
"Hoarders" is an often painful look inside a disease that can bury its sufferer -- literally at times -- in its symptoms. Each hourlong episode profiles two people on the verge of a personal crisis, all caused by the fact that they are unable to part with even the tiniest possessions, and the cumulative effect becomes a mountain of junk and garbage overtaking their home or apartment. If they don't respond to professional help, the consequences sometimes involve eviction, kids being taken away, or even jail time.
A woman's family has been ripped apart due to her hoarding; a man's girlfriend threatens to leave him if he does not clean up the hobby items he has been collecting since childhood.
After losing a cousin on 9/11, a woman's hoard grows; a hoarder puts her husband at risk.
A cancer patient must make her home habitable; a man has hundreds of unfinished projects.
A woman's life crumbles after her husband of 32 years dies while awaiting a heart transplant; a former psychologist is literally suffocating under her things.