Hoarders

The other day a friend on facebook commented on the show “Hoarders”. In this show they have a psychologist and a junk clean up crew come into a house and clean it up. She was upset because she did not feel as if the crew helped the people they cleaned up because they only spend about a week at the house and she didn't feel like this was enough time to address the deep psychological issues these people have.

While I agree that these people probably have mental issues that are not being addressed by the show, if you watch the show you will notice that almost all of the people who ask to go on the show have a legal issue surrounding the hoarding. These people are being pursued by code enforcement officers, by child protective services, by fire marshals, etc. They may not be getting the psychological help they need, but they are getting a reprieve from the evil government officials who would kick these people out of their homes, or steal their children away from them, etc. It may only be temporary, but if it gives them another year of peace from the bureaucrats then the show is doing a good service to these people.