Chapter Text
Music: HOARDERS main theme, an anxious synthesized beat
Open and bumps:
Dissolve to black.
Music: somber piano tones.
Text over black: “Compulsive Hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary.”
Text over black: “More than 3 million people are compulsive hoarders. This is one of their stories.”
Long Shot: Steve’s house (ext). A Midwest suburban house with a neglected front lawn.
Text (bottom third): “STEVE / HAWKINS, INDIANA”
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: Steve, 45, sits on a lounge chair on the back deck, smoking a cigarette. He is deeply suntanned with several deep wrinkles across his forehead and between his eyebrows. He has dark circles around his eyes and messy shoulder-length hair.
STEVE (interview): My name is Steve, and– well. I guess I have too much stuff.
Mid Shot: The wooden deck where Steve sits is faded, splintering, and littered with cigarette butts and dead leaves. Behind him is a spectacularly large house. All the curtains are drawn.
STEVE (interview): I’ve just never been great at taking care of the place.
Long Shot: Steve sits facing the pool deck, but the pool is overflowing with a massive hoard. The fact that there is even a pool at all is obscured by the many large items around the perimeter.
B-Roll of these items, including: lawn furniture, exercise equipment, large panels of corrugated galvanized steel, several refrigerators without their doors, six vacuum cleaners, a brown couch, an A-frame ladder, a bear trap, a ten-foot-long storefront sign for an ice cream parlor, an oil drum, three washing machines, a stove, and two junked cars. Along the perimeter of the pool deck is a length of chain-link fencing, not secured by fence posts, but pulled haphazardly around the hoard.
STEVE (interview): The housekeeper’s on vacation this week, you know? (laughs.) No, it’s pretty much just me these days. That’s probably pretty obvious though, isn’t it?
B-Roll: A cat darts out and catches a rat, but quickly disappears back into the hoard.
Dissolve to:
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: Robin, 43, sits against a blue studio backdrop.
ROBIN (interview): My name is Robin, and Steve was my best friend when I lived in Indiana.
Close Up: A faded Polaroid of Robin and Steve. A caption is written in marker on the bottom: “THE QUARRY, 1985.” Robin holds Steve in a bridal carry. Both wear bathing suits and sunglasses, and are beaming widely.
ROBIN (interview): He’s always been a bit of a disaster. Well– no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that. It used to be funny to say but this is like, actually kind of a disaster, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have said that.
Mid Shot: Steve walks the perimeter of the pool hoard with a spool of wire, adjusting the chain link fence and unspooling the wire as he goes.
STEVE (interview): I know the show is called Hoarders , so that’s why you’re here, right? And I know how it looks. But I’m not crazy.
Mid Shot: Steve stands at the back door of his house, opening and closing the sliding glass door. It makes an audible click each time it closes.
Close Up: His brow furrows on each repetition.
ROBIN (interview): I’ve been friends with Steve for over twenty five years. I’ve spent a lot of time at his house. Or, I used to, anyway. Believe it or not, Steve’s house was, like, the place to be when we were younger. In high school it was where all the cool parties were, when his parents were out of town. I was never invited to those. We weren’t friends yet. He was a completely different person back then.
Music: Somber piano tones.
Text over black: Twenty nine years ago Steve’s life changed when the first of a series of tragedies took place in Hawkins.
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: Nancy, 44, sits against a blue studio backdrop.
NANCY (interview): My name is Nancy, and I’m an old friend of Steve’s. We were dating in 1983 when things started going wrong.
Text over black: In 1983 Nancy’s friend Barbara died unexpectedly. She was last seen in Steve’s pool.
NANCY (interview): He said he wanted to move on and go back to normal. But nothing was ever the same after that. And every time we thought things could be normal again… Well, Steve was always right in the middle of it.
Text over black: In 1985 a fire broke out at Starcourt Mall. 21 people lost their lives, including Steve’s friend and classmate, William Hargrove.
ROBIN (interview): Steve and I worked together at the mall. He was there with me in the fire. I thought I was dead. I really did. But there was Steve, coming to the rescue like it was just another day’s work.
Text over black: Steve sustained a serious head injury in the aftermath of the fire. Despite his injury, he helped others get to safety.
ROBIN (interview): He really was like a superhero that night. Who does that, you know? When I see fire, I run. But not Steve. He runs back in. I’ve seen him do it.
