'Hoarders' expert has tips for decluttering - New Day NW

as a New Year and spring ritual to get rid of the things we don't need and tidy up what's left with easy solutions you can use right now. Welcome to a featured

expert

on Annie's hit show, Hoarders, Miley's Erica, How Are You? I was telling you before we went on air I threw away a lot of things from my kitchen just by cleaning my kitchen, do you think we are people who are natural

hoarders

? You know? Research shows that some hoarding behaviors you know are genetic, but it is also and can be a learned behavior, so it totally depends on the person.

I certainly don't have a house full of things like those on your show, but I look at things and think I could use them. someday and then put it in a drawer what are the thoughts that we should replace that thought with so I think the key word that I just heard you say was the word someday whenever my clients say maybe I should or someday those are triggers for me kind of like gently challenging them, you know, but will you do it if you have to? Will you do it and someday let's make that day now or say goodbye in part?

That's going to be difficult, but I'm going to try. Know? We moved guys, remember we were in an old building, then we moved here and there were things we took from the old building for some reason. I brought home two orange safety vests and my husband, my husband, said to me, what circumstances are they under? anticipating that we were going to meet, yes, and I think that was his version of your question. I love it, so you've always been organized, you've always been the newest

expert

on the show, right, we're in the nighttime season. It's amazing and people can't get enough of it.

I mean, it's one thing that's fun to see the mess and then see it clean, but also to explore the psychology and emotions behind it. What is your experience? How do you get this experience? Yes. I am part of ICD, which is the Institute for Challenging Disorganization. I've been in the industry for almost a decade. I have been in business for almost four years. Do you have clients? You go and help a customer base. Yes, and I've been in hundreds of crowded homes, I mean a woman who collected 250 porcelain dolls, an episode where I get bored because I'm with a man who hoards 300 plants, so I feel like I've seen it all, but every time I think I've seen it all I see something new, something else and I haven't seen it yet.

It really is remarkable what the psychology behind hoarding is. Yeah, so hoarding is a brand new disorder in the dsm-5, which is the guideline for mental health professionals. until the diagnosis and so in 2013 it became its own disorder and the diagnosis people used to think it was part of OCD but now it's its own disorder and with behaviors that define it so I think it all boils down to deterioration and loss. a function in a person's house, for example, someone cannot bathe in their bathtub because it is full of magazines or newspapers, or boxes, someone cannot cook in their kitchen, so they contain themselves only by using their microwave.

I have been in homes where Many people simply have goat trails in their house and can barely walk around their pain. We know where this is coming from. Is there a common experience that people have in their origins? Yes, there's usually a trigger, and like I said, it's a learned behavior. It can be a learned behavior, but usually when I talk to my clients who are severe

hoarders

, there's a trigger, or there's a loss, a turning point. grieving, a point of contention somewhere in their lives that the hoarding behavior really accelerated, but research has shown It has been shown that there is a genetic predisposition to these behaviors and that is why some people have a hard time getting organized and stay organized because they can never innately understand what it means to have their house in order.

It's fascinating, well, obviously, it's fascinating because there have been nine seasons, yeah, okay, let's take a look at a clip, okay, it's one of the last final rooms that we would love to help you with, so if you can identify what What do you see in this room, what is left. goes and then we move on to the plants, okay, although the two chairs are actually almost a brand, but I've gotten used to this rope, but their keepers are fine and then what about the worm barrels? Why do you have three barrels of worms? in your living room what is what was and you don't understand why he would have three because one of those red wigglers and one of them is European night colors and one of them is a great jumper incident why they are because they like company It's Well, I always talk to them when I go fishing and they tell me not to invite me to the fish.

Okay, that's cool though. I love that you have that interaction with them, keeping them free from garden classes. Well, I don't. I don't know, that would be a robot. I guess Delanie has logical sequences to throw it in the garden. Okay, so let's make an assembly line from here. What happens to the plants? Probably most of them are preserved. Why don't you put them below? the willow, well, they don't work, look, it started, what do you think? Hey, I can help you, oh, you're going to have to figure it out, oh my gosh, okay, it airs on Sunday, so, so he had an answer for why there were worms in the house, which I thought was a good question and an interesting answer.

