Debra has filled her house with an avalanche of clothes and run up a $50,000 credit card debt. Fed up, her husband and children are threatening to leave her to wallow in the hoard by herself. Meanwhile, Patty has stuffed her house with so many floor-to-ceiling cardboard boxes that she's had to move to her son's apartment. But now she's filling up that place too, and the situation has already forced her son's partner to say, "Keep the heap - I'm leaving!"

A man who suffered brain trauma and amnesia in an accident keeps items that might trigger his memories; a woman refuses to part with things that had belonged to three dead relatives.

An artist is surrounded by thousands of his paintings of naked women; a man's hoarding is so out of control that he's had to put his TV and food cooler in the bathroom.

A woman who collects bottles of human waste; another woman who hoards items in preparation for the end of the world.

Joni's hoarding drove her two sons to turn to drugs to cope, and it forced Child Protective Services to take her granddaughter away from her. She has one last chance to stop the vicious cycle of loss she has inflicted on her family. Millie has agreed to more than one clean-up, only to relapse and start hoarding again. Now her daughter, Chelsea, has given Millie one last ultimatum - "Clean up or lose me forever.

Manual was living in his hoarded house with his four children, ages 5, 6, 7, and 9. They are the love of his life, but they were removed by Child Protective Services and Manual won't get them back unless he cleans his act up. Meanwhile, Carla has had three failed marriages to men who cheated on her. As if to represent each husband, Carla has hoarded out three homes. Her family is trying to get her to at least clean out one of the houses so she can make a new start in life.

Susan `s addicted to buying and selling cars and electronics, but she never manages to sell much. Recently, when Susan was out prowling for more stuff, someone broke into the house, bound and gagged her wheelchair-bound mother at gunpoint, and stole some of Susan's hoard. Michael's father was a Nazi SS member in Germany's Third Reich who ruled his son with an iron fist, even forcing him to eat his own pet rabbit to "toughen him up." Now Michael is a hoarder and he and his dog live like sardines packed in a can of clutter.

Terry's fridge is packed with dead cats, and she has another 50 live ones. Her son thinks her problems stem from the time her father died of a heart attack right in front of her when she was just a small child, and she's felt guilty ever since that she couldn't save him. Meanwhile, decades of hoarding has left Adelle's house in such shambles that she's using a bucket for a bathroom and doing laundry in a kiddie pool in her backyard. But Adelle can't see the filth or the damage her hoarding has done to her family.

Jan is in denial about her hoarding--one of her daughters compares her to a venomous viper ready to strike if you dare talk about throwing anything out. Bebe was raised with servants and boarding schools, and her husband gave her everything she desired. But when her husband was murdered, Bebe s privileged life unraveled, and now her hoarding is so bad that she even steals stuff when she s at church.

Merlene had it all--an international supermodel married to the son of the inventor of the Lear Jet. But her storybook life fell apart when she got divorced and now her house is crammed to the ceiling with her dumpster dive finds. Jeff once had plenty of cash and women to fill his time. But it all came crashing down when he lost his shoe repair business, and he moved all the contents of the business into his home and started hoarding construction supplies to boot.

A victim of abuse as a child, Diana's hoarding became so extreme that her daughter was forced to sleep in a recliner because the trash had overtaken her room. But now a neighbor has blown the whistle on the heap, and the house could be condemned if Diana doesn't clean up fast. Meanwhile, Dolores was once an antiques dealer with such a great eye for value that she even sold to Sotheby's.

A pair of former punk rockers, Fuzzie and Fred are living like teenagers well into middle age, work at a porn shop, and have stuffed their home with records, toys, comic books, ghoulish masks and mannequins. Fuzzie's father works 10-hour days to support them, but now he s fed up and giving them an ultimatum--clean up or get cut off. Nancy's freezing, sludge-filled home is filled with empty dog food cans, heaps of dirty clothes, rat-chewed boxes, and cobwebs that hang like black drapes. Nancy's niece, Michelle, is the only family member willing to help, but now she fears that Nancy will die in the hoard if something isn't done soon.