If there’s one thing you should know about hoarders, it’s that their behavior is a result of trauma, usually involving the death of a loved one. So as much as these are nightmarishly vile, they’re even more tragic. Here are 11 of the absolute worst hoarder cases in history.
A House Brimming With Poop
Her toilet broke, so Shanna decided to poop and pee in containers for 12 years straight. “My mother used to put poop in a jug,” she said. Apparently it runs in the family. In 2012, when the cleaning specialists from “Hoarders” arrived to her home, Shanna didn’t notice the same house they did. Hundreds of jugs littered the house, creating what she described as a “musty odor.” It wasn’t must. It was fecal matter. Perhaps her olfactory glands were too damaged to notice the epic stink in her abode, but as she confessed, “I’ve been eating poop for the past 12 years.” Shanna’s case is widely considered the worst to ever happen on “Hoarders.”
100 Dead Cats
Meet Terry. Terry loved cats so much that when they died, she stuffed them in her refrigerator in hopes to one day cremate them. That day never came. Many of them liquefied. “I really feel like the reason I collect cats is that I have this feeling in me that I’m helping save something,” said the Hanover, IL local. They found 50 cats living in her home, which was caked with feline feces. Those that died over the years found an icy grave where she kept her food.
2,500 Rats
Glen is a humble self-employed crusty surfer dude who lives in Southern California. In the beginning, he had three rats — one male and two females. In 2009, they escaped from their cage and burrowed into the walls of his home. Two years later, there were 2,500 of them. “I readily admit that I have way too many rats,” he confessed. Glen had to begin sleeping in his office because the rats would chew his hair while he slept to curate nesting material. After his “Hoarders” episode, the Humane Society eventually removed 2,000 from his home, and the rest were either adopted or given away. Except for two, his favorites, whom he named Commander Whitehead and Captain Brown Bottom.
300 Gallons of Urine
In 2013, authorities in Newtown, Connecticut, received an anonymous tip that a neighbor was a sketched-out hoarder of epic proportions. When they arrived to the house, an acrid stench punched them in the nose. The owner escaped through the backdoor before they showed up. They found 300 opaque jugs filled with brownish liquid later determined to be human urine. For two years, this man pissed into containers like Howard Hughes in his 82 Berkshire Road residence, which seems rural enough. But it still begs the question, why not pop a squat in the woods?
240 Sex Dolls
Two senior citizens aged 65 and 70 out of Herefordshire, United Kingdom, have an eccentric hobby. Bob and Lizzie Gibbins have collected a total of 240 love dolls. While not exactly puke-worthy, what is puke-worthy is the fact that the couple has spent $160,000 amassing their ungodly number of love dolls. And we can surely speculate that old Bob has cheated on Lizzie at least once or twice with his silicone harem.
30 Dead Horses
Ironically, Caroline Vaughn was running an animal rescue operation. In April 2013, police descended upon her property to find 30 dead horses. It was one of the worst cases of animal cruelty ever witnessed in Oklahoma, and they described the remaining living horses as “walking skeletons.” In addition, they found 28 dogs, several goats, a parrot and a chinchilla. Vaughn was tossed in jail with a $100,000 bond.
The Great Jenkem Bust of 2011
A resident of an apartment complex in Fort Pierce, FL noticed a smell from the street emanating from the building. Louisker Louisjuene — no, we don’t know who would name their son Louisker, either — followed the smell to a window on the first floor, where he saw brown fetid nastiness dripping from the walls. It was poo. Jenkem, to be exact. As it’s known on the streets, jenkem is fermented excrement kept in bottles used to get high. The euphoria of huffing it is likened to that of cocaine. After finding dozens of poo bottles and butt butter spread across the mattresses and floors, the building was condemned. Poor Louisker was even forced to move out, thanks to one jenkem enthusiast who has since been on the lamb.
Bats, Cats, Rats and Trash
An elderly man broke his hip in January 2014, and when police arrived to his North Philadelphia home, they found what could only be described as a “horror show.” Philly SPCA director George Bengal had some useful color commentary on the matter: “If you can imagine flushing your toilet for five or six years and this is all where it goes, that’s what the house looks like inside.” There were four dead cats and hoards of bats flapping around. And of course, the obligatory dung. “I would swear this guy had a feces fetish. Rubber pans were overflowing with feces and packed up from ceiling to floor. I’ve been in some horrible houses — this was unspeakable,” Bengal reiterated.
33 Condoms Full of Semen
In some parts of Africa, semen is sometimes hoarded to keep bad spirits at bay. It’s viewed as good luck, regenerating life, therefore offering new life to those condemned to a life of grief. Or something like that. In 2011, three Zimbabwe women ages 24, 24 and 26 were arrested for raping at least 17 men. They kept their man-seed inside their car. Most of the men were hitchhikers, and they were given drinks laced with tranquilizer. Some testified that they were held at gunpoint by the female rapists. In 2012, the three ladies were acquitted of all charges. It’s unknown whether they were allowed to keep the semen.
120 Tons of Junk
The Collyer Brothers of Harlem who lived during the Great Depression were perhaps the first jaw-dropping hoarders held under the microscope of public scrutiny. After they died together only two weeks apart, police excavated 120 tons of random stuff from their brownstone. The brothers couldn’t live in the house like normal people, so like rats, they created “nests” within the debris. How did they die? Homer died of starvation; Langley died of being crushed to death by falling objects trying to save his brother. The police couldn’t enter the place because 240,000 pounds of crap blocked the door, but they uncovered perhaps the greatest yard sale stockpile in history, including 25,000 books, eight cats, human organs pickled in jars, thousands of empty bottles, countless decades-old newspapers and a whole bunch of other loot that could fill up a Costco.
Dead Mother
Janet Pallone Delatorre panicked when her 98-year-old mother died in 2010. She thought the cops would think she killed her, given the state of her hoarder’s palace from hell. So she let her mummify for four years in her own bed up until June 2014 when police found her. Janet Sr. was still gripping her blanket.
