[music playing]
My name is Jeri, and I'm an executive assistant.
I love yard sales.
I love garage sales.
I love rummage sales.
I go thrift store shopping three to four times a week.
I like to collect things.
I don't know how it got this out of control.
I know I have way too much stuff.
I'm Cindy, and I'm Jeri's younger sister.
Jeri's house is chaos.
She can't find anything.
She buys two and three and four of the same item
because she can never find the first one.
It's just a constant struggle for her,
living in the conditions in which she's living.
Hi, I'm Mike.
I'm Jeri's brother-in-law, and I'm Cindy's husband.
The inside of Jeri's house is an absolute disaster.
Her home is not safe.
It's unhealthy.
If her house caught fire, it would be fully engulfed
in a matter of minutes.
If she doesn't clean it up, I will
call the health department.
I'll call the fire department.
I'll call the state inspector-- whatever
it takes to get the job done.
I would be mad.
I would be terribly mad.
In fact, if the authorities came,
I wouldn't let them in the house.
My name is Cathy, and I'm Jeri's older sister.
I haven't been in Jeri's house in over 10 years.
I have been there to pick her up,
but she waits for me outside.
She just doesn't let me inside.
I wanted a stable relationship with a man
that I knew wouldn't hurt me or cheat on me.
She married a convict.
She met him through a biker magazine.
We've been married almost 22 years now.
I had to keep it a secret for a long time
because I knew my family would never
accept the fact that I was married to anyone in prison.
I'm a retired law enforcement officer.
It turns my stomach that she brought
this type of an individual into our family.
She married a guy with a life sentence.
I have real serious doubts that he's going
to be getting out very soon.
The unique thing about Jeri's husband is that he's in prison,
therefore, cannot be a husband to her, not
one that can be there for her.
I am very lonely.
The loneliness has gotten worse as the years have gone by.
And without him, I just don't feel complete.
Things just started accumulating.
And I started getting into more of a depressed state
about the way my house was.
And it just got to be very, very overwhelming.
It breaks my heart that she lives like that.
Living alone is bad enough.
But in conditions like that, it's
got to weigh on her every day.
I just want to fix it for her, and I don't know how.
[music playing]
My name is Cory Chalmers.
I'm an extreme hoarding cleanup specialist.
I'm going to take Jeri Jo inside the house with her family,
and we're going to see how Jeri Joe works and see how much
she's willing to let go of.
A lot of it's trash.
A lot of it can be donated.
OK.
Do you not see a correlation between your marriage
and how you have to live?
I knew it was going to turn out like this.
You have a husband that cannot provide for you.
You have a husband that takes money from you.
You have a husband that can never be there for you to help
you with this home, to do things for you
that a husband should do.
If that's how you feel, then you probably
shouldn't be here helping me.
It's all related, Jeri.
OK, when this is all over, and you guys want to cut me off,
cut me off.
My family hate the fact that I'm married to my husband.
And they hate the fact that I have
all of this stuff in my house.
And I think they're just trying to group everything
together and just make it one big problem.
It's [muted].
You're not going to get anything
accomplished by going and quickly getting
everything out of your house.
Because if we're not really fixing the problem,
guess what your house is going to look like in another year.
The same as it looks today.
Exactly.
And it would be great if you were close
enough with your sisters again that you would actually
ask for their help, you know, instead
of being embarrassed by it.
Do you think we're here to embarrass you?
Don't roll your eyes.
I don't know why you think that we're not here to help.
You get that attitude.
Jeri is very, very capable of being very vicious.
She's also very capable of being very sweet.
It just depends on what Jeri you get.
And I said I appreciate it and thank you.
What do you want me to do?
We've been doing this since--
What the [muted] do you want me to do?
I don't want you going into the day being stressed out.
Tell me what happened last night after we left.
After the last truck left, I immediately went
to the dumpster, and opened it, and found
several personal things that I would like to have
kept that were in the dumpster.
I know my digital camera's in there somewhere.
Was that in your bedroom?
JERI JO: Yeah.
OK.
And I take full responsibility.
It's a big mistake.
You know, that's all I can say.
We don't want to make this worse on you, don't want to make
it any harder than it is.
I can see how much it's hurting you.
And I want to move into day two with your complete trust.
She was so sad, so upset.
But since that time, there's been
things that have been found that she's now happy about.
I totally love you and adore you.
[laughs] Are you the one that found it?
Yeah.
It was in that box.
Is that it?
That's one of them.
Wow.
Al right.
All right.
They found it.
Throw this away.
You got it?
I got it.
Donate.
Trash.
We just went through this entire area,
and she kept 2 and 1/2 boxes out of her entire porch.
That's something to be proud of.
That is amazing, Jeri Jo.
In all, we've disposed of about 8,000 pounds of trash,
plus about two full cargo vans to the donation center.
I think she did really good.
I made some threats to Jeri that if she didn't
go through this process like she needed
to go through that I was willing to call building and safety
or whatever it took.
I no longer have to do that.
I don't have to worry about her safety or health anymore.
The place is immaculate.
Oh my gosh.
This is beautiful.
Oh Corey, this is beautiful.
Oh my gosh.
Thank you.
Look at this.
Jeri probably hasn't been in that room
since the day she moved into this house.
She was very, very happy.
Brought tears to my eyes too.
Oh, look at the dog bed.
[laughs]
The room is beautiful.
It's absolutely beautiful.
I didn't think it could look that pretty.
I know her house is safe now for her and for her dog.
And that was my main concern.
As you move forward, I think it's really important for you
also to remember that there's more work to be done.
Absolutely.
Compared to some people that I've worked with,
Jeri Jo made a remarkable change in letting go.
The real key will be whether Jeri Jo actually accepts
the referral for psychotherapy.
If she does that, her prognosis is good.
Therapy is something that I will
definitely follow through with.
I feel like I've made tremendous strides.
I never thought it would be like this, absolutely never.
Look.
Look at your new house.
This is an awakening moment for me.
Yes, it is.
[music playing]