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applause as we unleaseh your oh behave hosts America's pet
edutainer Arden Moore.
Speaker 3: Hey, pet pals, Welcome to the old Behave show on
Pet Life Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Arden Moore.
Speaker 3: Now, our special guest is one of the stars and
let's get a good word here heroes on the A
and E popular show Hoarders. Now, hoarding is a mental condition.
It can and does impact pets who live with people
who just can't stop piling things up in their homes.
Our special guest is going to talk about that.
Speaker 1: Please join me right now and giving pause and applause
to a very remarkable man, Brandon Brona. Welcome, Welcome Brandon.
Speaker 4: Thank you Arden for having me. I'm so pleased to
be here.
Speaker 1: Now. I understand when you're not on camera with the
show Hoarding Hoarders, you're the CEO of a company called
life Cycle Transitions. Okay, explain a little bit. What is that.
Speaker 4: Well, life Cycle Transitions was created in the celebration of
the cycle of life. As people get older and situations change,
you know, circumstances change, and we created the company to
mirror of those changes, both mentally physically emotionally, to navigate
the pitfalls of trying to figure out how to downsize,
how to deal with the emotional bagage that often clutter.
Let's say, let's admit so what attributes to yeah, and
also make some decisions on when to put the house
on the market, how to deal with it from an
aesthetic structural standpoint, if there's things that need to be addressed,
and how to prioritize that, eliminating the stress in the
anxiousness that often comes and mediating the right solution because
maybe the husband wants to go here, the father, the
wife wants to go this direction. And then of course
you got the adult kids that are really just anxious
to help mom or dad sort of figure out the
best course.
Speaker 1: So you like to be in a job that has
a lot of places, you've got to watch where you
step in, because you could cause a mess, an emotional mess, right. Oh.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. In fact, we're walking into a lot of the
emotional emotional concern that families don't quite know how to
deal with.
Speaker 1: And I'm loving your tone. You're not hyper. I don't
think a person who's helping hoarders in that condition would
be sounding like an auctioneer or screamer. I think you've
got the perfect you know, voice and tone. I mean,
what made you pick this area? It's not easy. I
often tell people that I could have showed in a
number of At times, I wonder who I did not
ever sell ice cream? Who's been at about ice cream?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: But I had a plan, and you know God had
a different one, You had a better one. You know.
I wanted to just create a company that sort of
helped people under one roof, you know. I wanted them
to be able to have a one stop shop, and
I was purely focused on the actual home for the
most part. But then, as you can imagine, you touch
everything that touches you in realizing the emotional ups and downs.
I took this journey with our clients, and as I
went through it, I began to learn more and more
about people and how they change and how they adjust
to different things, and you know when they're doing well,
when they're not doing well, and how to help them
check in.
Speaker 1: The show was called Horders. It's been on a while
on A and E. You started on season twelve. So
how did you get plucked to put into the cast?
Speaker 4: Well? I had been doing this. It's year today. I've
been doing this for about seventeen years, and before the
show had contacted me, I was already I want to say,
about twelve years then or so. And then in that process,
I had been working with Corey Chalmers, who's you know,
the senior on his show. He's been doing it probably
the longest, and he and I were We would work
together and his his his directory. When experts were required
in some of the states that he was physically there,
he would refer them over to me and I would
handle the client and he had saw how well they
had been handled, and when the show was looking for
new talent, he said, you know, there's this guy that
you know is really talented, and I've heard a lot
of good things because customers have been, you know, saying
great things about him. You should give give him a shot.
And I came out and went on my first episode
and it was it was very nervous, but you I
got through it. You know, the team, the support, the
kind of clients, the family, you know, they embraced me.
And you know, ever since then, it's just been you know,
it's emotuous, exciting journey. Ever since then.
Speaker 1: I think people might be surprised. I want two questions.
Speaker 4: I want you to.
Speaker 1: First to find, in Brandon's own words, what is a
horror and why is it a mental condition?
Speaker 4: Well, a horder is a number of different people dealing
with a number of different mental, uh mental and emotional
disorders that can perpetuate the hoarding tendencies in different different ways.
You know, some people may be at silovermania, some people
may suffer from bibliomania traits. A lot of it is
derived from some form of trauma, maybe a loss. If
you will you know, losing someone, losing a career, losing
a mobility or freedom if you can. And some of
it is is ahead trauma, you know, a physical trauma
where we've seen situations where people in a car accident
or fall, a personality entirely changes. And now all of
a sudden they go from being a person who is
always tactical and strategic to becoming incredibly imposive and choices
and decisions and sporadic. And now as a result of
these this dramatic change, their physical environment has dramatically changed
as well.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea of the studies that show
like one in thirty people are hoarders, one in five hundred.
