This Week on Oprah: March 24, 2008 - March 28, 2008
Monday March 24, 2008
Here's what's coming up this week on The Oprah Winfrey Show:
- Monday, March 24: "Music Legend Billy Joel and Katie Joel - First TV Interview"
- Tuesday, March 25: "Inside the Lives of Hoarders, Part 1" (Original Air Date - 11/15/07)
- Wednesday, March 26: "The Cleanup Reveal: Inside the Lives of Hoarders, Part 2" (Original Air Date - 11/16/07)
- Thursday, March 27: "Superstar Couples" (Original Air Date - 10/25/07)
- Friday, March 28: "Oprah's Great American Haircut" (Original Air Date - 11/02/07)
Photo Credit: Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Comments
I saw part of the secret lives of hoarders and plan on watching part II today. I’m sure you and your viewers were appalled. It comes as no surprise to me once cleaned up, many hoarders homes return to the original condition given enough time.
I fully believe these people cannot help themselves and they should be pitied. Aside from “Oprah” busting them, little is done by authorities because they often are unaware or no laws are being broken.
Perhaps the worst is the affect these conditions have on kids and not just teens as featured in yesterday’s show. There are babies and toddlers in places like this. You’d think Child Protective Services would see this as abuse, but you’d be wrong.
Across the country, CPS takes the attitude that living in filth is just a matter of “educating” the offender on how to clean up. From my personal experience, CPS avoids these situations regularly and even warns offenders of planned visits.
As highlighted in the “secret”, hoarders will go to great lengths to keep it secret. While it might be a mental condition, hoarders (especially those with young children), go to great lengths to hide conditions from CPS. When motivated with the prospect of CPS intervention and possible loss of custody, they even know how to clean up.
Clean up however is a missnomer. “Hide” better describes an clean up effort to jam piles of stuff into boxes, put them behind closed doors or even take prized positions (trash) to storage buildings.
A hoarder’s clean up is rarely thorough and is generally superficial to satisfy CPS. Despite dozens of referals, CPS treats each case as new and does the same thing. The mess reappears in a surprisingly short time and the children continue to suffer.
CPS is supposed to protect children and I understand there is a lot worse happening, but they just don’t understand the long term impact to children living in this mess.
Sadly, no one is doing anything to protect these children. A few states have hoarding task forces, but mostly this is focused on the elderly.
There is more effort going to protect animals who are part of hoarders than to protect children.
Oprah, can’t you do anything? Please contact me for specifics.