... I guess because it is so common, plus my late mother in law was a hoarder. She had one shopping channel on her TV so much that its initials were burned into the thing. No matter what channel you changed to, there was the logo.
The thing is, and maybe the show is picking subjects based on how well they will interest the audience, not whether or not they are true hoarders - some of these people are not true hoarders, they are just lazy or they have energy sapping diseases.
I remember one subject in particular, a diabetic lady who had a couple of children, and her house was hideous. She had roaches, she had used diabetic needles just thrown on the carpet, unusable kitchen and bathrooms due to the filth, etc. Her husband had actually moved to a different residence, although I think he was not planning on divorcing the woman. The "Hoarders Cleanup Crew" came in and was throwing things away left and right and the lady did not care. Only when she was being reproached by the hoarder counselor did she react and then she would just storm out and sit in her truck.
Hoarding is when you cannot bear to part with objects, even years old papers and pieces of string, because of some weird attachment. Hoarders are often shopaholics too, buying things that they do not need or even really want. If I know this, then I'm sure the psychologists on Hoarders know this.
I remembered this one particular show with the diabetic because I am a diabetic and I recognize the indifference and total lack of motivation and energy that seems to come with type two diabetes, you just have to force yourself to do things and you cannot explain this to people who do not have this disease and have them understand it. None of this was mentioned as a mitigating factor on the show, because I think they wanted people to just see a fat lazy woman who would not help herself and who was endangering children so that people would get angry and not tune out and thus garner ratings.
It really is repetitive after awhile, but for some reason it always interests me, like a bad accident you can't look away from.
