WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.999
The wide sales have started.

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:09.999
Oh, I had to put those cadillacs
aside and not order any

00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:14.999
bedding. Oh, and it\'s too bad because
there\'s some nice stuff on sale.

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:19.999
[sil.]

00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:24.999
[music]

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:29.999
Have you ever had a collection?
Most of us have.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.999
But, when is it too much, then
why do we keep so much stuff

00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.999
in the first place?

00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.999
You see the magazines all

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:53.000
the time. There\'s one book on the coffee table
and a little flower. You know that\'s not me.

00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:59.999
There\'s this mythology gay
people are neat and tidy. No,

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.999
it\'s not the case. What we
have is a huge pile of stuff

00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.999
here, laundry that\'s clean but not put away, coz
there\'s no place to put it. Where am I gonna

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.999
put it? Am I gonna fill up this racks
some more? But even this is getting

00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.999
overly full sometimes. Uhm,
I can barely get to the

00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.999
stove over here, which is
kind of a nightmare. Uhm,

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:29.999
I mean, I cook at a 45° angle, and the
only way I can make space to work is

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.999
pull out a drawer and put a cutting
board on it. I have one chair that

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.999
I can sit in, which is some(ph)... well I\'m sitting
it right now. Uhm, aside from the bed and the toilet,

00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:44.999
there\'s no place to sit down,
there\'s no place to move. The bed

00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:49.999
had a lot of stuff on it. And, eventually

00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:54.999
there was no room for me. She had
ah, you know things hanging from

00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:59.999
doors, and, and ah, uhm,
you know, kind of a narrow

00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.999
passage way through the apartment
ah, with just stuff piled up to

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.999
the ceilings practically. So part of it
is just this idea of like waste and,

00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.999
and I just think things. You don\'t
want your life to be at wasted. Yeah.

00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.999
[music]

00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.999
It\'s like livin\' on a ship. You just

00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.999
go you know, other people seemed to be
bothered but I don\'t. I mean I just go

00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:34.999
sideways and I\'m used to it.

00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.999
[sil.]

00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.999
It\'s an adventure.

00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.999
Okay? Uh-hmm. Now, uhm,

00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.999
yeah. This is how it gets dicey.
An estimated

00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.999
2% of the population are compulsive hoarders.
That\'s one pack rat out of every 50

00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.999
people. Extreme indecisiveness,
procrastination, and disorganization are all

00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.999
characteristics of the compulsive hoarder.
It\'s also driven by fears, fear of making a

00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.999
mistake, fear of losing something you might
need later, fear of throwing away a part of

00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.999
yourself. People hoard all kinds of things.

00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.999
Most common is probably magazines,
newspapers, junk mail paper. Pretty

00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.999
much anything you can see around
you and think of could be hoarded.

00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:38.000
[music]

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.999
The notion for a lot of people
have a hoarding problem is that

00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.999
I need to keep this, because
it might be valuable, it might

00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:54.999
be an opportunity that I
should not omit, uhm,

00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.999
it might be important.

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:04.999
Probably the most famous case
of compulsive hoarding is the

00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:09.999
Collyer brothers in New York. In 1947,

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.999
police received an anonymous phone call
about a dead body inside this four-storey

00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:19.999
Harlem brownstone. It took police
hours to find a way inside the

00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:24.999
building. It was the home of
Langley and Homer Collyer, two

00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:29.999
wealthy and reclusive brother\'s known
as the hermits of Harlem. The Collyers

00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:34.999
lived completely cut off from the outside
world, without heat, electricity or human

00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.999
contact. Altogether the mansion contained

00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:44.999
136 tons of junk. And it was rigged
with booby traps to protect the hoard.

00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.999
Among the brother\'s stuff with thousands of
books, and the chassis of their father\'s Model T

00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.999
Ford. For years, Langley had cared

00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:59.999
for his brother, who had
grown blind and paralyzed.

