[music playing]
My name is Lauren.
And I am 28 years old When I was growing up, I guess
I was always considered messy, slob, choose your adjective,
and probably lazy.
This isn't weird to me.
This is normal.
It's weird to me if there wasn't anything out.
It's weird to me, like, if I walk into a room
and there's nothing there except for the pieces of furniture.
My name is Kerry McNamara.
I'm Lauren's dad.
We always had a very good home life.
The house was a house, was always very orderly.
My wife is a very neat person.
My name is Liz McNamara.
And I am Lauren's mother.
I just thought that she was a pack rat because
in my generation that's what you call people that
couldn't throw things away.
LAUREN: My mom wanted everything to be
in a certain place and everything
to be very neat, and clean, and tidy.
And if I didn't do it, it always started an argument.
And then, it would usually end in me getting upset.
And then, she would just do it.
I would just clean it because it was my house.
And her room was part of the house.
So I would just clean it.
My name is Will Retzer.
I am 31 years old.
Lauren and I have been together for almost three years now.
I guess I would call her my girlfriend, partner.
We own a house together.
[music playing]
We did have separate rooms for a while.
I didn't mean to.
But it just sort of--
stuff does follow me.
LIZ: I couldn't believe he could live there.
He didn't appear to be the type of person who would live
in that kind of environment.
WILL: I'm guilty of enabling in some ways.
And I don't know at what point my enabling has gone too far.
We brought the mattress from upstairs downstairs.
Lauren just wanted some time to herself.
LIZ: She prefers to be alone.
LAUREN: Files.
LIZ: I think that the collecting of things
is kind of her people.
So she'll withdraw at any moment.
And you don't know why or when that's going to happen.
[music playing]
So they were probably there for six months.
We came here.
And I couldn't walk through her living room.
And this was the brand-new condo.
You could not see the hardwood floor.
And she said, no, I made my bed for you to sleep in the room.
And I said, we can't sleep in here.
I can't even get to the bed.
And that's when I knew this was something big.
This isn't normal behavior.
So I guess I did what I thought I should do.
And I just cleaned it all.
I spent the whole day there.
I cleaned the whole thing.
We had a huge argument.
She was very upset with me.
[background chatter]
LAUREN: I felt like my privacy was being invaded.
Somebody was just like baring my soul, or like reading a diary,
or something like that because it's my stuff.
WILL: This is a turning point.
Come March, I guess, Lauren will not
have had full-time employment for a year.
I've definitely had the feelings before that
if I'm working all day and you don't have a job,
then you should be able to tackle clutter.
LIZ: Right now, she spends most of her time
at home watching TV.
[tv chatter]
WILL: There's obviously a build-up of frustration.
More and more attempts and more and more failures.
LAUREN: I can't really speak for him.
But I would say that he has probably given up.
RENNEE REINARDY: I'm Dr. Rennee Reinardy.
I'm a clinical psychologist.
What we're doing is we're kind of taking it one target
area at a time, going through the house,
working on decluttering.
But what's most important in this process
is changing thinking patterns and behavioral patterns.
One of the things I think you guys
know about me is, like, I'll start doing something,
going through a box.
And then, oh, this goes up in the bathroom.
If I go up in the bathroom. And then, I'm in the bathroom.
And then, I hear the phone ring. And then, the dog barks.
And--
In one weekend, this house could look mint.
Is she going to want that?
I don't know all those answers right now.
So this water container had a leak in it.
There's like no water left in here.
But I saved it because I wanted to save it.
RENNEE: So what's your decision with it now?
LAUREN: So my decision with it now is that I do not need it.
She's looking through some of the things I thought,
that is a no-brainer.
Just throw it away.
This is a nail repair kit.
I don't have long nails.
They don't need to be repaired.
Mom?
Those are four-second answers.
LAUREN: Yeah, but that could be a donate.
To me?
LAUREN: Yeah, you have nails.
I know.
