People have been asking me to do a blog for about a year now.  So, here it goes.

If I wasn’t on TV, no one would really care about my opinion, read my book, take my classes or read my blog.  But since I’ve gotten on TV, all of a sudden I have value, all of a sudden I’m important. The truth of the matter is I’ve been cleaning up messy homes for a long time and I started it because I couldn’t get a job and I needed to pay my rent. There are thousands of people all over this country doing what I do, but I’m the lucky one that gets to do it on television (that’s what she said). The sad thing is that if I wasn’t cleaning up poop and dead animals on TV, none of us would watch. Sail cats & dead possums are much more interesting than watching me help someone get the confidence to turn their life around.

As I said before, I am lucky enough to be an expert on the great show “Hoarders” on A&E.  On television, you only see me work with hoarders, but in the real world, I clean up homes for all sorts of people – the only common denominator is that their life is in shambles and they have no where else to turn.  My company (Clutter Cleaner) deals with divorcing families, relocating seniors, sad old ladies, messy estates and yes, hoarders. It’s no secret that me and my crew have had our problems in the past. We’ve learned to combine our mistakes with hard work, brutal honesty and ridiculously childish & crude humor to help people get out of the darkest moments of their lives.  Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail, but I can promise you, we give it our all on every job.

So, why the hell are you looking at a picture of me and some dude dressed up like Spider-Man? For me, it’s a symbolic way to launch this blog.  I doubt that this Spider-Man guy came to New York city to play his saxophone dressed in tights and to get harassed by me and my crew at 2am in the morning. I have a feeling he started out wanting to do something different. I didn’t ask him if he was on his way towards his dreams or if he was on the backside. Regardless of his lot in life, this dude could play the sax. He was AWESOME. At the end of the day, I don’t think it really matters, who or where you are in life, just that you give it your best.  I know, a little cheesy, but true.

We all know that my job allows me to see the world differently.  I hope this blog will become a window for you to experience what me and my crew see.  It’s not going to just be about hoarding, but I hope it will become a place to hear the cool lessons we learn along the way.  Will we talk about hoarding, sure, but we’ll also get to hear some amazing stories, see some cool stuff we find and meet some of the people that invite us into their homes.  Along the way, I will be blunt, I will make you laugh, I will make you cry and I will probably make you mad.

I’ll say it again, I’m a lucky man and I’m glad I no longer have to clean up poop to make rent.  That would be almost as bad as having to play the saxophone dressed up like …  Oh wait a minute.  I guess the only thing different between me and Spider-Man is that I get to do it on TV.  I’m VERY aware of this fact every single minute.  I could easily be wearing tights in the subway playing for dollars. As the title of the blog says, I truly believe we are all 5 decisions away from shitting in a bucket.  I hope this blog will help us all celebrate the good decisions we’ve made and learn from the many mistakes we’ll continue to make.

I hope you will all enjoy this blog and will truly interact.  Someone please tell me if it sucks.
So, what’s the worse job you ever did to pay rent?  I sold body bags at a military trade show in Vegas.