Recently, the new ABC show, "9.1.1." had an episode about two hermit brothers who lived in a house filled with trash and rubble...the paramedics had to crawl through a tunnel (full of booby traps) to get to the old blind man...
Lilly and Warren both watched that show at their house, and they were talking about it when they came for the weekend. I told them that the story was based on REAL PEOPLE...and they didn't believe me.
Until I googled it.
The Collyer brothers lived as hermits in New York City in the 1930's - 40's. They were the original "hoarders". Their 5th Avenue mansion was stuffed, floor to ceiling, with old newspapers, bicycles, tires, automobile parts, thousands of books, and all manner of junk...which all melded into one large, enormous four-story bale of oozing rotted garbage that took weeks and thousands of man-hours to disassemble.
One of the brothers, Homer, was blind, and he starved to death because his brother Langley was killed by one of his own booby traps while crawling through a tunnel. (probably trying to deliver food to Homer, who was found dead in a nest in the midst of all the rubble).
Hey -- you know how much I LOVE TO COLLECT THINGS. It's one of my favorite life activities!
But, a girl can't just keep bringing things INTO THE HOUSE if she doesn't, sooner or later -- start TAKING THINGS OUT...The story of the Collyer Brothers is my inspiration to JUST DO IT...
Really -- I vow to remove AT LEAST TWO BAGS OF JUNK from this house every week....
Because, honestly, as bizarre as their story is -- I can understand how it happened...
Rita's Sew Fun -- a sporadic, random blog about nothing in particular.
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