Most episodes of the A&E show "Hoarders" are inherently heartbreaking because viewers get
to look into the grim reality of people living with a hoarding disorder.
Even though the point of the show is to help, there are certainly some episodes that have
had seriously tragic endings.
Cats were the victims
Terry, who was featured in Season 6, Episode 8, may have started hoarding after witnessing
the death of her father as a child, according to her son.
But animal lovers should be warned, her hoarding — one of the most disturbing collections
on "Hoarders" — was turned toward cats instead of possessions.
Fans of the show are used to seeing shocking things, but this episode showed Terry keeping
the bodies of around 100 cats in her freezer and other parts of her home.
She had 50 living cats at the time of filming.
Of those cats, the specialists and team called in only managed to save 18.
They had to euthanize the rest due to upper respiratory infections, one of the animal
control specialists explained during the cleanup.
During the episode, Terry said that she hoarded cats as a way to, quote, "save something."
This sad reality is common enough within hoarding that the show "Confessions: Animal Hoarding"
was created and aired on Animal Planet.
While various news stations have reported that persons who hoarded hundreds of cats
who did not appear on "Hoarders" were charged with animal cruelty, Terry was never charged.
Police investigated this hoarder
Season 8, Episode 8 of "Hoarders" featured a couple, Ed and Connie, obsessed with Halloween
who filled their home with all kinds of frightening and festive decorations.
However, it wasn't their home that scared viewers.
It was Peggy's, who was also featured in the episode.
The city had seen Peggy's home and decided it was not safe to live in.
And after the episode first aired, viewers reportedly began placing calls to the Pekin
police department about the dead animals displayed on the program.
According to the Washington Times-Reporter, Pekin Code Enforcement Officer and Building
Inspector Ron Sieh saw the home and participated in the program without alerting police.
Later, an internal investigation led to his resignation.
Peggy, whose real name is Cora Belk, was charged with a misdemeanor and fined, as reported
by the Pekin Daily Times.
Losing her home
Sandra Cowart, who appeared in Season 9 of "Hoarders," had a huge mansion consisting
of a whopping 31 rooms, and she had filled the entire space with clutter and junk.
The home, known as the Julian Price home, is featured on the National Register of Historic
Places, as well as the Guilford County Landmark Properties list.
Though she owned the Tudor-style home for 40 years, the bank foreclosed on it.
Sandra told the court during the foreclosure process that she was working 18-hour days
to try to get out of debt, but she was 67 months past due on her loan.
She impressively fought the various foreclosures for years and lives there optimistically believing
she can turn the tables back in her favor.
As she said in the episode,
“My goal is to have the legal system invalidate the foreclosure.”
When the home was sold, it still had trash, mold, and large furniture items that needed
to be removed, and that responsibility fell on the new owners.
They bought the place as it is, where it is, which was quite the unique situation.
Michael, one of the new owners, explained in an interview with WFMY News 2 that he not
only wanted to get the house back in shape, but help Sandra as well.
Since she had refused to leave the house after it was foreclosed on, Michael had an idea.
Not knowing much about the mental illness itself, he reached out to “Hoarders” to
see if they could help.
Fortunately, they fixed it up so well that people can now stay in the home, and many
"Hoarders" fans follow along with the mansion's journey on the successful Instagram account
that has more than 18,000 followers.
What makes this a tragic "Hoarders" story is obviously the fact that Sandra lost her
home, but also the sad truth that she used to be a very successful interior designer.
In the '90s, Sandra would host guests during the annual International Home Furnishings
Market who wanted to stay in her historic home, as the Chicago Tribune shared.
Back to her old ways
One of the main concerns experts have with massive clean-outs in a short period of time
is the idea that the people who are forced to throw everything out quickly will go back
to hoarding.
That sadly appeared to be what happened when it came to Betty from Season 1, Episode 3.
Fans of the show might remember that her tragic hoarding led to her husband, Charles being
removed from the home by Adult Protective Services.
It was an incredibly emotional event for the family, especially Betty’s children.
She had to clean the space in order for him to have a chance to come home.
Betty and Charles had been staying at a motel for multiple months, though that was clearly
not a long term answer to their problems.
Both expressed that they were running out of money and needed to find a better solution.
Betty was known for being one of the more difficult hoarders that Dorothy Breininger
[BREN-en-jer] dealt with.
In a follow-up episode, Betty noted that the attention from neighbors impacted her negatively,
and she said that she should put a sign in front that read "Driving by and gawking $1,"
to charge people to look at her now-famous home.
Only one of the people featured in the follow-up episode was successful in continuing to recover
from hoarding, and it wasn't Betty.
By the end of the update episode, Betty was estranged from her family, and she admitted
she went back to hoarding a month after the show ended.
A father dies
"Hoarders" Season 11 featured Carol, who surprised viewers and expert organizer Dorothy Breininger
with her cold behavior and attitude toward her husband, Dave.
He’d previously shared the house with his late first wife.