00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.999
Langley saved thousands of newspapers for
Homer to read in case he regained his sight.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.999
Workmen found Homer\'s
body right away. He had

00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.999
died of malnutrition.
The hunt for Langley\'s

00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.999
body lasted weeks. Finally they had
found them a few feet from where his

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.999
brother had died. He had been
crushed under a pile of stuff.

00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:33.000
[music]

00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.999
I just feel that things are

00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.999
just more reliable than people.
They\'re... like there\'s

00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.999
a certain comfort I have with my stuff.

00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.999
When there... most this kind of
almost like ghetto mentality

00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:59.999
about food. That really taught about the
holocaust really are then. You know, that

00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.999
might not be enough, so you have to save it, and we weren\'t
allowed to eat the canned food in our house coz that was for an

00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.999
emergency like a war, yeah. And
this was a KinetiKit in the 70s.

00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.999
I was sent away to camp every summer. And

00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:19.999
I came back when summer end.
All of my toys, all of my

00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:24.999
doll collection uhm, was gone.

00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:29.999
When I uhm, ask my grandmother you know,
why she did it, she said, \"I had too many

00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.999
toys.\" Basically I was just, 1st
year in high school, and I\'d...

00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.999
That\'s had a start of acquiring LP,
record LPs. And I really like my

00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.999
LP collection, I really liked music and... then when
it was time to move, it was like, Oh, LPs are really

00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:49.999
heavy, you can\'t have all those. You know, pick
out your 20 favorite, and that\'s all you can

00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:54.999
have. Well, my family was
ah, not a very comfortable

00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:59.999
place to live. It was kinda
violent and ah, nobody

00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:04.999
really trusted each other and so like our
stuff which kind of... that was, that was

00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.999
our area of comfort. And at one point, we
moved everything in the storage coz we didn\'t

00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:14.999
know how long were we gonna be here.
And then storage burned down.

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:19.999
[music]

00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.999
I think that a lot of hoarders
think their collectors.

00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:29.999
But I think that real collectors wanna
have an order to their collection.

00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.999
You know I have no idea uhm,
how many dolls I actually

00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:39.999
have. There\'s so many. I think I might

00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:44.999
have around a thousand.
But I\'ve lost count.

00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.999
[music]

00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.999
Ah, he\'s in his evening clothes.

00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.999
Uh-hmm. And he had comes with
a whole array of costumes.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.999
Costumes uhm, clothing. Uh-hmm.
He\'s got real hair.

00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:13.000
[music]

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.999
These are Dr. Seuss(ph), ah,
Galen(ph) from the T.V.

00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.999
series, and this is the
Indonesian uhm, Hanuman from the

00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.999
ah, myth of the Ramayana. And here\'s
the three wise monkeys, hear no

00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:34.999
evil, see no evil. So,
uhm, they\'re important.

00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.999
For me, I always thought I was collecting. I\'m collecting
this, I\'m collecting... collecting this. But when

00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:44.999
my collection gets so big, and there\'s so many
collections, it starts to look like hoarding. It\'s just

00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:49.999
so much stuff. Oh, look! here\'s a ah...

00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:54.999
What is this? Do I really need this?

00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.999
I\'ve, I think I\'ve ridden on it twice. Y... yes, it will
be really bad like we were walking down the street, if

00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:04.999
there was something shiny I felt like a raccoon I would like to see that
something and I\'d pick it up. You know, next thing I know I was keeping

00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.999
it. The chipmunk carefully pries open a

00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.999
rosehip berry. It will keep the seeds
within, hoarding them like bits of

00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:19.999
treasure. I am probably
best-known as a comedian

00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:24.999
for my squirrel impression. Ah, I
did that on \"The Tonight Show.\"

00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:33.000
[sil.]

