[birds chirping]
I'm Scott, the collector.
[music playing]
You name it, I probably got it.
I had a bad habit--
I call it my hobby--
going to storage auctions.
They had a lot of items, like, they had 10 of them,
and the auctioneer says, how many you want?
I said I'll take them all.
[music playing]
Next thing you know, I'm buying out
hardware stores, craft stores, clothing
stores, cigarette stores.
You name it, I bought a ton of stuff.
I bought 42,000 lighters.
I bought the stuff, then I would buy buildings to put stuff in.
[music playing]
I'm Corey.
And Scott is my father.
He's fueling his addiction to hoard stuff
by borrowing from family members, from friends.
I owe my sister money.
I owe my brother money.
I owe my mother money.
I owe my employees money.
I owe, I owe, I owe.
Because I've collected so much, I'm losing everything.
We lost a lot of money.
I mean, a lot.
[music playing]
I'm Carrie.
And Scott as my dad.
Him accumulated all these properties, all this stuff
and not having the income coming in, because he won't sell
is definitely why we are in the financial position
that we are today.
I've been to one or two auctions with him.
He would start bidding on stuff and I
would have to be like, Dad, no.
Why are you bidding on this?
Don't buy that.
And then we'd get in fights.
COREY: All it is to my dad is a good deal.
Doesn't matter what it is.
If you get something really cheap, it's exciting.
[music playing]
First heart attack, he had seven stents put in.
And then he had a second heart attack
and they had to rush him into triple bypass surgery.
Because he's my dad, you know, I love him.
I don't want him to die.
But you think, oh, my god.
If he does pass away, what do you do with all this stuff?
I mean, we've been so angry as a family towards him.
We don't get how he doesn't see what he's doing.
[music playing]
My name is Matt Paxton.
I'm an extreme cleaning specialist.
Financially, you're in a lot of trouble.
This is a hard one.
This is of the biggest crisis situations I've ever seen.
He and his family could lose everything because he's not
ready to take responsibility.
We can only take so much out of this problem.
We're going to do the best we can,
and we're going to get your skill set up so that the family
can do this together.
You guys ready to do this? - I'm ready.
- Yes. - All right.
Let's go.
[music playing, beeping]
What do you got in here?
MATT PAXTON: A couple of more than probably 10,000 lighters.
SCOTT: Ah.
Look at all the good stuff.
I'm not throwing paper plates away, folks.
Your house to be full in one minute.
[music playing]
Let's take [inaudible] of you. Let's go--
Why are you trying to keep that?
Everything's going to be your personal collection.
Right here.
I hate to throw something away.
How is this going to make your life better, a ceramic clown?
What would you do with it?
MATT PAXTON: Throw it in the trash.
CARRIE: Well, it's--
MATT PAXTON: It's very easy to throw that away.
My name is Dr. Robin Zasio.
I'm a licensed clinical psychologist
and I specialize in compulsive hoarding and OCD.
Scott's compulsive hoarding is very, very serious.
It's embedded in him.
We're going to have a big problem here today.
These have expiration dates.
If you can't throw away perfume that is not usable and expired,
we are in trouble.
He doesn't want to let go of this stuff.
I don't know how all this is going to pan out.
I'm throwing this away.
ROBIN ZASIO: OK, Scott?
Listen to me.
Plug it in first to see if it works.
You don't throw 80 bucks away.
We have 65 of them.
Plug it in first.
You know, if we're going to plug in every single piece
of electronic equipment--
SCOTT: Corey!
It doesn't work.
Unbelievable.
Are you sure the power was on?
[music playing]
COREY: There's no reason we need these.
Just cardboard.
Those are good for our filing.
Put the other one down here, right hand in the garage,
or you're fired.
I guess I'm fired.
[music playing]
This is the deal.
You guys are going to have to work together.
The two of you can make this happen.
For damn sure.
This is how you reclaim your life and your space.
Thank you.
[music playing]
Got to be recycled.
It's heavy.
It's got metal.
Put it on my pile over there.
It is from 1927.
That's a trumpet.
Resell it.
Why can't we recycle it?
No.
Dad, what is in all of this stuff?
MATT PAXTON: But are all of those going?
All of those are going, right? The cameras?
I think they should.
These are all cameras.
Here's what I don't understand.
Why did you buy all these cameras?
What was your idea here?
Because I wanted to protect my property.
COREY: He's so concerned about his stuff.
