Karl Klockars

I was 20 years old when I watched an old man die in a fire.

Right in the heart of downtown Naperville, Illinois, I stood on a street corner just a block from my house as flames licked out of windows, and a dozen fellow neighbors huddled around each other.  Firefighters were noticeably doing nothing to try to get into the house.  We wondered why.

Because when you lived in downtown Naperville at the time that we did, you knew who this guy was.  Everyone knew the old man who drove the late-70′s avocado green American sedan.  He would waddle around the downtown area, going to the pharmacy every couple of days, wearing an old Korean War vet’s hat and those gargantuan wraparound sunglasses that the elderly love wearing.

And now we were watching him suffocate on the smoke of his own belongings.

What the sweet hell does this have to do with TV, you ask?  Here’s what:

When we asked the fire fighters who were also standing around watching this place burn – a place that was less than meticulously maintained in a neighborhood whose property values were going through the roof in the early 2000s, I might add – they told us this:

“We can’t get in there.  None of our guys can get past the first floor.  This guy has the place packed with newspapers, trash, everything.  So it’s not safe for us and I’m not putting anyone in there.”

Short story long:  The guy was a hoarder.  And he was the first time I heard the term “hoarder” or had an idea that people lived like that.  I thought people were just pack rats, like the guys who lived a block away that always collected every couch that was being thrown away and brought home.*  But this guy died because he couldn’t throw anything away.

Smash-cut to 2009 when the show “Hoarders” hit the airwaves. I could watch every single episode back to back based on that one experience, despite the fact that each show is as predictable as an episode of House:

“Hoarders” Vs. ” House“

Establish messy house = Patient gets sick

Authorities/family gets involved = House & the team take the case

Hoarder tries to clean = Team thinks they’ve got the diagnosis

Hoarder can’t bear to part with stuff = Team is wrong

Counselor/Family member talks with Hoarder = House has a breakthrough

Hoarder cleans up or quits show = House cures patient or patient dies

Is that fair?  It’s the same damn thing, every time.  And yet I can’t look away.  I don’t want to say I’m a clean freak or OCD or anything like that, but one of the worst things about Xmas for me is that now I have to find a specific place for all the stuff I just got.  Is that bizarre?  There’s still a box of books in our foyer that’s weighing on my shoulders to find a home in a bookcase at this very moment.  Regardless – I’m on board with “Hoarders.”

I’ll tie those two tastes mentioned in the title here in a second.  You may remember a short-lived feature called You’re (Effing) Old wherein I discuss old-person things, like watching CBS Sunday Morning.  I have an addendum to that, and it all ties in.

Admit it – you watch Antiques Roadshow too.  Sometimes I pull the afghan over my legs, pop a hard candy, grab my cane, and sit down to watch public television’s favorite “how much does my old shit cost” show.  And I bet you’ve watched an episode.  And one afternoon it struck me -

Antiques Roadshow contributes to the creation of Hoarders.

In my mind’s eye, I see a lonely 55 year old surrounded by shit they bought over the last 4 decades of their life, watching Antiques Roadshow and thinking that perhaps any of their stuff might be worth a few thousand dollars.  So you can’t throw it out!  It could be worth money!  Put it in that pile over there, estranged husband or child!

And so it begins.  Then this person starts going out to garage sales and antique shops and thrift stores in the hope that they’ll stumble across the next big find.  And the pile of old uninteresting porcelain figurines, lame 45rpm records, and vintage newspapers grows and grows.

Then the disease takes hold, and you’re saving Big Gulp cups and Taco Bell wrappers.  It’s all connected.  It’s just up to you to see it.  I don’t think it’s that insane to put the two together.  The leap of logic isn’t that huge.  It’s a vicious cycle.  And this is how Antiques Roadshow could be dangerous to all of us.  It’s not just the hoarders who live lives of quiet despair – their neighbors are seriously cheesed off about their property values.

I’m not calling for the end of Antiques Roadshow.  And I’m not trying to gloss over the problems of the hoarders.  I’m saying…think about it.  Think about the hundreds of sad people in line behind the person who brought the tiny painting that’s worth $5k.

Think about the people they don’t show in the credits where their old scythe is really worth pocket change.  Think about the people who leave dejected with a armful worth of trash that they thought was going to fund their retirement.  We don’t see them – until they hit A&E.

*Those guys were us.  You can’t really know how to run a couch over with a mid-80′s Cadillac until you do it a few dozen times.