Hoarders is on. I didn't turn it on and I'm not currently controlling the TV, so I can't turn it to something more worthwhile to watch. As I watch this cheesy reality show crap it occurs to me that I don't recall a single episode in which they went to a house in Beverly Hills or The Hamptons or some place wealthy and upperclass like that. I haven't seen or heard of a single case of hoarding in which a filthy rich celebrity or businessman had a hoarding problem.
When I think closer to home, I realize that none of my upper class friends have houses filled with stuff. My wealthy friends don't have indoor couches on their front porches or trails in their living rooms where you have to make your way through stacks and stacks of crap.
The only people I know with stacks of crap and little trails formed through it that you walk to get from one room to the next are poor relative to most of the people I know.
To be fair, poorer people can't afford as much house, and therefore the larger storage space that richer people can. I recall a TV special about Michael Jackson in which he was shown going on an insane shopping spree where he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on crap. Where all that crap went once he got home, I don't know. But I never heard stories after he died of people having to wade through piles of crap he'd bought and set up a hasty estate sale to get rid of it all. And I know for a fact that many wealthy professional men in Memphis have wives who spend thousands of dollars per week on regular shopping sprees. I can't imagine where all that money goes, or what happens to the things they buy. Their houses are large, but never seem to be overfilled with things.
One of my sisters moved out to a part of Alabama that I have to confess, I never would have chosen for myself. It's up on a mountaintop and I'm sure it has its good points, but for the most part I have never heard much good said about it. Driving out there to visit her, it is impossible not to notice the small, rectangular houses, boxes really, which appear to be resting on piles of trash. All around these little houses are piles and piles of ... stuff. Its just stupid stuff. Raggedy couches, window frames, doors, tables, old chairs, cans, bottles, lawnmowers, motorcycles in various states of disassembly, shells of cars that are missing engines, doors, glass. There is no yard left. And their running cars don't appear to be parked in any sort of orderly arrangement in their driveways. They're everywhere, all around the house, all over the yard, front and back.
In my own neighborhood, one of my neighbors once complained to another neighbor about the fact that his son's girlfriend repeatedly parked her car alongside the street instead of in the driveway. I hadn't thought about it before, but no one here parks on the street. And no one parks in their yard, either. All our cars, at every house, are organized in our garages and driveways. I have more cars than anyone on my street, and yet even so, all of them are either in the garage or in my driveway. That wasn't the case when I was living in Redneckville. Back then I was probably the only person in the entire neighborhood with cars inside my garage instead of stacks and stacks of junk. Everyone else had cars and boats parked somewhere in the grass.
So I'm thinking about this now and I'm wondering, why is this? Why have I never seen a wealthy person with a hoarding problem? Why are their houses always so perfectly organized, neat, and devoid of stuff? In most of the largest, nicest homes I've been inside of, there really wasn't that much stuff. Almost every room was neatly filled with just the right amount of things. At worst, there might be a closet somewhere in the back that overflowed with old things, or maybe one entire side of their garage was stacked with junk. But beyond that, no one seemed to overfill their rooms with things.
Do rich people sell their old things once they get bored with them? Do they donate them? Do they just throw them away because they value them less than poorer people?
Do poorer people hang onto every single item they possess, even when its broken, worn out, or otherwise of little value to them, because they fear they might not be able to afford to replace it?
I don't have an answer to this. I just have my theories and random thoughts. I don't watch "Hoarders" enough to pay much attention so I don't know if they've ever offered any in-depth explanation as to why they believe people fill their houses with crap.
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