[music playing]
DICK: My name is Dick.
I'm 71 years old.
And I'm a retired veterinarian.
My house is messy.
I don't think it's filthy, but it certainly is messy.
[music playing]
I like to consider myself a collector, not a hoarder,
but so does every other hoarder.
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I'd say that my collection is $22,000.
Well, there's probably $50,000 out there, so a lot of them
are duplicates and triplicates.
BOB: My name is Bob.
I'm a distant relative of Dick's, but a very
close personal friend of his.
I don't understand the beer cans.
I don't know why he's interested in them.
I know he has exhausted most of his money on these cans.
And I've asked him to just sell them,
but he's too attached to them.
He won't let them go.
DICK: If somebody came and wanted to buy it from me,
I wouldn't even talk to them for less than $200,000.
It might even be more than that.
I'm accumulating vast quantities of things, but in a collection,
every one of them is different.
I think of situations where I accumulated something,
and I can tell a story about, well, this happened this time,
and this happened this-- and I was with these people.
It's a reminder of the joy of the life that I've led.
My name is Jackie.
And Dr. Dickey is my first cousin.
I would say everything my cousin Dickey
does is absolutely hoarding.
Enough is enough of anything, but there's
never enough for a hoarder.
DICK: I have miniature cars.
I have the shelf over there with all the accumulation of beer
steins and veterinary statues.
I have the bobbleheads.
A collection of miniature liquor bottles, stamps from Laos,
pretty extensive library of bonsai books.
Oh, and I have the egg collection.
I almost forgot that.
That started with a cloisonne egg.
And now I've got maybe 500 or 600.
Beanie Babies.
When I got into it, It was a craze.
And now that the craze is over, the value of a lot of the stuff
that I purchased has tanked.
My name is Jason.
And Dr. Dickey is my cousin and close friend.
Jason is my first cousin's son.
When she passed away, Jason and I got a lot closer.
He and I have very similar personalities.
JASON: When he first let me in, I
was in such awe of his conditions
that I wanted to continue coming over
to get a greater perspective of exactly what every room
of the house was like.
When I've had the house cleaned up at times,
it's been nice to be able to walk through and not
have to hold on to things because I
need to walk around something else
to keep me from falling down.
BOB: 90% of what Dick has is worthless trash and dirt,
and it's covering up some beautiful objects.
I know he's a collector, so he's got some nice things,
but he doesn't even know where they're at.
My concern is for Dick's future because he
has exhausted his fortune on helping other people
and collecting these items.
He's out of money.
JACKIE: He keeps buying.
And I don't know where he gets his money,
but I think charge cards are the ruination of this country,
and I think he's using quite a few of them.
JASON: He's maximized every resource that he has.
And now what he's left with is his stuff.
BOB: He doesn't seem to want to admit that there's a problem,
so we've run into a brick wall because if there's no problem
in his mind, we can't help him.
DICK: If I woke up tomorrow and everything were gone,
I would be devastated.
Part of my life would be gone.
BOB: These things that he owns, they own him,
they have possessed him, and that's the problem.
DICK: It's my life, it's my enjoyment that would
have just been taken away.
[music playing]
- Hi, I'm Standolyn. - Hi, Standolyn.
So happy to meet you.
Dick Gurevitz, how are you?
Good.
My name is Standolyn Robertson.
I'm a certified professional organizer.
I don't think Dr. Dickey realizes just how much he has
that needs to be dealt with.
It seems like it will be easy, but when
it comes right down to the hard decisions,
it's going to be hard.
Is everybody ready? - I'm ready.
Let's move.
Good, good.
OK team. Let's go.
- All right. - Thanks.
All right.
The ground rules will be set up as follows.
No one throws anything away unless it's
been approved by Dickey.
My goal is to have groups sorting and purging,
come up with what we think will be
the pile that he can let go of, and then let
him do final approval on that.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, handle carefully.
We're going to set some of these down here for now.
Yeah.
Dick, these are blueberry jars.
Yeah, I--
I know.
ROBIN: My name is Dr. Robin Zasio.
I am a licensed clinical psychologist
and a specialist in treating compulsive hoarding.
I don't believe that he has grasped his current situation.
He's basically going to defend that this environment is really
not as bad as it appears.
DICK: Throw it away.
Good job, Dick.
Don't keep saying that.
I got to.
STANDOLYN: It's a small step opening up his home to us.
And I want him to know that he made the right decision.
DICK: No, just--
STANDOLYN: You want the hat and the button?
DICK: --leave it.
STANDOLYN: Leave it just as it is?
Yeah, I'll take them off.
STANDOLYN: OK.
Are you going to keep the hat?
Yes, yes.
OK.
You didn't think I was going to throw that away, did you?
BOB: The frustration comes from the fact
that Dickey doesn't think he has a problem.
He's just flippant about it.
He thinks it's cute.
I am so nice.
STANDOLYN: You are so nice.
Here I should be all frazzled making all these decisions,
decisions, decisions.
