That Hoarder: Overcome Compulsive Hoarding

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.

This is podcasting at its finest. It’s easy to listen to, has moments of humor, has a gripping running through-line about the gas man’s visits, and makes you really root for That Hoarder’s progress. It’s a very personal look at a serious problem, and although I don’t have hoarding disorder, I have other mental health issues that make the advice and difficulties still relatable and helpful. It also clears up some of the confusion I had about that disorder.