My name is Kerrylea, and I'm 55 years old.
So let's see here.
Dieting is difficult because you can't just stop eating.
I think hoarding is like that, too.
I don't expect, probably, with any sort of treatment
short of a lobotomy or something,
that I will ever be hoarding free.
Every item represents a memory, an experience,
a part of my history of who I am, where I've been.
It's all what makes up Kerrylea.
If I can't see it, it doesn't exist.
I need that visual.
Otherwise it's gone.
It's like a puff of air, dust in the wind.
My mother was a hoarder as well.
And so there was always a lot of clutter.
I didn't think that I had a lot of the problems
that my mother had.
Although, when I started having children,
the difficulty level of everything sort of
increased geometrically.
I found myself doing things like staying up till 3:00
in the morning trying to find all of the toys
to put them back, all neatly lined up against the wall.
There was just a point where I kind of started giving up,
and it started turning the other way.
Once I started that, it was just the beginning of a long slide
downward.
And I never, never was able to make the correction again.
Being a hoarder, there's always the element,
in the back of my mind, of protecting that secret.
I'm Geoff.
I'm Kerrylea's husband.
We've been married since 1996.
So that'd be 13 years.
I was able to keep the house and
the situation pretty much out of the picture
for the longest time.
But eventually, I brought him over and introduced him
to the house.
So I just assumed that, oh well,
Kerrylea just saves a lot of stuff.
Well, yes, she does save a lot of stuff,
but not so much because she's worried about a depression,
not so much because she hates to see things go to waste.
This is just the disease.
This is just the problem that you can't throw anything out.
KERRYLEA: Well, the move to Vashon
has been fraught with problems.
We were having so many problems with the remodel
of the house that the West Seattle house
wasn't getting cleaned out.
KERRYLEA: We ended up taking out another mortgage
on the Vashon house.
Eventually, that money ran out.
And then we turned to our retirement.
And that ran out.
It was obvious that the house in West Seattle
wasn't going to get cleaned out anywhere in the near future.
KERRYLEA: At this point, we have two mortgages on each house.
We're now living paycheck to paycheck, close
to losing one or both houses.
All right, Kerrylea, today's the day.
How do you feel?
Whew.
Let's do it.
OK!
I'm Geralin Thomas, and I am a certified
professional organizer specializing
in chronic disorganization.
KERRYLEA: Well, this morning I felt a lot like I was on my way
to the executioner, just waiting for them
to blindfold me and tie my hands behind my back or something.
This is the homeowner, Kerrylea.
And the main thing that I'm concerned with today
is that absolutely nothing--
nothing-- can be put in a dumpster unless it has her OK.
Again, please be respectful, OK?
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Come on in, Kerrylea.
Let's get started.
We knew that we were getting ourselves into a big job.
And it was described to us that this was a hoarding situation.
But seeing it firsthand is shocking.
Ultimately going to be a huge job.
GERALIN: How are you feeling right now?
Fine. GERALIN: Good.
So far so good? - Yeah.
GERALIN: Great.
Kerrylea likes to tell a story that's
really common with a hoarder.
They have a story about every single thing they touch.
Somebody had asked me if I had ever tried this medication,
and I couldn't remember.
I thought I might have.
And so I wanted to be sure and record this with my doctor.
And what year was that?
Back in '95.
OK, so you think you can let it go now?
I am trying to sneak in a little tip
here and there about not acquiring things,
and thinking about where these acquisitions are
all going to go.
Are you going to donate those or keep them?
Keep them.
GERALIN: You want to keep it, donate it?
I think I'm going to put it in my pocket.
This is actually going to go right here.
I'm really ashamed, embarrassed.
I'm-- you know, I just feel like hiding
under the bed and crying, and never
being seen or heard from again.
GERALIN: Here, what are you doing with that?
You're putting that right back.
Well, kind of because--
[laughs] I don't know.
GERALIN: We're having a bumpy road this morning.
I thought we'd start this morning with a meeting.
Kerrylea and Geoff have asked me to talk on their behalf
for several reasons.
She was just not able to concentrate on anything
except what transpired yesterday.