I'm happy as a lark.
All your decisions were to keep, of course, you were.
[laughter]
DICK: Leave them just like that.
Just leave the whole thing just like that.
It doesn't make any difference.
The box is not going to be any smaller if I take them out,
right?
So just-- there.
Is there any reason why we can't
throw away the broken ones? - OK, you do it.
- OK, great. - You do it.
You make the decision what's mine and what's not mine.
ROBIN: In terms of the family, my concern
is they may push him too hard, and, ultimately,
that can result in conflict.
Yeah, I know what it is.
I don't know where the charger is.
So let's--
OK, so let's put it in the trash because we
can't find the charger.
Jason, you told me you weren't going to do that.
OK, OK, OK.
But can I take these to, uh--
[sighs] don't you think--
What did you--
JASON: You've got brand new ones unopened in a box.
Would you stop.
You just told them you're not married to your stuff.
Let's let this go.
[music playing]
Should we be making a pile for all the items
that you're going to sell?
You don't think we should do that?
DICK: I'm worried about getting rid of the junk.
I'm not worried about what's going to get sold or not.
JASON: I'm just asking because I think
we should be concerned with a little bit
of what we're going to sell.
I'm not selling anything today.
STANDOLYN: You're not selling anything today,
but having a pile of things that you're going to sell
represents things that are leaving your home.
ROBIN: That's right.
Because we can organize that stuff, and then--
DICK: All right, go ahead.
Do whatever you want. ROBIN: No, no, no.
OK?
Does that make you happy?
I don't want to talk about it.
ROBIN: OK.
DICK: Once I put the cans up, I'll sell the duplicates.
ROBIN: OK.
You're the one who said that was for selling.
If that's not a can, it was a sign.
You said I can sell it.
Maybe I want to keep it myself.
Is there anything in there?
OK, that's the problem.
Our greatest concern at this point
is he may not sell any of the things
that he's intending to sell, which will continue to further
his financial problems.
[music playing]
Serious for one moment.
DICK: I'm listening.
This has got to be pretty neat to see this happening?
DICK: Oh, yeah.
And then I'm thinking that when everybody leaves,
I got to take them all down again.
ROBIN: He is not recognizing that he
is a compulsive hoarder.
He's really holding on to that way
in which he's viewing himself.
The one thing that I want to continue to impress upon you
is really being able to now look around and really appreciate
what you have done because I couldn't
really feel that before.
All I saw was just them laying around and stacked up,
and now I can really appreciate all the emotion that's
come into this collection.
DICK: See, this has always been my collection.
The junk in the house was the clutter.
That was the hoarder part of it.
The collection always was a collection.
Sometimes I'm willing to aggravate him
if I believe there's a greater cause
or a goal that can be met.
Try to be serious for this for me, OK?
Could you do that for me?
[scoffs]
A month or so ago, you made a promise
to me which was going to include some professional counseling.
I just want to remind you that we made a contract.
I know, I know.
I'm sorry.
I just want to remind you how important--
No, you don't have to remind me because I haven't forgotten.
And I appreciate that.
DICK: You don't treat me as an equal,
you treat me as somebody that's below you.
JASON: It was important to me.
I'm sorry.
I didn't say, shrink, I said professional counseling.
So why didn't you say something to me in advance?
I'm the one that's involved.
Nobody talks to me.
JASON: I'm going to go with you, Dickey.
DICK: I don't care what you do.
JASON: And I didn't say shrink, I said professional counseling.
I never said psychologist or shrink or anything.
ROBIN: Dick got very angry with Jason when
he pulled that contract out.
Feeling like he had given his word to him,
and he did not need to show that contract.
You've decided that it's OK, so I've
got to go along with it.
And if I don't want to go along with it,
you sit there and tell me why I should because you wanted it.
ROBIN: My concern is it's quite possible that he
could pull the plug on this.
In my mind, he's the one that keeps bringing it up.
I was really impressed because it was actually the first time
that I felt like we were actually having
a very serious conversation.
He knows how to pull my strings.
And for some reason, he enjoys it.
ROBIN: He truly does want this problem to be resolved.
And he recognizes that it's going to take past this weekend
for him to continue to work on it
and he's very open to follow-up therapy.
DICK: I'm kind of be interested in finding out what somebody's
going to tell me about myself.
Good for you.
I may not like to hear it, and I may not accept it, but--
BOB: I think that therapy is going to be a big help for him.
And I am optimistic about him getting some help.
JACKIE: If he can sell, make some money,
have a better life, that would be a wonderful thing.
And, God willing, that will happen.
ROBIN: Your home now is symbolic of welcoming people.
DICK: I still question whether I am actually
the quintessential hoarder.
JASON: Now he knows that he has to participate.
And by seeing what's possible that he'll hopefully maintain
and work through some of the things
that allowed him to almost be a prisoner in his own home.
DICK: I'm absolutely convinced that I was
hoarding accidentally, maybe.
That's just my ego not allowing myself to think
that I'm really a hoarder.
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