00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.999
[music]

00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.999
It probably was

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.999
a ah, a selection advantage to
individuals who stored away

00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.999
food items uhm, and probably non-food
items, the tool-making supplies

00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:14.999
for kinds of meat. According in
saving clearly is a conserved

00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.999
ah, trait along ah, the entire animal
kingdom. Those ah, what you might

00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.999
consider a hard wiring for collecting
behavior in our brains. I\'m not a

00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:29.999
collector. I just seem more of a pack rat. You
probably didn\'t know about this but... coz it\'s in our

00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:34.999
storage created in LA. But, I
have a 400-piece uhm, Victorian

00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.999
dollhouse kit it(ph)... ah, which I haven\'t
put together, but I was saving that

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.999
in case whenever(ph) I have like a breakdown
or something, ah, my little project.

00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.999
I mean, I wouldn\'t buy that now coz I don\'t think
I\'m gonna have that breakdown, but I\'m just

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.999
saying... Oh, you just do to something
that you\'ve bought as an adult? Yes.

00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:03.000
[music]

00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.999
The reason of my house looks
so normal, is because

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.999
Mike. And there was just no way that we
could both fit in to her place without

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.999
making room. I feel very threatened

00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.999
with... by Mike\'s efforts to get rid
of my stuff. That(ph), you know, he\'s

00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:29.999
somehow reducing me. That,
that me and my stuff,

00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.999
is... and I, I had all these, I\'ve... It\'s
like, it\'s like a sculpture I\'m trying to,

00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.999
I\'m trying to kind of bring you
out of the ah, out of the, the -

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.999
No, you\'re not. Your just trying to get rid of the
thing that distresses you. You can\'t blame all your

00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.999
partners on my stuff. - block of wood or so... or marble... you know. And the, the other thing that
we have is I always, I always... if I ever proposed that we get rid of anything. Yeah, I get upset.

00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.999
Even magazines. You know, we\'ll, we\'ll be all,
all be sitting here and those be(ph) huge sack

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.999
of magazines and I will say, \"Bets, can I, can I throw
some of these out? or kinda... \" \"No, no, no! don\'t!\" When

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.999
my boyfriend comes over, he\'ll immediately
start pointing at things and say, \"Can we get

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.999
rid of this? Do you really need to
keep this? These Sunday papers from

00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.999
three weeks ago, do you really need it?\"
And nobody has actually been up here. I

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:19.999
just, I just can\'t let anybody see this.
It\'s too ah... and after the therapist

00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.999
came in and said you know, \"You know, this isn\'t
normal, don\'t you...\" I\'d, you know I just

00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:29.999
can\'t chance I just, I
just cannot chance it.

00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:34.999
On the one hand I wanna keep
it all around me and, and

00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:39.999
make this cave for myself. And on the
other hand, I really wanted to be clean.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.999
Because uhm, I mean, this
is a reflection what\'s in

00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.999
my head.

00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.999
[music]

00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.999
The greatest mystery is what\'s

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:04.999
causing all these disorders
and, and ah, what is going

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:09.999
on in the brains of, of people with these
disorders. Hoarding is long been considered a

00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.999
symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder.
But, researchers now believe that it maybe a

00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.999
separate neurologically distinct condition.
We had observed a very

00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.999
interesting phenomenon in a couple of our patients.
Dr. Anderson and his colleagues studied a

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.999
rare group of hoarders who started collecting
after strokes, brain tumors, and blows to

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.999
the head. The injuries had one thing
in common. They all occurred in

00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
the area of the brain called the
mesial prefrontal cortex. It\'s

00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.999
part of the brain that we do not understand very well.
It\'s a part of the brain that\'s involved in emotional

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.999
behavior or social behavior. Most
hoarders don\'t have brain damage, but it

00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.999
turns out, they show low activity in
a very similar area of the brain.

00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:59.999
This areas right in here in white,
show the areas that had lower brain

00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.999
metabolism, lower brain activity in compulsive
orders, as compared to normal controls.

00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.999
This posterior part of the
Cingulate Gyrus is involved

00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.999
in mediating visual special activity,
and memory and emotional process.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.999
This area of the brain appears to regulate
the primal urge to collecting humans.

