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In addition, Candace discovered that she was $10,000 more in debt than she’d originally calculated, as a result of credit card abuse. As her hoarding got worse, she had started losing or throwing away her credit card bills. Now she couldn’t afford to make the repairs to her house, and without those repairs, her plans to volunteer with the ASPCA were on hold.

Even with those challenges, the good news is that Candace’s house hasn’t gotten any worse. Her life is better than it was two years ago, and she is trying to reach out and connect with people again. For Candace, like most late-stage hoarders, it’s very tempting to give up instead of doing the hard work to get her life back together. Candace may be taking a little break, but I’m proud of her for making it this far and I’m hopeful that she has the energy to keep moving toward her goals. Candace’s story is not finished, and only she can decide if she’ll continue to live in depression and mess or if she’ll take all the necessary steps and get the help she needs.

THALIA

After locking herself in her car and threatening to swallow a bottle of pills, Thalia was taken to the hospital immediately. The cleanup was put on hold because obviously we couldn’t make any decisions about what to keep or throw away without guidance from her. Cleaning while she was gone would have made the situation worse.

Fortunately, Thalia’s attempted suicide was more a cry for help than an actual attempt, and one to which members of her support network were able to respond. Her therapist made sure that Thalia got treatment, and when she returned to the house, we finished her cleanup.

At the end of Thalia’s cleanup things were looking good.

Two years after Thalia’s cleanup she’d reverted to her old habits—and then some. It’s our policy not to do a second cleanup except under really exceptional circumstances. We weren’t able to help Thalia until she was ready to help herself.

But Thalia was a classic late-stage hoarder and still in denial. She cleaned up in order to keep her house, not because she wanted to give up hoarding. Two years later Thalia called and confessed that her house was full again. But as we talked, it became clear that she was still in denial and only wanted to clean up enough so that her house wouldn’t be condemned a second time. I knew that if we came and cleaned, the same cycle would repeat itself, and so I turned her down. I told her that if she gets to the point where she really wants to change, I’ll be her biggest supporter.

ROGER

We are all still rooting hard for Roger. During his cleanup, he started out by not trusting the crew at all. He didn’t have faith in anyone apart from his sister Kathy. But partway through the job, he opened up and bonded with the group. Once he realized that we weren’t going to lie to him or throw away his stuff without his permission, he became much more communicative and friendly. He would talk sports all day long; he had a brilliant mind for details and statistics. The happiest I saw him was when he earned a Clutter Cleaner shirt on day two of his cleanup. This kind of thing, in itself, is a great victory for an advanced hoarder.

As Roger shared stories with us, and his sister did also, we learned that Roger had several serious challenges. He had been abused as a child by someone he trusted outside of the family, and that had scarred him emotionally. His parents had let Roger live with them so that they could, in a way, protect him from his fears and the outside world. When they died, Roger felt almost completely alone. Therapy wasn’t an option—not only was the closest therapist two hours away, but Roger didn’t trust anyone enough to even try counseling.

The cleaning led to Roger suffering another big loss—the sale of the family house. He moved to a smaller house nearby. With so many of his things having been thrown away in the cleanup, he struggled emotionally. His sister Kathy was patient and supportive, and would have done almost anything for him. She helped him land a job, and for a while it looked like Roger was on