Cluttered lives of hoarders transcript

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ALEX CULLEN: Lives controlled by an addiction to objects. Suffocating in their own homes.

It's hard. I can't describe. It's like I fight with myself. I wish I could just pick up a tray full of stuff and just..and not look at it. Throw it out and not look at it. But there's something inside me that says, "There might be something in here that I might need."

ALEX CULLEN: Before hoarding consumed her life, Lee Farrer was a secretary.

Lee Farrer: Well, this is a room that I call the 'crying room'. I want to cry when I come in to it because there's so much stuff and it's very depressing.

ALEX CULLEN: She believes the reason for all this is because her mother sold all her toys when she was a child.

Lee Farrer: When I was 12, my mother picked up all my toys and dolls and things that I treasured and took them up to the white elephant stall and dumped them there. Everything. And I was just devastated.

When my mother died, my father basically just got rid of everything of hers and I think that had a really big impact on me.

Jocelyn Wheatley: Hello.

ALEX CULLEN: Hello, Jocelyn.

Jocelyn Wheatley: Welcome to my nightmare.

ALEX CULLEN: OK. Jocelyn Wheatley doesn't let many people inside her world. Jocelyn, you have a lot of stuff.

Jocelyn Wheatley: I have a lot of stuff, yes.

ALEX CULLEN: Wow-wee.

Jocelyn Wheatley: And my house is a reflection of my brain.

ALEX CULLEN: Do you like having lots of stuff?

Jocelyn Wheatley: Not like this, no. I'm actually so trapped by my house.

ALEX CULLEN: Jocelyn is a mother of four but lives alone. The clutter is pushing her to breaking point.

Jocelyn Wheatley: I might as well be dead and I can't be dead 'cause of my children. And that's the only reason I'm here is because.....I promised them that I would be. So I have to survive for now.

ALEX CULLEN: Sorry.

Jocelyn Wheatley: That's OK. Very overwhelmed. And that, I think, is why I don't deal with it very well. I'll wake up in the morning and look around and think, "Oh, my God." The house is so daunting for me. Books and magazines and all sorts of things. Excuse me.

ALEX CULLEN: A lot of what Jocelyn buys is on the internet.

Jocelyn Wheatley: Hello?

ALEX CULLEN: While we're filming, a delivery arrives.

Jocelyn Wheatley: That is one of my biggest downfalls, Catch of the Day. A new thing every day.

ALEX CULLEN: Online shopping has made it even easier for hoarders to feed their cravings. Even though Jocelyn knows she has a problem, she can't stop.

Jocelyn Wheatley: I don't even know what's in that box. Same as the ones at the front door. I can't even remember what it is that I ordered. That's how...um...compulsive that acquiring stuff is. Empty boxes on the shelf where books are supposed to be going. Things that are supposed to go in my new linen cupboard but my new linen cupboard is around there and I can't get to it.

Professor Michael Kyrios: There are no services because the needs of people who have these difficulties, they fall between the cracks.

Jocelyn Wheatley: Empty boxes, I think. And then my container room in there.

Professor Michael Kyrios: This is a huge problem and it is unrecognised.

ALEX CULLEN: Professor Michael Kyrios from Melbourne's Swinburne University is Australia's leading authority on hoarding. He's found that
simply removing the possessions can make a bad situation far worse.

Professor Michael Kyrios: There have been instances of people having suicide attempts or actually successfully suiciding after all their things were thrown out.

ALEX CULLEN: I never thought it would go that far. Well, if the very thing that makes you feel safe in the world is ripped out of your control, how do you think people are going to feel?

Paul Monteit: I've stood on balconies 15 storeys up and really questioned why I shouldn't step off them.

ALEX CULLEN: Paul Monteith is 61, a builder and mechanic. He's separated from his wife and family because of his obsession.

Paul Monteit: This is the ninth property that I've filled up with my stuff. I fight with myself on a daily basis not to collect any more items.

