Hoarders has never shied away from showing the dark underbelly of hoarding disorders, but there are a few episodes that truly are the worst of the worst.
People who suffer from a hoarding disorder have excessive difficulty parting with things and can experience severe distress at even the thought of getting rid of their possessions.
However, though it is incredibly important to understand that hoarding disorder is a complex psychological struggle, which often results from serious trauma – it is impossible to deny that some of the homes featured on the Hoarders docu-series simply give us the heebie-jeebies.
Hoarders: The worst of the worst
Hoarders is currently in the midst of its 15th season of television. This means that the expert Hoarders team has sorted through piles of clothes, garbage, old dishes, boxes, rats (and worse) of more than 160 hoarder homes.
Nevertheless, there are a select few episodes from the Hoarders catalogue which have beguiled, enticed, and disgusted viewers slightly more than the average overwhelmingly-full hoarder home.
And, to make sure that you do not miss out on any of the stomach-churning fun, we have rounded up the three grossest Hoarders episodes which have aired to date.
So, grab your popcorn (and perhaps your anti-nausea medication) and get ready to get disgusting.
Ranking the worst Hoarders homes
Before we dive into what makes the (best) worst episodes of Hoarders so incredibly enticing to watch, we thought that it would be best to rank these episodes – very tidily and neatly from sort-of bad to really bad, as follows:
| Rank | Hoarder | Hoarders episode |
| 3. | Hanna | “Hanna/Kathy & Gary” (season 3, episode 19) |
| 2. | Terry | “Terry/Adelle” (season 6, episode 8) |
| 1. | Shanna | “Shanna/Lynda” (season 6, episode 4) |
3. The “Hanna/Kathy & Gary” episode
Season three of Hoarders premiered all the way back in 2010. However, the “Hanna/Kathy & Gary” is still infamous to this day. What is just about the only thing that can make a hoarder’s home more disgusting?
Well, if you answered, “a whole bunch of farm animals,” then you would be correct. When the Hoarders team arrived to assist Hanna, they found that her hoarding problem had become so severe that she had been living in a windowless trailer without heating alongside her 200 chickens.
Hanna’s property also housed many ducks, turkeys, guineas and even goats – and all we can say is that we are thankful that they have not invented televisions that transmit smell, just yet.
The Hoarders episodes that contain animals are always difficult, but this episode compounds the issue by also showcasing the home of Kathy and Gary (a couple which shares a hoarding problem and 30 rabbits running around their over-filled home).
2. The “Terry/Adelle” episode
Chances are, tuning in to watch any episode of Hoarders may leave you feeling a bit uneasy, but there are only a select few which are guaranteed to make you feel disgusted – and perhaps a little bit sad.
One episode that is almost guaranteed to have you reevaluating your relationship with clutter and your relationship with your pets is the “Terry/Adelle” episode, from the show’s sixth season.
Unfortunately, this episode takes quite a surprising and upsetting turn when the Hoarders team discovers that Terry’s obsession with cats stretches far beyond what anybody imagined.
Not only did Terry “collect” over 50 living cats, but she was also hoarding well over 100 dead cats in her freezer (some of which had liquefied with time).
Of course, the rest of the home looked exactly like you would expect a home overrun with dozens of cats to look. This episode also profiles Adelle, a woman whose house became so difficult to maneuver that she had resorted to using a bucket as a toilet.
1. The “Shanna/Lynda” episode
Hoarders has certainly shown us a few unbelievably filthy homes over the years, but few episodes have shot to pop culture stardom quite like the “Shanna/Lynda” episode.
Although it feels somewhat impossible to capture the horrors that this episode showcases with words alone, all you really need to know is that Shanna was branded “The poop lady” after this episode aired for hoarding buckets of human waste (not just her own).
In fact, Matt Paxton, the cleaning expert who helped out during this episode had to “take a mental break” for two weeks after the filming of the episode had wrapped.
It has now been more than a decade since this episode aired, but its unique combination of truly burned-into-your-memory-type scenes in Shanna’s homes and the bonus dose of “oh no” that you get from the Lynda’s doomsday prepper-hoard, is still bad enough for it to earn the title of Hoarders’ most disgusting episode (for now, at least).
