Hello everyone! The following is a response from Matt Paxton the 'extreme cleaner' on last night's A&E Hoarders show. That episode disturbed me so much that I had a difficult time sleeping... as a matter of fact, I scrubbed my kitchen before trying to go to bed.... I work in the medical field and come in contact with MANY people who are "mentally disturbed" in differing degrees and I have compassion for them, but, that woman was in a whole different league...I don't care what kind of excuses they come up with for her ... I have NO PITY for the woman. NONE. PERIOD... I'm sorry if that offends anyone.
Anyway, this somewhat explains the deal with the Animal Control and why at the end of the show most of the animals were left in the 'care' of this horrible Ogre. And just so you know, before anyone starts throwing barbs at me...my step mother is a hoarder, she was extremely abusive to her step kids and I have the inclination to hold on to things if I think they are still usable... BUT! Thank God I have a husband who is a neat freak and keeps me balanced. You could eat off of my floors and sometimes I don't finish the dishes after dinner... So, I don't buy the excuse that "Oh, poor woman was abused" BULL Shizzle.
OK, so everything after this is copied from the A&E discussion boards....
overall response of show - and answers!
ok, thanks for everyone for watching the show. I'm going to post one LARGE response to everyone and hopefully it will answer alot of questions.
I understand that with animal hoarding that many of you are upset and it is hard to watch. Please remember that this is a documentary about hoarding. we are not a fix it show and believe it or not, we are not a show trying to simply drum up drama. that being said, please remember that NONE of the experts have any say over what does or does NOT get shown. We are simply paid to do what we do on a daily basis. For myself, the therapist and the animal experts, all of our goals for the entire shoot was to get as many animals as we could off of that property. Our second goal was to get mental help to Hanah and her family when possible.
I will probably upset some people with this post and i'm sorry in advance if I do.
First off, from the minute we scouted this house, we knew there was animal abuse and we contacted every single government agency we could legal contact. I am sorry to say that not every judge in this town or animal control officer shared the passion for animals that you the viewers share. We brought in some of the best vets in the country to make sure that we could get as many animals out as possible.
As for animal control being asked to leave. We had animal control on call the entire time we were there. Our ultimate goal was to make sure hanah could never harm animals again. If you just swoop in and take all the animals and don't build a legal case against her, than she would simply start hurting animals again 10 minutes after we left. We had a very strategic plan with animals experts, family, therapist and myself to make sure we could get the legal right to remove the animals, build a case to prevent her from ever having animals again and believe it or not, make sure that she had the mental ability to continue to move forward. We had a forensic vet on staff to make sure we built this strongest case possible. I know that when you see someone on tv like this, many of you want her to die and not the animals. Well, i'm sorry but this is a person who was severly abused and is messed up for a reason. This entire family is an example of what physical and sexual abuse can do to a family generations down the line. This is sad, not funny and you see how people and animals are abused when that is all a family knows. The more anger you feel for this show should be converted to sorry for the family members currently and generations above.
Long story short, I'm not sure who called animal control at that very time. I know that no one will believe me, but we had them on call to come in at the right time. When they arrived, we were about to get legal permission from her to remove all the animals. when she saw them, it made her back track and she decided we couldn't take any. The judge in this county would NOT give us the legal paperwork to remove the animals. he would not give Animal Control the legal right to take them away either. believe it or not, you can't just walk up and take someone's animals because you feel like they are being abused. there is a legal process you must go through and we have to follow those laws, regardless of how bad the situation is. I know that our viewers are angry, but we did everything we legally could to remove those animals as quickly as possible. It was my choice to send animal control away because we wanted to 1) build a case and have evidence to prove that she was abusing animals and 2) I didn't want her to die from the stress of the current situation. Some of you will probably say she deserves to die, but I disagree, I will take human life over animal life any day. Sorry folks. The hoarders that you hate are real people that have gone through real trama. please remember, there is a reason that a person acts like this.
i'll post more on the next post.
(the post from Matt Paxton continued...)
response continued
sorry for the long post people, but you all need to understand that there is WAY more behind the scenes that you don't see because of TV editing. My team and I worked our butts off to make sure that every animal was saved. Legally speaking there are processes that we must go through and in this case, not every local officially was on board with our plan. Many rural communities would rather just ignore people like hanah or are forced to because they don't have the finances to help someone like her.
I will comment briefly on the animals. She did let some of the sick one's go at the time to animal control. We were then able to get permission from her to remove other chickens and then others were finally removed 2 weeks later from the farm when authorities had a strong case to prevent her from ever having animals again. Can I ensure that she will never have animals again, no, but I know we did everything we could to build the strongest case. Cops were on the scene, very good animal experts were on the grounds the entire time to make sure that the best possible care could be given.
Some of you may think I'm getting very personal on this one. Well, I am. myself, the producers, the camera guys, the sound guys, the therapists, we all work very hard in incredibly dangerous conditions to help these hoarders. We do it because it's the right thing to do and no one else will do it. is it a TV show, absolutely, but it's also what we do for a living. we try to help people. Is this an extreme case where someone couldn't be helped, absolutely, but our job is to try to help everyone, not just the people that are easy to help.
i have been bombarded with ridiculous emails today saying that I should be charged with animal cruelty and that A&E is making snuff films. People, we are documenting what is actually happening in america today. This was one family of the tens of thousands of families out there that live like this. Remember, this is a product of abuse. PERIOD. people who abuse, often were abuse and follow it up the family tree. I'm sorry this was so dificult to watch, but deal with it. This is real and it happens every day in thousands of homes around the country. Im not condoning the behavior of this woman, what she did was horrible and is down right criminal, but guess what, it happens. It happens everywhere. Watch "food, inc" if you really want to see this on a large scale for all the food that you and I eat each day. To get to the point, if this show offended you, please use your anger to make a positive change. Go out and talk to someone you know that is abused, don't ignore it. When you see a guy yelling at his wife in an abusive way, remember how outraged you were at this show. Don't just complain to A&E or me, go out and make a difference.
Again, i am not condoning anything on that show. I hope you people know that we are experts and we do everything we possible can to help people and animals (in that order). Finally, to those that challenge my integrity and my dedication....well, you know what i want to say to you. I put my health and life on the line because I am dedicated to helping people, specifically the people that no one else will. If you had a grandma that was dying in filth, living in squalor and had no one to turn to, I doubt you'd be questioning my morals.
Sorry to get so personal, but this is what this show is about. Showing America what people are living like and starting conversations. If we had just taken the animals and gone, nothing would have changed. Hanah would have started all over again. By staying and airing this complete episode, I can assure you more animals will be saved nationwide. If you are angry, please give money to animal shelters around the country and volunteer and make a difference. If you just sit there and complain on a computer, but don't actually try to make a difference, than you are actually making the problem worse. yes, i said it, by ignoring the problem, we all make it worse. I applaud A&E (obviously, i'm biased) for making the difficult decision to air an episode that they will get slammed for. they are going to make more of a difference by showing this. People, please turn your anger into action and volunteer, help or give money.
again, sorry for the rant, but I've finally lost my patience.
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