Peter Walsh: Something has happened in their life that has flicked a switch in their head that they no longer see stuff in the way that you or I see it.

Swallowed up by lots.....and lots of stuff.

ALEX CULLEN: Australian clutter expert Peter Walsh hosts a TV show in the United States where there's an industry built around conquering hoarding.

Guest on show: This is a compilation of my things, my grandpa's things.

Peter Walsh: This has been eaten by rodents. Stuff has power and for a hoarder, the stuff has the power to somehow keep them safe. Even though it's jeopardising every aspect of their life.

ALEX CULLEN: His challenge is to convince hoarders to let go of their belongings. A team of cleaners remove most of it.

Peter Walsh: Come in to your empty living room.

Guest on show: Wow. It's a lot to take in.

Peter Walsh: OK. How so?

Guest on show: I don't know how to make it a home.

Peter Walsh: The way you make it a home is by embracing the space!

ALEX CULLEN: For most hoarders, it's just not that easy.

Lee Farrer: It's sad that I've got to the age I am and I'm still surrounded by all this crap, all this clutter and it's like the clutter's my life and I don't have a life.

ALEX CULLEN: Why can't we just get rid of it all?

Jocelyn Wheatley: Because...it's not rubbish.

ALEX CULLEN: For me, it'd be something as simple as taking this box and just taking it outside. It's not that simple, is it?

Jocelyn Wheatley: No. Because I bought that for a reason and I'm sentimentally attached to that box.

Paul Monteith It's got to the point where it's an absolute shackle around my legs. It's restricted my life to the point where my life's not working
and I've got a real problem with letting it go.

Lee Farrer: My dream, really, is to rid myself of all of this. I want a home that I can come home to and shut the door and say, "I'm home, I really love this."

ALEX CULLEN: What psychologists are finding is that hoarding is triggered
by trauma that often occurs in childhood. So just cleaning up the mess doesn't cure the condition. But there is new hope.

Dr Kyrious has made a breakthrough. He's trialling a 12-week course
that helps hoarders understand why they've become emotionally
possessed by their possessions and it's working.

Professor Michael Kyrio: We tend to focus on identifying an area in the house that people want to use - it might be a sofa, so they can sit
down and read a book comfortably or watch some television or entertain -
and try and help them find a solution around that specific area.

Once people start getting comfortable and confident in being able to deal
with one specific area, we then broaden it out and broaden it out and broaden it out.

ALEX CULLEN: The new approach is having a remarkable impact.

Lee Farrer: I'm in full control of what I'm doing.

ALEX CULLEN: Lee had been trapped in the clutter of her home for 12 years. After eight treatment sessions, this is a momentous day in Lee's recovery...

Lee Farrer: I really am rescuing myself and I feel a real sense of relief.

ALEX CULLEN: ..shredding a scathing and hurtful letter from her mother
who had thrown away her toys all those years ago.

Lee Farrer: I'm in control now.

Paul Monteith: Yes.

Lee Farrer: Bye-bye.

Paul Monteith: Good on you, Lee.

Lee Farrer: Thanks, Paul.

ALEX CULLEN: Paul says he is also ready to stop collecting more things.

Paul Monteith: I still have a huge problem but I'm certainly now more empowered with the tools to work on it.

ALEX CULLEN: And, Lee, whose crying room looked like this before counselling, has turned her cluttered life around.

ALEX CULLEN:(GASPS)You can walk around in here, Lee.

Lee Farrer: Yes.

ALEX CULLEN: Look at it! Space. Space everywhere.

Lee Farrer: Everywhere.

ALEX CULLEN: This is fantastic. How's it feel?

Lee Farrer: Fantastic, more than fanstic, just elated. Now I come in hear and I've the chairs and turn on the heater and sit here and think I did it.

ALEX CULLEN: I'm proud of you Lee.

Lee Farrer: So am I.