In the episode, we saw that the entire home, including the stairwell, was filled with Carol's
possessions to the point that Dave only had a small space to sit on a coach with his oxygen
tank.
Some fans expressed that Dave would be better off getting a divorce and removing Carol from
his home.
“I don’t wanna look at anybody right now.
I’m tired of it.”
Though Dave's children and Carol fought throughout the episode, Dr. David Tolin expressed,
"Maybe this house can be what pulls this family back together."
By the end of the episode, it seemed like the family was on the path to healing.
But sadly, it was revealed that Dave had passed away and no one in the family was speaking
to Carol.
Jill and the rotting pumpkin
Fans of "Hoarders" will remember that Jill hoarded food far past its expiration date,
and her refrigerator got so bad that any food that was put in her fridge became contaminated.
The first time we saw Jill, she had, among other messes, a pumpkin rotting in her living
room.
The A.V.
Club guessed that, when she grabbed some seeds from the puddle of pumpkin during the episode,
it might have been to plant more.
In the same follow-up episode that featured Betty, fans saw that Jill had unfortunately
gone back to hoarding food.
When the crew came back after the initial filming for the update episode, fans saw that
Jill had expired food in the fridge again.
When they walked into her living room, she had a rotting pumpkin on the table, and she
laughed about it being two years old.
This is all especially tragic because Jill started hoarding food because she was raised
poor and struggled with her finances while raising her children.
Ending with a murder
Glen Brittner from Season 3, Episode 20 of "Hoarders" was known for his heartbreaking
story.
He had rats as pets before losing his wife, but he eventually lost control over up to
2,500 critters.
What made matters more complicated, psychologist Dr. Robin Zasio noted that Glen saw the rats
as his children.
One Reddit user explained that, out of all the episodes, Glen's touched them the most
because of how much emotional pain he was clearly in.
He was a kind man, and the Los Angeles Times revealed that it might have been his open
heart that led to his death.
KTLA 5 reported that he was using a wheelchair at the time of his death, and he was found
tied up with zip-ties and his head was bleeding from a large wound.
According to the Los Angeles Times, police never found signs of forced entry, but items
were taken from the home, which led them to believe his kindness was taken advantage of.
The case still hasn't been solved, despite pleas from the family on the third anniversary
of his death in 2018, according to The Antelope Valley Times.
A brother's death
Ray and Tony were two elderly brothers living together.
In their "Hoarders" episode, Ray shared that his San Francisco home would be worth around
$2 million.
That’s if it wasn't filled to the brim with Ray's hoard.
Ray is seen happily walking around town with a smile on his face, chatting with neighbors.
That is, until it was time to come back to his home, where he had to climb over piles
of clothes and stuff and was barely able to open the door.
The pair of brothers went on the show because Ray's hoard caused the home to catch fire,
and it could have burned down the neighbor's home as well.
The tragedy of this "Hoarders" story is that when Tony tragically passed away, Ray shared
that he didn't get time to grieve because he had to power through with the clean-up
in order to not lose his home.
“Tony would be amazed.
Tony would be happy.
He’d give a yippy-ky-aye woo-hoo louder and more joyous than I.”
Losing relationship with her children
While most "Hoarders" episodes feature two hoarders, this case was so intense that they
only featured Augustine's story.
Augustine's son, Jason, had been removed from her care as a child due to her hoarding, and
Child Protective Services never cleared him to return to the home.
He wasn't even living in the same state, but he still came back to help his mother with
the process of clearing out her home.
In the episode, Jason thanked his mother for nurturing his passion for nature and supporting
his interests as a child.
Despite everything he went through as a child because of his mother, he still had kind words
to say to her.
Tragically, not even the chance to save their relationship could keep Augustine from hoarding,
as fans saw on the "Hoarders: Where Are They Now?" special.
At the beginning of the episode, Augustine admitted that she hadn't really been trying
that hard to keep the house clean.
At the end of her section of the follow-up, it was revealed that Jason hadn't come back
since the cleanup and wasn't planning to.
In 2010, he shared a rather sad note on Facebook that detailed how growing up in that house
impacted him as a kid, and said that he was picked on in school because of his mother's
hoarding.
It just got worse
Viewers might remember the episode with married couple Dennis and Nadene from Season 2 of
"Hoarders."
Dennis was so depressed about the house that he had expressed to his daughter that he wanted
to take his own life, and she was worried.
Nadene also said he had threatened to kill her, and his daughter feared he might snap.
The house got so bad that Adult Protective Services became involved, and Dennis stopped
leaving his bedroom, which was full of his collection of weapons.
When the crew returned, Dennis was still in bed and had lost weight due to his depression
after his gun collection was removed.
When Nadene and Dr. Zasio went into the kitchen, Nadene admitted that the mess had gotten "worse"
because she didn't like doing the dishes.
But the home wasn't just messy — there was a bag of old hamburger meat on the ground.
Dennis ultimately shared that he felt the house was going "back to the way it was."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.