Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. Ever since we saw the TV show Horders, we wanted to talk with our guest on this episode, Extreme Cleaning

Specialist Matt Paxton. Matt has spent decades helping people sort through messes in attics,

basements, garages, and elsewhere. And for the past couple of years, he's been the host of the PBS

television show Legacy List with Matt Paxton, which highlights families that are downsizing or settling in a state of a loved one.

Matt is also the author of the soon-to-be-published book, Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff,

declutter, downsize, and move forward with your life. Matt, we thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Tell us how you got into the business of decluttering.

It's a really interesting story.

People always like, why would you go on hoarders?

Well, I always joke. I failed at everything else.

But the truth is, I actually, when I was 24, my dad and my stepdad and both my grandpas all passed away. And so I had to clean out all their houses. I was a very immature young, 24, and all the men that raised me passed away that year. And just by happenstance, it just happened to work out. It was really about 18 months. But I had to go through their houses. And I did. And I started clean in my dad's house and it really sucked like it was really it was awful

It was it was depressing. It was sad. I was grieving and there were all these things I didn't know what to do with like you know old paint cans and

You know, you know all the crazy stuff guns like everything you can imagine and I just remember thinking this sucks and grandpa had always said, if something sucks as a job, if something sucks to do, do it as a job, and people will pay you to do it. And so I was like, I guess I'll just keep doing this. And here we are, almost 21 years later, I'm still cleaning out people's houses. And it's awesome. I mean, I didn't plan on being on TV. I't plan on writing books i was i was cleaning houses for 15 bucks an hour and i loved it because i was like you know i helped someone and then they would give me a big hug and then they would give me a check and i was like this is a cool this is a cool gig you know and so it just kind of like you know it took i don't, five years before I knew I was really going to just keep doing it. I thought it was going to be like a side hustle until I found something else. And then I just kept doing it. Up until I saw hoarders, I thought that people who hoarded were just people who had a lot of things and didn't have the time to clean. but it's actually something that really goes back to

trauma and somebody's childhood, something that just really requires treatment, clinical treatment.

Can you explain the difference to us?

Yeah, so hoarding versus collecting. Collecting's great. It's fun. It brings you joy,

something you do with your family family and you share these items.

And people, you know, share in that joy. Horting is really, it is a mental disorder. And

it's when that stuff actually holds your life back from being successful. And so it's always

caused by trauma. It's always caused by some type of, you know, it's death, divorce, loss of a job.

It's usually abuse, I'll be honest.

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