Matt Paxton
Autore di The secret lives of hoarders : true stories of tackling extreme clutter
Sull'Autore
Matt Paxton is the top downsizing, decluttering, and hoarding expert in the country. He hosts the Emmy-nominated PBS show Legacy List with Matt Paxton and has been featured on AE's Hoarders for thirteen seasons. He appears regularly as a public speaker and radio personality helping families find mostra altro the upside of downsizing. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his family of nine-and nothing but insulation in his attic. mostra meno
Opere di Matt Paxton
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di residenza
- Richmond, Virginia, USA
- Attività lavorative
- gambler
research analyst
database manager
grief counselor
housecleaner
wetsuit designer - Organizzazioni
- Clutter Cleaner
- Agente
- Jane Dystel (Dystel & Goderich)
- Breve biografia
- With his company, Clutter Cleaner, Matt Paxton is a featured hoarder specialist on A&E's Hoarders. He appear regularly on radio and television, where he speaks on hoarding and senior relocation.
Paxton has been, variously, a research analyst, a database manager for Caesar's Palace, a triathlon wetsuit designer, a professional gambler, a volunteer grief counselor for children, and a housekeeper. He has started three companies, traveled around the world, and a housecleaner. When Paxton started Clutter Cleaner in 2006, it was intended to focus on organizing and cleaning houses for grieving widows and relocating seniors, but he quickly found himself sought out be extreme hoarders.
As a teenager he spent time with his great-aunt, who had a serious hoarding problem. He estimates he cleaned her house at least twenty times while he was growing up. Today, he and his wife Sarah, live in that house in Richmond, Virginia. It is very clean. [from The Secret Lives of Hoarders (2011)]
Utenti
Recensioni
Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter,… di Matt Paxton
A great resource for managing our material possessions. Broken into sections and supported by lists one can reference when needed.
I loved how the author shared his story (I have such little pop culture knowledge that I've seen his show "Legacy List" on PBS but had no idea he was part of the show "Hoarders") here and those he works with. This is an actual usable read for what to do to get rid of stuff and also move; it's very comprehensive yet accessible, and I think it's a great resource.
If I'd been living in the US I might have given it 3 stars. The book itself is interesting, however it is probably of more use to someone living in the US and dealing with hoarders than someone living abroad in the same situation, as many of the options it gave you (on the part of what you could do with the hoarder's items, for instance) were US-based.
Otherwise not bad, but not awesome either.
Otherwise not bad, but not awesome either.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I had to dig under a pile of papers on my desk to find this book. The Secret Lives of Hoarders by Matt Paxton, however, does a marvelous job of explaining the difference between "messy" and "hoarding".
I have never seen the show Hoarders, which always struck me by the way people spoke of it as vaguely exploitative. I know a number of people who watch the show purely to motivate them to clean their houses, and to gasp in revulsion at the detritus that accumulates in a hoarder's home. That said, Paxton does an admirable job of resisting the urge to write a tell-all, gross-out memoir of his professional cleaning days to grab money from people gleefully reading about hoarders (despite what the cover looks like, I might add). He writes about them with dignity, empathy, and compassion. Though he does mention some of the horrific things he's found, he is always quick to point out that this is a mental illness, and usually a reaction to some kind of trauma that compels people to collect things and never throw them away.
Though not a doctor, he also does research into it, all with the purpose of better helping those who hire his services. Here is a person who legitimately, genuinely works to help people, and who actively seeks out more knowledge in order to better help them. The more I read, the more I was impressed by him. Even I was shuddering at places, at some of the things he described, and I doubt I could do his job with even an ounce of the apparent gallons of sympathy he possesses.
The book reads more like a how-to guide for dealing with a loved one who is a hoarder. It explores why people hoard, including the underlying mental illnesses that can trigger hoarding as well as the local issues ("Why can't they just throw away their food wrappers?"), what people hoard, how to address hoarding in a loved one, and what not to do and what to do when helping someone in that situation.
If you're looking for that gross-out, horror story compilation, this is not it. This is, instead, a very solid, thoughtful look by a man who demonstrates his compassion and sympathy for people suffering from a serious mental illness.… (altro)
I have never seen the show Hoarders, which always struck me by the way people spoke of it as vaguely exploitative. I know a number of people who watch the show purely to motivate them to clean their houses, and to gasp in revulsion at the detritus that accumulates in a hoarder's home. That said, Paxton does an admirable job of resisting the urge to write a tell-all, gross-out memoir of his professional cleaning days to grab money from people gleefully reading about hoarders (despite what the cover looks like, I might add). He writes about them with dignity, empathy, and compassion. Though he does mention some of the horrific things he's found, he is always quick to point out that this is a mental illness, and usually a reaction to some kind of trauma that compels people to collect things and never throw them away.
Though not a doctor, he also does research into it, all with the purpose of better helping those who hire his services. Here is a person who legitimately, genuinely works to help people, and who actively seeks out more knowledge in order to better help them. The more I read, the more I was impressed by him. Even I was shuddering at places, at some of the things he described, and I doubt I could do his job with even an ounce of the apparent gallons of sympathy he possesses.
The book reads more like a how-to guide for dealing with a loved one who is a hoarder. It explores why people hoard, including the underlying mental illnesses that can trigger hoarding as well as the local issues ("Why can't they just throw away their food wrappers?"), what people hoard, how to address hoarding in a loved one, and what not to do and what to do when helping someone in that situation.
If you're looking for that gross-out, horror story compilation, this is not it. This is, instead, a very solid, thoughtful look by a man who demonstrates his compassion and sympathy for people suffering from a serious mental illness.… (altro)
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 2
- Utenti
- 228
- Popolarità
- #98,697
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 7
- ISBN
- 7