Some keepsakes that were clearly marked her daughter's name,
Charity, are gone missing now.
We can't find them.
Basically, I felt like I communicated that really well.
And that-- those things you can't replace.
I mean, it doesn't matter how much money I have
or how much time if they all got carted off because they looked
like garbage or something.
So the priority of the morning is I would like one of you
to go through that stuff, and, before we haul
it out to the pod, see if you can help her
locate what she's looking for.
One is a panda blanket and a tutu.
It's either a green tutu with white trim
or the other way around-- a tutu anyway.
Be on the lookout for that.
All right, let's go ahead and get
going, because we have a very long day ahead of us, OK?
All right.
Thank you, guys.
I appreciate you understanding and listening.
Well, I always like lettering.
All right, good.
Literally, lay a piece of tape.
And write in marker, Kerrylea's private section,
do not touch-- one of those kind of things.
All right. Sounds good.
All right?
And then maybe even mark it up there.
OK.
Caleb just found the panda and the green tutu.
GERALIN: No way!
Thank you.
You bet.
It was in this box over here marked towels
and blankets and sheets.
So it must have just got organized, but not thrown away.
- How do you feel right now? - Better.
Better.
Hoarders have a unique set of challenges
when they're decluttering.
They focus on minutia.
And in Kerrylea's case, it's that she has
to touch every single thing.
No, no.
The idea is for me to go through it.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry about that.
You want to save these?
Yeah.
That's good.
I think all that can go.
MOVER: You wanted to save that?
KERRYLEA: Well, no.
I didn't say anything--
I haven't looked in this box yet.
MOVER: OK.
KERRYLEA: I don't know what this is.
Is there anything in here?
GERALIN: I'm just--
I want to point out that we are really getting to crunch time
now.
So do you think that you're in a frame of mind
to focus on the big picture--
the really big picture, which is in the next two hours,
we have to get this packed.
And I want to know, what are you going to do for plan B
if it doesn't get done today?
What I'd like to do is get the brown roll top--
oh, get to it.
Could we get to the brown roll top desk in the computer room,
and get that--
You have us for another hour and 15 minutes.
So you just show us what you want removed.
And we're going to do it right now.
OK.
GEOFF: Let's go.
MOVER: OK, let's go.
The only thing we're coming in here for
is this roll top desk, nothing on it.
That stays in the room.
Can we open that door all the way?
The door knob.
MOVER: Swell.
MOVER: Pull the desk apart.
Pull that top leg off.
MOVER: I don't want to break it. MOVER: That's OK.
It's OK to break it.
Straight into the truck, guys.
All right, good job.
We've got a few more things inside.
Towards the end of today, Geoff and Kerrylea
were finally letting us throw things
away, probably more so Geoff.
He was even kind of sneaking some stuff,
trying to hurry up and put it in the truck
before his wife would see it.
Now there's a mattress in Charity's room.
We want to take that to the rubbish truck.
KERRYLEA: What's that?
GEOFF: What's what?
That?
GEOFF: That?
KERRYLEA: Yeah.
GEOFF: That's the-- what do you call it?
MOVER: Roll top desk.
Roll top desk from the computer room.
I wanted it to go in there or in the garage.
Well, it's been kind of torn up.
I thought you wanted it thrown away.
No, I didn't.
GEOFF: It's beat-- it's broken.
Kerrylea, remember we had that conversation
at the top of the stairs about that desk specifically?
What about it?
We went in there with Geoff, with a crew,
and removed that desk upon you asking us to do that.
Remember that?
Right, that I-- yeah.
We had that conversation at the top of the stairs.
That's the desk that you asked us to remove.
Yeah, I wanted to get it out--
I wanted to get it out to put it in here,
not to put it in the garbage.
I told him to put it in there because I thought
you wanted it as garbage.
Yeah, because you don't listen.
[chuckles] OK, well, whatever.
[contemplative music]
MOVER: They really wanted to be helped.
But I think they had a hard time accepting our help,
because they continued to want to hoard what they had.
And the problem was, is there was
so much to go through to get to what actually did matter.
Kerrylea, she didn't want to let go.