Exclusive Interview, from A&E's "Hoarders", Dorothy Breininger

Interviews

Hoarders_titlecard

Professional organiser, Dorothy Breininger will return in the reality/documentary show, “Hoarders”. The show is about to start its second season and Dorothy Breininger took some time to talk about the show and the issues it deals with.

So, first of all what can you tell us exactly about hoarding, because it doesn’t seem to be a very popular condition. Is it a psychological condition like anorexia for example?

Dorothy: Well, it’s certainly a psychological condition and what’s interesting is that it’s quickly becoming very popular and even the CDC (the Centre for Disease Control) have declared hoarding an epidemic.

Is it something that someone is born with or is there a back-story to the client that triggers this condition? Can you give an example from the show?

Dorothy: To answer the first part of your question, it does seem to be hereditary. I actually have started, while doing the show, some family trees. For example, in one of the shows that I did, Betty from Ohio, who is a hoarder, her daughters are also hoarders and when we asked her about her background, it turned out her father and her grandfather where the town junkmen. It’s different though for every single person, for example if you ask “why someone becomes an alcoholic?” one person might say “well my parents were”, another person might say “well, when my husband died I suddenly started drinking”, so everybody has a different reason.

Is the connection to the objects emotional? Because someone might get emotionally connected with some useless objects, just because, for example, they represent something from his/her life. So is it that type of connection to an extreme level?

Dorothy: Like I said every single case is different, what you are talking about is holding on to an identity. People are holding on to things because they once were something or somebody, or they want to be somebody. For example, if someone was a chef in their past, they would want to take all the Bon Appétit magazines, they would want to keep cook books, they would want all the cook wear whether it’s broken or not, because they want to hold on to that.

But, for example, in an episode with a guy called Stephen, you would see bottles of Coke and Sprite, and it’s hard to see some connection with these objects.

Dorothy: Well, Stephen was homeless for quite some time, and his room represented what it would look like if he were homeless living in the street. It was probably not even a conscious thing, because he was creating homelessness within a safe area.

How did you get interested in participating in the show? Did you approach the network, did the network approach you?

Dorothy: A&E contacted me to do the episode with Stephen, so I did a lot of research, and I connected them with a lot of judges, police officers, therapists and generally all these different people that are involved with people who are hoarders, including clients.

What previous experience do you think helped you with the show?

Dorothy: Well I had one particular experience that changed how I was an organizer, I got a call from LA County and they asked if I could help this gentleman that was going to jail, he was 76 years old at the time, and he was hoarding five thousand bikes and bike parts, inside his house. He was sleeping in the front porch in a recliner, in an area where there were murders regularly, and I thought about it and I said “yeah, I could help him” even though the County wasn’t going to pay me for this. So I met with all kinds of people such as judges and attorneys and with environmental health services and mental help services and it became this turning point in, what I think is, American hoarding. Finally, in the course of three months we were able to clear everything up and because of this we landed in the front page of the LA times and on the Today show with Ann Curry.

So, how long is the process of actually cleaning up the house and getting rid of everything in every episode? An average episode, for example, how much time does it cover?

Dorothy: Well, since my goal is to get the entire house done, in all of my episodes it is about one month worth of work, with two days of shooting.

After the house is cleaned and everything is set up, how do you ensure that the client will have a new start, and won’t go down that road again?

Dorothy: We can never ensure that the client won’t go down that road again. Like a person who is on a diet, you can help him lose a lot of weight and support them, but as soon as the help is gone, they might go back to eating, so it’s the same thing.  What this show does that is different from every other show, is that A&E provides ongoing therapy or organizing for the client, after we leave the site. So, long after the show is done, if the client wants to, they can provide a professional organizer or a therapist to continue their work. I have access to many organizers across the US so I try to introduce the organizer or the therapist to the client.

What method do you use to approach the client? Because I’m sure that last thing you want, is someone thinking that his/her personal space is being invaded?

Dorothy: That’s right, they really don’t want to see a therapist because they don’t want to be labelled as “crazy”, and they don’t want to see an organizer because they think we are going to throw everything away. So what I do before I meet any of my clients is, I call them on the phone before I get on the show and I introduce myself and tell them one thing, that “I promise not to throw anything away” and they are like “huh?”. Then I tell them that I am here to help them determine what they want to save and that none of the teams get to throw anything away without her or his permission.

Are there any situations, from your experience on the show, that stand out more?

Dorothy: Yes, I am on my third episode now, and all three of these cases are more extreme than the ones in the past. We are finding dead animals that are mummified and have been preserved under piles of junk. In one show we found flat mummified cats, in another show we actually found chickens, dogs, geese and even goats. So imagine trying to do the show with these animals both inside and outside the house.

What challenges did you faced, from this ongoing experience and what have you learned from it?

Dorothy: The biggest thing that I’ve learned from the show is to make sure that we have found small things such as car keys and check books beforehand, so we can ensure the client has these things afterwards. We actually found a set of dentures buried three feet down, and we took them in the dentist to have them properly cleaned because the producers were afraid the client would put them on right away.

In the end of the day is it more of a rewarding experience or a stressful one?

Dorothy: When I’m done shooting, I am definitely relieved, and I’m very proud because I watch the client and the family members and they suddenly stand in this new space and they say “remember when we used to have this pool table and everybody came over and we had thanksgiving here” or “remember when you used to play on that part of the floor”. So, as they reminisce I get to see how meaningful their life was and how it can be meaningful again and that’s very touching.

You can catch the second season of “Hoarders” every Monday night at 10/9c on A&E. The season starts on November 30th.