen.

The client, Jim, who as Geralin says is a, "honey of a guy," was nominated for the show by his daughter's friend. His daughter, who recently had a baby, desperately wanted to be able to bring her daughter to grandpa's house. However, because of the unsafe condition of Jim's home (mold, rodent and dust and clutter issues) was unable to. Jim's home was a level 3 on the Clutter Hoarding Scale (1 being minimal clutter all the way to 5 being structural damage to the home, no running water or heat).

In 16 hours, Geralin, myself and Carrie Fink organized Jim's home. It was the toughest assignment I have ever had. Jim did fairly well with the process. We did hit some bumps in that Jim thought we threw out some valuable items - this is normal for a hoarder and we did not take it personally.

When Jim would begin to get overwhelmed at the process, we would bring him back to the reason for the change, which was his granddaughter. When I mentioned his granddaughter or showed him the photograph of her proudly displayed on the refrigerator, Jim would smile, gather his thoughts and get back to work.

The results of the organizing were amazing. Jim has a great new beginning and with continued support can continue to recover from hoarding.

You can view the full episode by visiting www.aetv.com/hoarders/

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