That Hoarder: Overcome Compulsive Hoarding

A bit slow going in the early stages, but really hits its stride a few dozen episodes in. This is a personal, heartfelt podcast from someone who doesn’t pretend to have it all figured out—but you can feel how dedicated they are to learning and how much effort they put in. Periodic conversations as well with professionals who have studied the topic and helped people overcome hoarding. It’s full of great tips and advice, delivered at a conversational pace that’s perfect to listen to while working yourself on dehoarding or declutterring. Understanding, realistic, not all-or-nothing approach. I tried a couple other hoarding podcasts before, and this is the only one I found myself repeatedly coming back to. I can’t tell you how many times I found myself nodding along in agreement, recognizing myself in the description of the unusual thought patterns that lead hoarders like myself to collect what seems to anyone else completely useless. I’m about 60 episodes in so far. As far as ads go—that’s the way of the world these days and I hope at least the creator earns some small revenue from it. This podcast is clearly a labor of love. There are ads bunched at the start, but generally in only a few blocks after (opposed to woven throughout). So, generally quite easy to skip.

Someone on r/declutter recommended this podcast, and I’m so glad because it’s excellent. I’m an avid podcast listener and suffer no subpar podcasts! This is a beautiful combination of personal insight, actionable (usually research-backed!) information, and gentle encouragement. I can only imagine how many people it’s already helped and will continue to support. Thank you!

I heard about this podcast and thought I’d give it a listen because I have a friend who has a hoarding disorder, and I was hopeful that this would give me some insight when I offered to help. I do think that the content itself is very helpful and provides some good tools. My biggest problem with the podcast is that an episode might be only 11 minutes long, but six of those minutes are filled with ads. There are probably at least three minutes worth of ads at the very beginning that I have to fast forward through, and then there are probably two minutes of ads at the end of the content that I have to fast-forward through. Really? I understand the role of ads in support of the work, but this seems like overkill to me. I’m not sure how many episodes I’m going to be able to get through just because of the annoying ads.

There’s a sincere thoughtfulness in the podcast that you rarely find elsewhere. I’m not a hoarder but have known hoarders and loved hoarders. In the end, this is about human behavior. They share meaningful and considered ideas. Maybe it’s simply that the host is so thoroughly considerate.