The television show, Intervention: Hoarders, interviewed her, but unfortunately declined to take on the project. The show requires family support. Miss Anna’s hoarding has created an estrangement with her children and she did not qualify. The intervention efforts of Miss Anna’s children have been unsuccessful and created a wedge within the family. She is anxious to solve her problem so her children will once again be proud of her.

Miss Anna is active in the community and is a genuinely nice person. She has dealt with the grief of her husband’s death by shopping daily in thrift stores to avoid the loneliness of an empty house. A few months ago, she decided she was tired of living like this and hired some people to help her. After three weeks, they had only cleared the pantry and part of the carport. At this rate, it would take more than two years to solve the problem.

Miss Anna decided to be more aggressive and hired someone to start clearing the yard. Unfortunately, they cashed her check for $1,900 and never returned to do the work. She continued to try and clean the place with the assistance of friends, but with just a few hours a week of volunteer time, the work wasn’t getting done.

After spending several hours with Kathy, they worked out a plan to clutter free the home and create a new vision for beautiful living. Miss Anna at one time was an artist, but she is no longer able to get to her art supplies. She is also a great cook and skilled wedding cake baker, but cannot use her kitchen. She is looking forward to cooking a meal in her kitchen once again and hopes that when the house is clean, her children will join her for some healing.

This situation is sad because of the extreme nature of the hoarding. The photographs we are posting are shocking and tragic. Miss Anna has consented to their use and will be taking a few of the photos herself to help document the transformation of her home. She has begun the effort to alter her behavior so she never has to live like this again. Follow-up, monitoring and counseling will be provided so this condition doesn’t occur again.

Not seen but coming: photos of the basement, which is packed floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall, and permeated with mold. Other rooms are not shown, simply because we can’t get to them to photograph them.

We’ll also posts “after” photos to show our progress over the next few weeks.

The expense of cleaning up a level five home (the highest ranking on the scale for measuring this kind of problem) is enormous. This has gone on for a very long time and previous attempts at intervention have made the problem worse. We estimate the de-clutter and cleaning alone will cost $12,000. Kathy has substantially reduced her rates, and found numerous volunteers to help. There will be a yard sale to dispose of many of the excess belongings and to help raise funds to pay the costs of hauling trash, cleaning mold, laborers and repairing the damage to the house. We’ll be posting periodic updates, so check in often.

If you are interested in helping Miss Anna get her life back on track, you can make a tax deductible donation to help defray expenses. We’ll post details very soon as to where to make your donation.

It you’d like to volunteer to help clear out the house and sort clutter for donation, sale or disposal, please call Kathy at 404-803-4547. Help is needed each weekend, starting immediately (August 24).

Progress Reports will continue on Kathy’s Blog

Work in Progress Report, Day 2

Work in Progress Report, Day 3