Comments on: Home shopping contributes to clutter

By: Tina

Tina — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:28:24 +0000

I know my mom has an Obsessive Compulsive and Hoarding Disorder and is lonely. And many people in the US self medicate with shopping. Unfortunately, when the elderly do it, they can spend their entire retirement nest egg. We call mom daily and have someone visit her but still the shopping continues and packages arrive daily. We can’t get conservatorship because she is still quite sharp, so she continues to shop and is buried in junk she has looked at once and never used. They are really good. I wish I could block her account because now we need to send money to get the basics covered. It’s upsetting.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 04:19:42 +0000

My friend’s mother used to record shows on their VCR anytime she left the house just to keep up with what she missed buying while she was out.

By: Cynthia Friedlob, The Thoughtful Consumer

Cynthia Friedlob, The Thoughtful Consumer — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 02:15:28 +0000

The place to go for help with obsessive-compulsive disorders is: http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/about-hoarding/compulsive-hoarding-syndrome-introduction.php The Obsessive Compulsive Foundation has an entire on-line section devoted to hoarding. I recommend this site highly!

By: BigNerd

BigNerd — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:25:22 +0000

Jude: On QVC: My sentiments exactly. Pure snake oil… a unitasker mecca.

By the way, who coined the term “unitasker”? I have incorporated this into my vocabulary. I sound like quite the know-it-all.

By: Jude

Jude — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:49:18 +0000

I watched QVC for a weekend once and decided that people watched it for the companionship as much as the stuff. The people they choose to sell the items become substitute friends who act interested in whatever the callers say. I get the same thing out of reading and commenting on blogs–a (probably false) sense of companionship and community.

By: robyn

robyn — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:36:52 +0000

my grandpa would buy stuff every once in awhile from them. and what made the clutter worse was that with every order they sent you a bunch of free crap too. so when he passed and we cleaned out his house, which already had too much stuff in it, we found like 20 boxes of crap in the basement that had come as freebies with orders!

By: anonymous QVC defender

anonymous QVC defender — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:16:57 +0000

My grandmother LOVED QVC - but she rarely ever bought anything… so I hate to see people completely blame the companies… they’re partially responsible but not entirely… Obviously there are people who can watch it almost all day and almost all night and still not buy very often (a couple of times a year at most) - but she watched for the hosts (back when the hosts all had set times they were on - the good ol days with Kathy and Jeff!)

By: David

David — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:06:07 +0000

Why pick only on the TV shopping channels? The same can be said of many internet retailers as well. They all target their best customers to purchase more stuff

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:58:05 +0000

My wife was one of these. Before she died, we went through two or three years where $300 a day on home shopping wasn’t unusual. All financed on an endless series of maxed-out low-limit credit cards. It was agony. I’m still working on shoveling out the strata of worthless goods from my house (and paying off the debts). It’s an addiction for some people, pure and simple (although currently unrecognized by the DSM), and the people behind QVC, HSN, and ShopNBC knowingly prey on the most addicted victims, their best customers.

By: missdona

missdona — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:17:19 +0000

My grandmother had this issue before her passing, but not to the degree of the person noted above. She never went into debt or anything like that.

It was during the hey-day of HSN and QVC and way before the internet.

She would buy Hummels and Capi-de-Monte figurines. There was a delivery nearly every day and it made her happy. We got rid of a ton of stuff when she passed, but her clutter truly helped her self esteem.