Will Ruby And Mary Let Hoarders Show Them Their Families Are More Important Than Their Stuff?

Severity Of Hoard

Ruby, who lives in Long Beach, CA, describes herself in her intro as "the worst kind of hoarder," so remember that when she's being an intractable jerk later (spoiler alert). She can't move around her house except by shuffling and sidestepping between the piles of undifferentiated stuff (adorned with hundreds of ants). The house is so unusable, in fact, that Ruby spends most of her waking hours chilling outside in her car -- reading, playing games, eating, and even hosting guests. It would be upsetting, of course, if she were only one elderly person living (barely) in a house where a heavy pile of junk might fall and crush her at any time -- but Ruby doesn't live alone: also sharing the home is her seventeen-year-old great-grandson Jeremy. Ruby legally adopted both Jeremy and his older sister (who no longer lives with Ruby) when Jeremy was four months old, and while he apparently has never known what it's like to live in a clean, uncluttered, safe home, he's old enough now to understand how embarrassing it would be to bring any friends there, and to be stressed by the chaos. And by "chaos," I mean stuff like this wig hanging over the kitchen sink.

Also, Ruby has personified the hoard, calling it "he" and imputing motives to it. For example: "I tried to clean it but he won't let me." Normal stuff.

In Napa, Mary lives in a house in which every room is hoarded. As well, her kitchen range and washing machine don't work, which means she needs to go next door, where her mother lives, and use hers. Like Ruby, Mary shares her home with two children, Michael and Maria (and, unlike Ruby, a husband). Though there are tiny spots in each room where the kids can do things like play on the floor or eat at a table, all four members of the family are forced, by the condition of the house, to sleep in one bed. Basically, there's no part of this that isn't a CPS issue, and Mary's family is finally threatening to call the authorities on her, for the kids' sake, if she doesn't clean up.

Severity Score: 16

Relevant Hoarder Backstory

According to her daughters, Lorraine and Jamie, Ruby's house was clean when they were growing up. But she's a compulsive shopper; Lorraine's been controlling her finances for the past three years to try to curtail her spending and accumulating. After Ruby's grandson Chris started "running the streets" and then "got a gun and shot some kid in the leg," he was sentenced to 25-to-life and went to prison, and Ruby started shopping even more. "It takes the sadness away," Ruby says.

Mary inherited her home from her beloved grandmother when she passed away, so moving into the house and losing her grandmother happened simultaneously. In addition to having a problem with shopping, Mary didn't want to get rid of any of her grandmother's things, so the house was all hoarded well before Mary's elder child, Michael, was even born. Turns out that having one and then two children was no motivation for Mary to clean up, and instead she's just been steadily adding to the hoard on their behalves: "I just feel like when I get rid of one of their things, I'm losing a little bit of them, somehow. Every single thing they've ever owned is still in this house."

Backstory Score: 14

Native Likability Of Hoarder

Ruby actually seems like kind of a bitch for most of the episode. When her daughters try to convince her to clean by telling her how much they'd like to come visit her and sit in her house as opposed to the front seat of her car, she says things like "It's not that bad" and "I think you guys exaggerate"; at one point, Jamie starts crying while trying to get through to Ruby, and Ruby responds by making a "blah blah blah" gesture with her hand. That would be where I left and never came back, so Jamie is a better child than I.

Mary seems nicer; she's just so far gone in her illness that while she understands intellectually that her failure to be decisive during the cleanup could result in her actually losing her children, she lacks the capacity to connect this fact to her actions (or lack thereof).

Likability Score: 10

Anxiety Of Family/Other Enablers

The focus of this cleanup, from the family's perspective, is less on Ruby's needs and more on Jeremy's. The theory behind the intervention is that unless Jeremy has a home he wants to spend time in, he'll continue "running the streets" and possibly end up getting involved in crime the way Christopher did.

On Mary's side, the anxiety of the people outside the house -- primarily Mary's sister Karen and niece Angie -- is also the kids' safety, except in the case of Michael and Maria, this danger is not theoretical (see below). You know who doesn't seem that concerned at all? Mike, Mary's husband. I mean, he's involved in the cleanup and seems like a loving parent, but he also let Mary's shopping get totally out of control and has been living in her hoard for at least a decade, so his urgency could stand to be cranked up a notch or nine.

Anxiety Score: 14

Inciting Incident

The generalized concern about Jeremy's quasi-delinquency is apparently what has led Ruby's daughters to intervene with her. It's not quite as dramatic as Mary's story: recently, an earthquake struck the Napa area and all of Mary's piles fell down. If an emergency situation were to occur, first responders would not have a path of ingress to help. (I feel like more should be made of the fact that the whole family shares one bed, because NO, and the Inciting Incident should have been whenever Mary decided that was okay.)

Incitement Score: 13

Assigned Experts

Ruby is assisted by Dr. Melva Green, who honestly is barely in this episode at all, but that's okay because Ruby's organizer is DOROTHY BREININGER! HEY GIRL, IT'S BEEN A MINUTE! I love Dorothy and I have really missed her on this show. Mary gets the gentle but firm Dr. Michael Tompkins, who tells her several times that he's a mandated reporter, and that the stakes, for her, are that she has to satisfy his standards of hygiene and safety or he will call CPS on her; she also gets Matt Paxton, who I think is slightly less tough on her than he might be otherwise because there are kids around.

Expert Score: 16

Success Of Cleanup

Ruby dicks around for a while but finally lets people start throwing stuff away for her, and the result is a clean house overall and even a nice room makeover for Jeremy, aw. He promises he's going to be home all the time now, and honestly, he never seemed like he was wilding out that much anyway, but still, this is all to the good.

Mary also lets go all her control issues when Mike -- not that forcefully -- confronts her about her obstructionism. The house is cleaned to Dr. Tompkins's satisfaction -- and yes, most importantly, the kids get moved into their own room where they each get their own bed. I'm not sure why they have to share a room in this giant historic home, but: baby steps. They can agitate for separate rooms when they're older and sharing a room starts getting weird.

Cleanup Score: 10

Epilogue

Epilogue Score: 13