Dad, if you didn't own this stuff,
it wouldn't be a problem.
You wouldn't have to worry about if people are stealing it.
If you just didn't have it, then you wouldn't
have to worry about it.
And that would eliminate the entire problem.
Corey is the secret to this solution.
He is the only one that actually has the sense in this family
to make a good decision.
Who are you going to sell this to?
A knob cover?
Are you serious?
Scott is blaming Corey for all of his problems.
Of course, Corey's done nothing but try
to solve these problems.
I'm not going to get nothing done with him around.
[music playing]
MATT PAXTON: Well, you all are going to have
to learn to work together. So he's staying.
I put it back there and he's working against me.
It's a very typical hoarder thing.
He needs to be in control.
Scott needs to be the man.
If Corey does it, Scott feels like a failure.
Just give it to resell.
See what they do.
You can't resell this.
It's got a tag. Come on.
It doesn't matter.
That whole thing is $1.
it's got to be donated.
[interposing voices]
Get out of here.
[music playing]
We've got auction guys here.
We're going to go start pulling stuff out right now.
And they're going to be brutally honest on what
can and can't sell.
This is our best chance to make as much money as possible
for Scott, to make a dent in his debt.
MAN: This is a good time of year to sell these, Scott.
You got hunting season coming right now.
Sell them.
Sell them?
Sell them.
Sell it.
There's got to be a lot of valuable items in there.
SCOTT: I'm doing pretty good, aren't I?
ROBIN ZASIO: You're doing awesome, Scott.
I thought he was going to resist us.
I thought that he was going to hold on to more stuff.
But he's taking the stuff that is of value, putting it
on the truck to be auctioned.
Tools?
We can sell those, yes.
Fill the whole lot of brand new clocks and everything.
His old tape stereos.
Can you sell them?
Or are they--
MAN: Nobody's buying those anymore.
SCOTT: So outdated.
That's brand new in the box.
But it's a VCR.
[music playing]
MAN: As we started digging and digging, further and further,
we realized there wasn't much of any value
there that people would really want to buy.
Scott, let's have this conversation real quick.
Come here.
So they're just eyeing this.
Yeah.
This is not their cup of tea.
It was not anybody's cup of tea.
How much percentage-wise, guys, do you
think you could actually sell?
At the most, 5% of it.
I mean, there's a few items in there.
But most of it is not sellable.
MATT PAXTON: I mean, this is the barn
we thought the money was in.
There some good stuff here.
They can sell that table.
I don't know.
Can you sell the table?
It's a $5, $10 table, by the time
you move it and try to sell it.
Hey.
Yeah, this can be donated.
[music playing]
He's got 500 properties.
He has millions of dollars in taxes he's got to pay.
We need him to take it a step further and fix his finances.
I'm just going to lay it on the table.
This is the only way to solve this problem.
You have to give Corey power of attorney.
The only way we can get him out of trouble
is to give his son power of attorney.
I agree, Father.
On all your properties, and you have to give him access
to the money that you can't get, because you know you'll
spend it.
You've even told me that.
The best way to do this is to get Corey in charge,
so he can sell things as a lot and do big sales
and get the money to get the taxes off the books.
You've got a chance if you get back to even.
If you keep going at the same pace, this is over.
You will lose.
And you'll get jail time.
CARRIE: Do you get that, Dad?
Or not?
You have to accept some losses on the properties
and just take what we can get.
He has deals, people ready to give
you cash for those properties. CARRIE: Yep.
And you won't let them.
MATT PAXTON: And you won't let them take the cash.
The three of you, you and your two children,
need to make that decision right now.
[music playing]
COREY: Do you feel comfortable with signing
this power of attorney?
There is no pressure whatsoever to sign it.
[music playing]
Signing that power of attorney, it really
puts a lot of pressure on me.
But he's 60 and had two heart attacks and open heart surgery.
I'm 32.
I can handle the pressure.
I'm ready for the challenge.
I gave power of attorney to Corey,
because he may be get something going a lot faster,
instead of my procrastination coming back at him.
ROBIN ZASIO: We knew we were not going to clear 500 properties.
We came to get the process started and we did.
At the end of the day, the fact that he could acknowledge
that he needed to give up control to his son,
I think was amazing.
All right.
Good work.
Get to work, will you?
I didn't think you were going to do it.
That is the thing.
And I'm proud of you.
I'm so proud of you, Dad.