Do you have any kind of statistics? What I know,
there's degrees of hoarding and types of hoarding, But how
prevalent is hoarding in our country?
Speaker 4: It's very prevalent, and I think it's so prevalent that
many of us don't quite know exactly when we're doing
it or if we are. I mean, let's face it,
in all the seventeen years, I would say about ten
percent of the seven thousand clients that we've transitioned nationwide
whatever even self identify themselves on the initial phone call
as a hoarder. Most of the time, I chuckled when
they call in and they say, I have a bit
of a clutter situation, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh they like to be clutters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little bit of a clutter. I'm not like
those people on the show. And I'm here listening to
them and I'm saying, okay, And maybe they're not. In
a lot of cases, you know, they may not have
reached that level of extreme. But to identify yourself as
a person that's afflicted with instance far less common, but
the effects of it is indeed far more common. I
can go into a person's home and I can tell
a lot about them by the way that they stay
in the home, how they live in the home, where
they place things in the home, and it gives me
an idea of, you know, a lot of what's going
on in their personal life.
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to have you come to my home
in Dallas. How's that I'm not a horder. We have pets,
but the place is clean. And the best compliment we
ever get is, oh, I didn't know you had a
couple of cats, because you don't smell a dirty litter box.
I'm just curious. Are you a neat freak?
Speaker 4: You know what you would think because of what I
do that certain things, certain things would trigger me. But no,
I'm not perfect.
Speaker 1: Oh come on, tell me a little sloppy, Brandon.
Speaker 4: I have this chair that's sort of like my toss up.
It's when I come in, when I come in from work,
and these clothes can't go to the laundry. They need
to go to the cleaners. And then you know, you
don't get to the cleaners every day, So I put
things in this particular chair, and if I happen to
miss the cleaners drop on Friday or Saturday, then it
can go another week, or it can go two weeks.
I've seen it where my schedule is, let it get
three weeks, and then we see things pile up, and
I know at that point I got to get get
over to the cleaners before this this pile gets out
of can.
Speaker 1: Everyone we're speaking with Brandon Bronow. He is on the
show any show Hoarders. We're gonna take a quick break
and when we come back, we're going to talk about
the impact hoarding has on pets. So y'all know the
drill sit stay We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Time for a walk. I'm on the red car.
Speaker 2: But of course all behave. We'll be backing up lash
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Speaker 2: Let's talk past. Let's done, pet Headline Radio, cat Live
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Speaker 4: Everybody does. Stephen Whooper are relying you to always listen
to argue.
Speaker 1: More on ob Hey, the best show on head Libray.
Speaker 2: We're back from the lot. Just check the paper and
we at our records showing at the box. The letterbox
that is now back to Oh Behave, here's art.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the old Behave show on pet Life Radio.
I'm your host, Arden Moore. I am honored to have
on our show. Brandon Brunow. He is on the A
and E show Hoarders. He's also the CEO of life
Cycle Transitions. We've talked about a little bit about hoarding,
and this is a big deal for all of us
who have pets because I have a lot of friends
Brandon that work and the rescue and shelters and they
get a call someone has far too many animals in
their home. So people can hoard pets too.
Speaker 4: Right, absolutely. In fact, you know, pet hoarding is the
most challenging, the most emotional hoarding out of all the categories.
In fact, a lot of companies like ours don't handle
them because there's so many different bearables involved.
Speaker 1: Well, tell us about how you do work with what
which groups? If you get a call and you know
you got SENTI in b there that need help, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean unfortunately, you know, our pets don't have the
privilege of being able to pick up the phone and
call you know, nine one one and say hey, I
want to get out of here. But I can't tell
I can't tell you how many times it's broken my
heart when I've been in these homes and I'm literally
seeing a lot of these animals that are suffering and
the look on their face as though they want me
to come rescue them. They're like, get me out of
here and barb bounce to the client that's calling us
to the home to help them. You know, when you
impose questions or concerns like listen, you know you have
two or three or four animals, and you're not caring
for any of them in the manner that they should.
You know, I know you love them, I know there's
a lot of care and compassion, but do you feel
in your heart that these animals will be better served
in an environment where they can be individually loved and treated,
you know, with the affection and the care that they deserve.
And sometimes you're able to get through to them and
you're able to talk them to a place and we've
been successful. We've been really successful at rehousing and relocating
clients to our home rescue program where we would come
in and we would arrange to get the properties acquired,
find them a new chrome rehold. The animals get animal
cruelty if shelters involved. We've even adopted a lot of
animals within our client full of transition clients. We would
post the picture of the animal and the clients that
we've seen that were looking for companionship animals. We would
send a text or an email and say.
