Hum 176 Become a Critic
A hoarder is a person who accumulates things and hides them away for future use according to dictionary. com. In the beginning of the T. V. show Hoarders on A&E the opening line says that three million people are compulsive hoarders. This attention grabber is a great way to intrigue the viewer and inform them of this real problem of hoarding and show them how it affects the lives of two hoarders. Hoarding is a huge issue that affects not only the people hoarding, but the families and people that surround the hoarders. The T. V. how takes us through a brief background of the two hoarders featured in the episode, Vula from Indiana, and Lisa from Utah. The brief backgrounds let us know that this is a real problem that can affect anyone. Vula looks like a nice old lady, someone’s grandma who has a house that becomes condemned. I think that more information should have been given on her background such as what triggered hoarding, or if someone in her family was a hoarder. Vula has a problem with denial and does not see the real problem. She has 36 cats found in her house, 13 of which are dead.
She is living in cat feces and urine and is in complete denial. There is one part where Vula gets heated and starts cursing at the organizers for throwing everything away. They legally have to burn everything because of the health problems. She does not understand that and I think that in the show they should have explained that better. She did not understand why the organizers were throwing everything away. The Hoarders producers could have shown more emotion from Vula so that people can relate to the pain she is going through. Lisa is a 31 year old elementary school teacher.
She knows she has a problem of hoarding which we later learn in the episode that she learned it from her mom. The Dr. that is helping Lisa, (whose name I could not understand because they said it so fast) later states that hoarding is genetic and also a learned behavior. Lisa displays behavior of a person who wants to change. She is seeking help opposed to Vula who sees nothing wrong with her situation. Lisa’s relationship with her boyfriend is strained and I think they should have talked to the boyfriend more. In the end, Lisa got rid of over 300 boxes of junk.
I think the T. V. show Hoarders illustrates that it can be anyone who is affected by this disorder. They chose two extreme people and their lifestyles. These two extremes are an excellent way to show that it can affect anyone. They did a good job of showing the progress both made during the show; however I would like to know more information about the end result. Were they able to clean their house and keep it clean? Or did they resort back to hoarding again. The cats that were saved in Vula’s story by the animal rescuers were mentioned as being adoptable.
I personally would like more information as I can a cat fan. I think that having a show like Hoarders on T. V. means that it is a bigger issue that we all realize. It needs to be brought to our attention because so many people have this problem. I think that by showing Hoarders is makes us think that we as a society rely on personal objects to make us happy. We have too much stuff that people in third world countries would love to have. We are squandering our money that could be put to better use by helping people. Americans are materialistic and the T. V. show Hoarders proves that.
