{alltv} 'Consumed' about helping, not drama

De-cluttering expert Jill Pollack wants you to know that her new show Consumed is not about hoarders. That's a different show.

Rather, Consumed -- which debuts Tuesday, Aug. 30 on HGTV Canada -- is about allegedly ordinary people whose homes and living conditions got away from them at some point.

"Keeping too much stuff is not as dramatic as drinking too much, or taking drugs, or gambling, or sex," Pollack admitted.

"But the people we work with want to be on the show. They know their behaviour is affecting their lives more than just shimmying around. It's not cute any more."

In each episode of Consumed, Pollack -- a former TV producer whose private de-cluttering clients have included actresses Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman from Desperate Housewives -- challenges pack-rat families to survive for 30 days with only the bare essentials. It's what Pollack calls shock therapy.

"With stuff in general, we're caught between a disposable society and people who don't dispose of anything," Pollack said. "One of the fastest growing real-estate trends is storage units. What are people keeping? What are they storing, and why?"

Pollack said having a "what if?" mentality is common, but it doesn't hold up to logic. After you've kept something for years just in case you need it again, and the day comes that you need it, you never will be able to find it. Or even if you know where it is, you'll never be able to get to it.

"Also, the longer you keep something, the worse quality it becomes," Pollack said.

"It not only gets dusty and musty and dirty and mouldy, but certainly when you look at it, what was it, a $20 baby-changing pad? If you have another kid, if there's anything you're going to get, maybe it would be a new diaper-changing pad, right?"

One of the most prevalent trends Pollack has noticed while working on Consumed is that people don't have an honest evaluation of where they are in their lives.

For instance, why are you keeping those old clothes that never are going to fit you any more, and even if they did, would they even remotely be in style?

And in particular for parents, why are you keeping all that stuff for little kids when your children are virtually adults?

"The kids are practically out of the house, at college hopefully, and the parents are still keeping glitter glue," Pollack said. "Because, you know, who doesn't love glitter glue? It's just that no one is doing those school projects any more.

"It's tough to get rid of what we think of as 'perfectly good stuff.' It feels like you're throwing money away. But I tell people to think of it this way:

"If you get rid of what you don't need, then you actually will be able to find and use what you do need, instead of buying on top of the stuff you already have."

When Pollack puts it that way, it all makes sense. There's no reason to be Consumed if we're honest with ourselves.

Now, where's that damn glitter glue?