FRED: My name is Fred.
And I work for a contracting company.
And I'm probably a hoarder.
[dramatic music]
I collect things all my life.
Anything I thought I needed, I kept.
But you don't realize how much you do have
until you turn around and look.
A few months ago, I seen a few roaches.
So I sprayed.
This past month, they must have multiplied.
They claim if you see one, there's
100 hiding somewhere, so--
MARY: My name is Mary and I am Fred's wife.
I don't think that I am a hoarder.
I think I'm a lousy housekeeper.
When I walk into this house, I see utter filth.
I see the dirt.
I see the cockroaches.
I see the cobwebs hanging from the ceilings.
I think that the average person, if they walked in this house,
would just want to throw up.
My name is Kevin, and Fred and Mary are my parents.
For some reason, I always knew that I
didn't live in a normal house.
I didn't know why I knew that, but I always did.
Tons of times, I told my parents that I didn't
like the house the way it was.
They just said, we're working on it.
My name is Elaine Gersham.
I work for the county.
We conducted our investigation and we discovered
some really extreme violations.
The house was extremely infested with insects.
It was full of trash and garbage.
And it was just unfit for human occupancy.
They charged me for child endangerment
because my house was dirty.
They overreacted a lot.
I mean, I'm not here to harm anybody.
I didn't harm my son.
This particular case is one of the most
extreme that I've investigated, and one of the worst.
And we were very concerned about the child
that was living in the home.
FRED: Well, they told us we couldn't live in our house
until we got it cleaned up.
So we're in the hotel right now.
And it's so expensive.
It's taking half my paycheck per week.
We've got to do something soon before I run out of money.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning.
My name is Matt Paxton.
I'm an extreme cleaning specialist.
The house is very dangerous, OK?
This is not a joke.
You must have a mask on if you're in the house.
When I walk into this house, it feels like a horror movie.
I don't want to be in it at all.
We don't normally have to hose down a house
before we clean it.
But the dust is so bad in this house.
And I mean, one reason the cobwebs look
so thick and disgusting is because there's
inches of dust in the cobwebs.
We've had to spray the entire house down just to make it safe
for us to throw away.
Holy crap.
Follow that-- let me-- I'll get it.
Let me get it.
You guys don't have to worry about it.
It's not safe, yeah.
Kevin is living on top of a bomb.
He doesn't even understand the reality of the situation.
And I can't even see it.
I got it.
There you go.
That is very dangerous, my friend.
Hey, fellas, there were some papers on that table
I need to save.
I have a book here with all my numbers in it.
OK.
But I need to get my papers that you
guys took off the table.
OK, I will get them.
I'm very concerned about your breathing.
I am too, I know.
Your health is more important to me than this paperwork.
I'm very nervous.
Until this house gets scrubbed down, seriously clean,
I don't know if Fred's going to be able to spend more than 10
minutes at a time in this home.
We've got paperwork where the table was.
We need to find it--
Where is my little black book with the medical numbers?
The black, blue folders.
OK, dad.
He's looking for a little black book.
That's his medication.
What is this?
Junk.
This is medicine, birthday cake.
Oh, OK.
I feel very disgusted.
There's bugs crawling everywhere.
There's food left everywhere.
How does the food get left here like that?
On the table, it gets piled up, slides off.
Is that it?
I think so.
All right.
Take it to him.
Not it, brother.
Right now, it's like, overwhelming.
And so it's really got me a little bit
stressed out right now.
I'm looking for my little black book with all the--
My name is Dr. Suzanne Chabot, and I specialize
in OCD and compulsive hoarding.
Mary doesn't express her anger very well.
She pulls back, she clenches her mouth, and she rocks.
Yeah, Mary felt pretty hopeless.
And to see Fred struggle over a few small objects,
Mary couldn't believe that he couldn't see the big picture.
I'm just disappointed in all this crap
he wants inside his home.
No matter what, it was your place.
Right.
Mary just wants to be home again, even though her house is
hoarded, and disgusting, and not healthy,
and certainly not suitable for children, she wants to be home.
MATT PAXTON: You OK?
The guys literally just dropped right through the floor.
Because I can see the trash in the basement.
It's right there.
So once you move all the trash out,
you don't know what you're going to find.
And this is not going to pass inspection.
Oh.
MATT PAXTON: That's all just sitting here.
FRED: Just get rid of the junk.
MATT PAXTON: So that tells me it's trash.
FRED: Yes, trash.
All right, let's get you out here, because you're
already falling fast in here.
I sure am.
MATT PAXTON: Fred has no understanding of how real
this is.
There's a lot of serious crisis going on.
But the biggest one is that this home could kill him.
Kev, how are you feeling, brother, about all this?
I'm feeling awesome.
You looked like you were excited.
I am.
What's getting you excited?
I mean, what's the--
I think it's just the fact that--
because I get to sleep back in here again.
You're just excited about having a room?
Yeah.
You want to see Kevin stay happy.
He's a cool kid.
He's a happy guy.
And it's very contagious.
Hopefully, it will be contagious enough
that it'll keep his parents working
and keeping this house cleaned.
[tense music]
The home needs to be cleaned and sanitized.
It's still unfit for occupancy.
The kitchen has to be usable.
It has to be healthy.
There's a lot of damage still in the kitchen.
The sub floor is damaged.
Yeah.
The infestation is still pretty bad.
That needs to be corrected before we can lift the vacate.
MATT PAXTON: The good news is we got all the trash out.
The bad news is, it's just a start.
We've got a long way to go.
I am disappointed that we can't move back in.
But I'm hoping within the next few weeks
that we can move back in.
MATT PAXTON: It is discouraging.
The family worked so hard.
They pushed themselves more than they've ever done.
But it's not close to being enough.