But I wouldn't-- - Repair them?
No.
She shouldn't have to think about a bottle of nail polish
that deeply.
LIZ: Do you want me to tell you the dates
on any of those shoes?
I can help you with that.
I know shoes is your thing.
You can match shoes.
I can match them?
Yeah, you want them?
Then what are you going to do with them?
- Well, then we can decide. - Oh.
Where they're going.
I can match.
If you just wait till she asks for help,
then you're better off.
[inaudible]
You want some shoes?
Those are my mowing-the-lawn shoes.
I see that.
Why are you trying to find the match for something
that's no good anyway?
LAUREN: We're just matching.
We're not deciding.
The process, Kerry, is to get the match
and then have Lauren decide whether or not
she wants to part with her mother's
old sneakers of 10 years ago.
You can see if we can find a matching shoe box.
LAUREN: If you want to grab the box, it's upstairs.
Do you know where it is upstairs?
Nope.
I think it's in my room.
Can you just get it, please?
Yeah, OK.
Relationship issues are really important in any problem
that people struggle with.
But I see it especially in hoarding.
And what happens is this dynamic gets created where the partner
becomes afraid oftentimes to say or do
anything because there's such a strong emotional reaction.
Just-- you don't need to have it in a bin.
I don't want it in a bin.
Just, like, a pile.
Not with the other things please, William.
I'm sure he'll tell you that there's a lot of times
that he just feels like I'm just bossing
him around all the time.
Weed.
You said just clean it out a little bit.
Yeah, but like there's crap in the bottom of it.
Oh, come on now.
If you're in a relationship with a hoarder, my advice to you
is let go.
Can that not go in a pile of stuff?
Can that go separately, please?
Both of these boxes?
Both of those boxes.
Like, I like having that power or whatever.
And I like that he does it because you end up
totally controlling somebody.
And then, I think they end up just succumbing to that.
And then, either they wake up and leave
or they just become your robot because they
don't know what else to do.
[music playing]
You want to do some of your stuff there?
WILL: I'm trying to think of a good place to put.
Just put it in the box.
Getting tired.
Just not getting my 12 hours.
She just she wanted me to know that everybody knew that.
Well, how about five minutes?
Then, I'll go up and chat with her a little bit
and see what she wants to do the rest of the afternoon, how
she wants to spend the time.
I don't want to just leave and not
have a chance to talk about what we did and what we process.
OK.
You know, I'm-- her choice is the one that's going to--
Yeah, of course.
So let's do five minutes.
And then, I'll go up and talk to her
and just see what she wants to do.
And we'll go from there. WILL: OK.
- Sounds good? - Sounds good.
- All right. - All right.
Thanks, Will.
It's been tiring.
Yeah, ready for some rest.
[music playing]
Hey, Lauren?
It's Rennee.
How are you doing?
Sleepy?
Yeah, I know.
You're working hard.
What do you feel like you're up to doing?
I don't know.
Yeah, it's not it's not easy for sure.
And you know what?
Most importantly right now, you have to be
selfish and help yourself.
OK.
LAUREN: But that's hard for me because--
RENNEE REINARDY: You're not used to that.
LAUREN: Yeah.
And I don't care about myself enough to be selfish sometimes.
RENNEE REINARDY: It's important to change those concepts.
And best to do it now when you're young.
[background chatter]
RENNEE REINARDY: This is not an easy thing to do.
So I would hope that she would continue
with what we've started.
Some things went really well, sometimes were
really challenging for you.
And that's totally normal process.
And I think it's something that people couldn't
expect anything different.
So because this is how things really work.
Right?
LAUREN: If somebody were to walk in off the street
and say, oh, what did-- what did you do exactly?
Like, oh, I see a couple of corners.
You know?
But other than that, it doesn't really look all that different.
You have all these great intentions.
And you want to get things done quickly
or other people want to help you because they can do it better
or whatever.
But I have to learn for myself.
And I have to do it at my own pace.
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