Where do you start with someone? Yeah, so where do I start with someone like that? He is a wonderful man, but I trust the knowledge of a mental health professional. I was working when and you expect to know who the doctors are if you watch on Sunday and she was amazing so in any hoarding situation I think collaboration between hoarding specialists like myself and a mental health professional is the magic sauce to help really someone. They build up to that point because if they can't get to the root of it, then it's a self-fulfilling thing that absolutely keeps happening and I deal with the inevitable things and moves that go along with that, but I need to rely on the knowledge of a therapist. really digging underneath the behaviors is okay, let's talk about it in our own homes, you know, like I said, I'm not a hoarder, but sometimes I let things pile up, I feel like finding the piles is kind of an organization, but I know that's not true, yeah, and on the other hand, when I finally order something, when I look at something, I know and I throw it all away, I feel really good, yeah, do most people have that feeling?

I'm talking about people who don't accumulate. We like that when we clean things or is it exclusive to certain personalities no, it's totally cathartic and I think you know what I want to express is that I don't just work with people who hoard, I work with normal people who just need some organization in the home , so hopefully it's cathartic to discard the good. What a lot of people don't realize is how good it feels and they're afraid to go there, so they hire a professional organizer or hoarding specialist to take care of it. being that objective third party to come and help them do it, it's so cathartic that I thought about how we live in a ravine and we throw our cutting or tree up and throw it over the ravine, yeah, I'd like to just throw it away.

Well, it still has all the stuff, yeah, I love it, I love it, let's talk about some of the tools that we need to get organized and make it fun. Can we start here? Because I love the label. Do you know what's so cute? funny so this is a key touch bro, I think one thing when people think about home organization they think, oh my gosh, I need to have a membership to storables The Container Store, right? I have these things in storeables, you can get them at Target. and Fred Meijer organizing doesn't have to be that complicated because people do it well.

I think where people go wrong is when I arrive at a client's house and they tell me what I need to buy beforehand. I'm not saying anything, yeah, let's not go. there, especially for people who hoard all the time, have everything I need to do my job and are underutilizing it because they can't find it in their house, that's an idea because I bet I have an untold number of bends in the garage , yes, I just took them out and used them correctly and part of my conviction in my business. I love being clever with what people already have and I have no desire to rack up people's bills any more than necessary while saying, what do you already have? that we can resources and use and if we really hit a wall, let's go to some of these super simple storage solutions that I can show you, okay, so markers help because markers talk because they implement a system, so a lot of people use them. known.

They want places for their stuff, but they say, well, I have four kids and how are you going to keep that system in place? so this is a great way to implement a system and get it working. I like the idea of ​​literally making it stand up, doing it right, spice. You know, cabinets, of course, are always a problem and it's great if you can afford all the gadgets, but if you can't, things like this are really useful, super useful again. Aim for Fred Meyer storables. Container Store. This is how I organize my spices. These are actually my spices and some of my add-on packs.

Therefore, this can also be used in the refrigerator. I think it's like 799 super cost effective and affordable. You can see everything, which helps you not just leave things in the back that stay there for years. That's the trick, which is why you want everything to be visible, especially to a person hoarding out of sight. Mentally, I can't tell you how many times I've gone into a house and they tell me, you know, I'm out of spice or out of toilet paper or paper towels. I can always find it and they have a lot in their garage they don't even know they're starting to worry about me now they know when I organize my kitchen I'm not kidding, we found 40 balls, you know, those little devils I found several of many things, yeah, I went out shopping, just I could open my own cough tube store.

Anyway, I'll keep my eyes on the kitchen. Yes, this is not about me. Yeah, no, so you have shoes here. It was a good idea, so this is a bit silly. I mean, it's one of my favorite things, um, for women who have a lot of shoes, I don't know about you, I have some, um, so I have 10 pairs of shoes and I feel like maybe I'm the only woman in the world that has 10 pairs. of shoes however this is great and these are a pair of my flat shoes um and this is a shoe box that you can get back well and you have a photo and I have a photo so you know you can laminate it if you want To be really clever with this, I just cut it out and then you can stack them on top of each other so your shoes are visible.

It's a really good idea and it's simple and it feels like you're shopping in your closet, which a lot of women love you, you have to come back, yeah, that was a lot more advice. I love it. You can watch Erica's episode of Hoarders this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. m. about Annie also brought gift cards to warehouses for everyone in the audience yes the organization faces ooh spooky a big label maker yes after the break how to start 2017 with good financial habits and the author of best sellers, a named financial expert and Part B is here. after a break thank you oh