00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.999
Stirring it in the socially acceptable forms.
In compulsive hoarders, this mechanism

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.999
doesn\'t work properly. And the drive to collect
runs unchecked, while the clutter piles up.

00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:38.000
[music]

00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.999
I\'m sure you\'ve heard whoever dies with the
most toys wins. So, that\'s a big thing in the

00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:54.999
American cultures to consume and
collect and get more and get more.

00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:59.999
They never tell you where you gonna put it once you
get it bought. I realized that was the problem for

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.999
me, when health inspectors were coming.
And I\'d just

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.999
about died. The health inspector showed
up and what they\'ve said was, \"Wow,

00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.999
you have a lot of stuff.\" That\'s exactly
what they said and I went, \"Yup.\" And since

00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:19.999
a lot of it\'s hanging from the ceiling, they said, \"Well you put
it up there, if there\'s a earthquake and all the stuff falls on

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.999
your head, it\'s your own fault.\"

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.999
That\'s when I sort of
realized that I should

00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.999
seek help and start looking into what\'s involved
with the behaviors I\'m going through and,

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.999
and try and do something, you know.
And I keep watching these

00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.999
programs on television where these professional
organizers come in and help people

00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.999
in a matter of, you know, days. The apa... apartments
are fantastic and they come in and paint for

00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.999
them and give them new furniture, and
you know, $3,000 and the place is all

00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.999
fantastic. And you know, I keep watching and
I keep thinking, ah, you know that could be

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.999
me. Once it gets to a bad place, it\'s
almost impossible to... and you have

00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.999
to start it out like that
and keep it like that.

00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
My new thing is food. Because
that way I... we can consume

00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
without collecting. Well,
this is the list of things

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
that I have on the cabinet. So, A,
I won\'t double buy any of this,

00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
and know what is actually in there. So I tuck
this right up here next to this kitchen cabinet,

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
and ah, what I need to know what\'s in there I
can just sit... go to my list and check it out.

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
I set a timer for 30 minutes.
I\'ll say, \"For 30 minutes

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
I\'m gonna go the stack of magazines, pull out
all the articles I want, throw away the rest.\"

00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
I took an interest in studying compulsive hoarding,
it\'s because I recog... I could recognize the traits in

00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
myself. That\'s were about seven or eight
years ago. I haven\'t hoarded any news papers

00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
anymore. I went through and like realized I had to start
getting rid of them in and nothing terrible was gonna happen

00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
if I didn\'t get the chance to read you know, the,
the \"Time\" magazine from three months ago. If I

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
had to get it in and out of the
bathroom, it just wheels really easily,

00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
and I can just get into the bathroom. Of
course, there is uhm, uhm, the vacuum

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
cleaner in the way right now, but that\'s
okay, I can move that, that\'s on wheels too.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
But uhm, this is really easy to move.
As opposed to before,

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
when I uhm, before I run to the
storage room, there were also chairs

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
and other things I had to move before I
could get in and out of my uhm, front

00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
door.

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
[sil.]

00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.999
I still have some control.

00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
I\'m not a complete hoarder yet.
Could somebody give me a push?

00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
Please, oh, thank you. That\'s
all I needed, was one push.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
It\'s amazing how uhm, you can
become very attached to things.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
And it\'s stupid thing. Uhm,

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
a, a lot of the stuff you can
just get rid of and uhm, it\'s,

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
it\'s very freeing, but at the same time,
when you\'re going through the stuff,

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
uhm, it, it becomes very painful. And I

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
sometimes think, \"Can I just enjoy the
things I have? Do I always need more?\"

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
I try and tell myself, \"If there\'s no
room to put it, don\'t bring it in.\" But

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
I find it that I still do. One

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
of the things that I worry about is,
when I die... If I die first he\'s

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
just gonna throw away all my stuff.

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
[music]

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
When I moved the things into storage

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
and I was thinking about them, you
know, I really don\'t want them

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
back.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:18.000
[music]