MOLI VIEW™

She's Got a Lot

I'm watching the Oprah show, and what do I see but a two-part show about a woman who hoards stuff. I mean, she hoards a LOT of stuff. She and her hubby have 3,000 square feet of house in a swanky neighborhood, and every room is filled with piles of clothing she's never worn and gifts for her family that she's never given.

Well, her kids are grown up, moved away, and can't stand to visit the mess, and much of the stuff still has store tags on it. Besides, she has the three-car garage filled with stuff, and even the trunk of her car. There's barely room for her hubby in their bed, because the mounds of clothes in the bedroom are about five feet high.

Oprah's pal Peter Walsh, who believes that there can be a genetic predisposition to compulsive hoarding, gets a team of 110 people to clean out this tearful woman's house. They return recent purchases to stores, and numerous boxes (I mean, "storage containers", since we overloaded Americans also buy discreet sky-blue plastic storage containers for our stuff), go to Goodwill and a sale in a warehouse. The house gets a redesign, the couple smiles, the woman promises to stop shopping and look for value in her own life, and things get better for her.

The thing that strikes me is that, as the cameras rove through the house to show all the new furniture and appliances, the house is enormous for two retired people. There's a living room, a family room, a conversation pit in their bedroom, and another livingroom in the basement. Couches and overstuffed chairs galore. How many ways and in how many places does an older couple need to relax? There are two guest rooms, a craft area, a gift-wrapping center, a room for hubby to organize the mail. Room after room of organized stuff, all spacious, lighted and heated — it's like a mini-mall.

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