Speaker 1: Can you share a specific something that you felt good about,
because we're able to help the person that has a
hoarding issue but also get the care and love that
a pet needs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a situation unfortunately what a family where
a young man was in his early twins and the
peak of his life. He unfortunately, he unfortunately overdose and
the wake of that, we transition the condo onto the
market so that the family can do what they need
to do with the property and the cat that was
in the home that he that he was bearing for.
We actually had one of our clients adopted animal and
it was the family was so excited and so emthatic
because you know, they know how much this cat meant
to their son. So we were able to show pictures
and updates for many years, at least four years. You
know that that cat lived a really good bite with
this particular client, but unfortunately, you know, he passed away
about three years ago. But it meant a lot to
life cycle for us to be able to do that,
and we've done that, I want to say, about three
or four times with various transitions not always clients that
we were able to use, but sometimes we were able
to transition them into two rescues.
Speaker 1: And where are you based and is this an opportunity
across the country to place these animals or you know
there's a good network of shelters and rescues word nationwide.
Speaker 4: We originated and started in Massachusetts, that's our home office,
but we covered the in entire country and we're working
out ways into Canada and far beyond. We believe that
we're the missing link when it comes to people going
through real life situation because that's basically we get the
call when something happened, something's going to happen, or something
needs to happen, and we'd like to educate it and
inspire people to be more proactive rather than reactionary art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate. And your team has kind of got
a lot of different occupations. If you will, can you
kind of run down some of the experts on the
life Cycle Transitions team. I mean, it's not just it
is you, who obviously knows how to counsel on hoarding,
but there's other kinds of people you need on your team.
It's like a football team. Oh absolutely, I mean we
have over two hundred plus technicians that serve our clients
needs throughout the country. We have transition coordinators, behavioral specialists,
social workers, case managers. We have a home care division
that focuses on transitioning clients to and from hospitals and
nursing homes. We're the only company to be endorsed through
major healthcare companies as a partner, which is when I
saw and foresaw a lot of these environmental concerns and
how they affected individuals pulmonarily and through a COPD and
through the respiratory failures. When there's smoke, there's fire, and
when there's often ording, unfortunately there's mode and a lot
of these clients, especially with the dogs, they don't understand
the environmental conditions and concerns that cat urine you can
do to you. If those liuer boxes and things aren't done. No,
let's get into poop and pea for two hundred Brandon. Seriously,
this is serious because if they're not cleaning up after
their pets, and the pet isn't getting to go outside,
the dog and the house reeks of smell and stain,
tell us what the medical issue is for both the
person and the dog or the cat.
Speaker 4: Well, we just recently rescued a client in Houston who
contacted us and said, hey, listen, I'm in trouble. She
was young, you know, early thirty, and she had acknowledged
the fact that she had been in the home as
she just recently boughved maybe three four years ago, and
she said, I want to leave. I want to go.
And this is the part, Arden, that we don't talk about.
There are a lot of clients that want to leave,
know that the situation has reached the point of no
return and it's untenable and it's unhealthy, but they stay,
and unfortunately they suffer too because they can't find a
place to get the dog and the animals. In her case,
she wanted to leave the home, but her biggest concern
Arden was what am I going to do with my pets?
I can't leave them. And their fear is that the
animals are gonna, unfortunately be put down. So you know,
our job, you mean, your job is to educate them
and to inform them that just because you get your
animal rehoused or there's a rescue agency involved, these animals
are not always, in most cases ever going to be
put down because you can't care for them. And in
her case, she had eight pets, you know, six of
them were cats, two dogs, and the animals had you know, unfortunately,
you know, defecated their sphecal manner all over the floor.
That was urine all over the place.
Speaker 1: It had to be pungent.
Speaker 4: It was incredibly and literally the smell of the aroma,
the cidity, the ammonia that comes from these situations was
permeating a block, almost a half of block, four or
five houses before we got to our house. As we
got closer to our home and leaning, the neighbors were
directing us to the house that we were going to.
Speaker 1: You didn't need a bloodhound to find the scent.
Speaker 4: It was right there. It was right there. And the
first thing we did is obviously we wanted to open
the doors that at the place conventilate because we were
smelling it. With the door, the windows and everything shut.
That's how bad the situation was. So leap. What it
does is it affects their respiratory system. You got nausea,
you got disorientation, vomiting, You're essentially you're suffocating yourself. I mean,
you're putting yourself in such grave condition. This unimagined that
people don't feel these symptoms, but over a period they
become somewhat immuwe to these elements. So in her case,
we had to literally take down the entire floor, all
the way to the sub floor. Oh yeah, it's a
massive undertaking when people don't care for their pets and
it gets to this point.
