24/10/2026
Last night I got called out by a lady who was locked out of her house.
When I arrived, she was standing on the drive of a rather smart-looking house, next to a shiny new car. Nicely dressed, perfectly normal-looking lady.
“Thanks for coming. I can’t seem to open my front door.”
Fair enough.
On closer inspection, it became obvious the lock wasn't really the problem. The door was jammed solid because something had fallen against it from the inside.
I explained this to her.
“Oh yes,” she said, quite casually, “I’ve been meaning to tidy up for a while.”
Right... 🤔
So I started pushing and shoving the door, trying to move whatever was wedged behind it.
Then I heard voices.
From inside the house.
I stopped.
“Is there someone in your house?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“My family.”
At this point I'm thinking...
WTF??
“Why aren’t THEY opening the bloody door for you then?!”
I soon found out.
Eventually I managed to force enough room to get the door open and was confronted by something I honestly wasn't prepared for.
Crap. Everywhere.
Floor to ceiling. Bags, boxes, rubbish, God knows what else. The only way through the house was via these tiny little pathways weaving between mountains of stuff.
I’ve been inside plenty of hoarders’ houses over the years, but this was a hoarder’s house on steroids.
The rubbish had actually collapsed against the front door, trapping Mum outside...
and the rest of the family inside.
They were basically marooned somewhere deep within the belly of the beast.
The strangest thing was you would NEVER have guessed any of this from outside. Smart house. Nice car. The lady was clean and well turned out and, when the family eventually emerged, so were they.
They all thanked me for rescuing them, very politely...
but nobody seemed particularly bothered about the fact they were living in what can only be described as an indoor skip with bedrooms.
It was as if this was completely normal.
And I suppose, to them, it probably was.
I drove away thinking that somewhere along the line something had gone terribly wrong in that house... yet somehow they were still functioning amongst all that chaos.
I’ve seen some things doing this job.
But every now and again you open a door and think...
Bloody hell.
Takes all sorts, I suppose. 🤔