Speaker 1: So people tune into our show, Brandon. We have a
zillion that do, and we've been on the air since
I think two thousand and six or seven. We're the
longest running pet podcasts on the planet. So they're not
all my relatives tuning in right now, Brandon. How can
people help this situation? Where can they go lend? Because
people have different talents. Some people have fat wallets, some
people have time on their hands, some people have you know, skills.
How can people help out what you all are doing? Well?
Speaker 4: I mean, for one, you can lend your voice. If
you know someone or have someone that has experienced certain situations,
go on to programs and platforms like yours to share
those popular stories. Acts as a conduit or encouragement, and
especially in hoarding situations. I've noticed the more we talk
about these things, the more we have these candid conversations,
the better we are basically extinguishing the shame and the
embarrassment that goes in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's important. It is a condition, it isn't I
know some people that have a lot of stuff in
their homes and they say, well, it was from my mom,
And I look at the chair and it's held together
by masking tape and duct tape, and I'm like, your
mom passed away when well, she passed away forty five
years ago, but I can't get rid of the chair.
So it is an emotional attachment in some cases, right.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. And when you think about the pets and you
think about people that hold them, they're not objects. These
pets all have personalities, identities, and so it's easy for
these individuals that suffer for recording to have such a
strong connection in a bond. The key to breaking those
bad habits is to really bring home to them. Be
important to making sure that if you love them, then
we have to learn how I love them in the
right way.
Speaker 1: So if you suspect a neighbor or a friend who
has pets is hoarding and it's going to impact the
health of them all, what's the first step they should
do first thing they should do, communicate with the person
in question. I don't recommend having the town or the
city just sort of show up at these people's doors,
but I've given them proper notice of being able to
fix the situation. Don give them a little bit of
time to address the situation, and if they don't address.
Speaker 4: It in a time. You're living in an apartment, then
it's probably important that you let the men have these
bylaws if you're a condo owner, but if you have
a situation where you have a family member involved. Life
cycle transitions will be a great starting point because we
focus on the actual transition of getting the home to
a situation where it's sustainable. Because in some of these
cases they can handle the two or maybe one or
two or three pets if the environment is conducing for
the animal to live and move about prely, so if
we can address that, we'll give them a chance to
our transition care plan, which is a slower, more long
term approach. After seventeen years of realizing that some clients
can't go in and do a hoarding project in five
or seven days, but you know what, they can do
a hoarding project one time a week over seven or
eight weeks, and that's with the Transition care prow.
Speaker 1: I saw an episode with a gown named Angel, and
you and your team were very gentle with her because
this was hard for her. And so it's like, you know,
maybe two steps forward, one step back.
Speaker 4: Kind of right. Yeah, we're we're the only company that
we do our intake forms a large percentage of them
with our behavior specially, so instead of just having a
cleaning or a junk remobile company person come in to
do your evaluation, we've created our Transition Evaluation Assessment to
have a case manager social workers go out and meet
with the clients so that we can get that one
on one connection.
Speaker 1: What if you could have a trait dogs have that
we don't. What would be something you wish you could
what's your inner dog trait?
Speaker 4: Brandon, I would like to sniff out more hoarding opportunities
to help more people.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I didn't expect that.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, get a little bloodhound in your nose,
wish right, Yeah, a little bit of that.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we've been speaking with Brandon Bronow. He is
the CEO of Life Cycles Transition and of course he's
on the A and E Show Hoarders. I want you
to check out that show. Brandon, I really salute you
for what you're doing to help people and pets that
need help and they can't speak.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and
I really do commend you for all the work you've
got to do as well.
Speaker 1: Obehave all right, we got some people listening, so hopefully
you get some help coming your way at this time.
I also want to give a shout out to my producer,
Mark Winter. He is the executive producer of Pet Life Radio.
It is the largest pet radio network.
Speaker 4: I'm not playing it.
Speaker 1: And he's not a clutter, he's not a hoarder. He's
just a nice guy. Everybody got some big news. When
I'm not behind the mic, I am a master certified
Pet First Aid and CPR instructor. I do it with
my real dog Kona, my real cat Casey. Everything is
veterinary approved. Please check out Pet First Aid for you
because we offer three ways for you to learn how
to help a pet in person, interactive, zoom and self
paced courses. So please check that out if you would.
And until next time, this is your flea Free host
are more, delivering just two words to all U, two,
three and four layers out there. All behave coast.
Speaker 2: To coast and around the world. It's all behaved, but
art and more. Find out why cats and dogs do
the things they do, and get the latest buzz from
Wagging tongues and tails and rent tim tinsel Town. From
famous pet experts and best selling authors to television and
movie stars. You'll get great tail wagging pet tips and
have a fur.
Speaker 4: Flying fun time.
Speaker 2: All behave with America's pet edutainer Are and more every
week on The Mad only on petlive radio dot com.
Speaker 1: HM