Text over black: Doctors discovered that Steve had suffered a traumatic brain injury in the fire. He was expected to make a full recovery.
ROBIN (interview): I wouldn’t be alive without him. Neither would my wife, or our friends Dustin or Erica– there’s a lot of people who owe their lives to Steve.
Music: Somber piano tones play.
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: Dustin, 40, sits against a blue studio backdrop.
DUSTIN (interview): My name is Dustin, and I’ve known Steve since I was thirteen years old.
Close up : A photobooth strip of Steve and Dustin. Steve wears a blue sailor suit, his Scoops Ahoy uniform. They strike a variety of immature poses. The watermark at the bottom reads Starcourt Mall.
DUSTIN (interview): Oh, yeah, I was there when Starcourt burned down, but I already thought Steve was the coolest guy in the world long before that. Total hero worship, without a doubt– so it’s hard to see him living like this. Like watching Superman get arrested for tax fraud, or something.
Mid Shot: Steve frowns at a singular aluminum crutch at the bottom of a precariously stacked pile of hoarded items on the pool deck. He crouches down and attempts to dislodge the crutch, and the pile topples over. A filing cabinet crashes to the ground with a loud bang. It narrowly misses landing on Steve's fingers, but he jumps back just in time. He hauls himself to his feet, brushes himself off, shakes his head, and laughs.
DUSTIN (interview): I first became concerned about five years ago. Some of us came back to Hawkins– me, and our friends from the old days– and, well. We’ve all kind of scattered. Steve was the only one who stayed in Indiana, so none of us– um. I don’t know how long the house has been like this. I don’t know when it got this bad.
Text over black: Dustin has made multiple attempts to coordinate cleanup efforts from out of state in the past five years. Each ended with Steve refusing to continue.
DUSTIN (interview): It’s not that he won’t do it. He’s trying. It’s just too much stuff. I thought it might be easier for him to deal with if we got the whole gang back together. Or, you know, most of us.
Close up: A photograph of four boys in front of a middle school. They are wearing Ghostbusters costumes.
DUSTIN (interview): These were my best friends in middle school. The Party, we called ourselves. We played D&D, which pretty much made us social pariahs– according to our classmates, anyway. We fought all kinds of monsters together. Steve was older. He wasn’t in the party. He was more like an older brother. So when we all went off to college, it was like… I dunno, nobody ever calls their family as much as they should, you know? We all have kids, and jobs, and we’re all over the country. None of us even have family here anymore. Everybody in Hawkins who could sell their house in the 80’s, did.
Text over black: In 1986 Hawkins was hit with a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Indiana. At least 22 people lost their lives.
Text over black: Among those presumed dead was another friend, Edward Munson.
Music: somber piano tones play.
DUSTIN (interview): Steve’s parents never came back after the earthquake. He held it together for a while, but things really started to go downhill when I was in high school.
Text over black: In 1988, Steve’s friends William Byers and Jane (El) Hopper went missing. They are both presumed to be dead.
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: Mike, 41, sits against a blue studio backdrop.
MIKE (interview): I’m Mike. Steve dated my sister twenty five years ago, and now I’m here.
Close up: A photograph taken on Steve’s pool deck. Figures labeled MIKE and JANE sit next to each other on a pool lounger. Figure labeled WILL stands behind and between them with arms around them both.
MIKE (interview): We all look out for each other. Leave no man behind. That’s what Will would say if he were here. But Steve kind of left himself behind, if you ask me.
ROBIN (interview): You can’t trust everything he says, you know? He might say some stuff that’ll sound really, um, out there. He doesn’t mean it.
Text over black: At age 23 Steve was diagnosed with delusional disorder.
STEVE (interview): The first doctor thought it was full-blown schizophrenia. But I don’t have hallucinations. Thank god, right? Wouldn’t want anybody to think I was crazy or anything. ( laughs. )
DUSTIN (interview): I noticed the house was getting worse, but I was just a kid. I thought it was cool that Steve got to live alone and have his friends over whenever he wanted. He didn’t have parents, or chores, or homework. That sounded pretty good to me at the time.
ROBIN (interview): Nancy and I went out of state for college, and eventually, so did everybody else, except for Steve. Maybe I should have stayed.
NANCY (interview): I love Steve, but no way. Hawkins wasn’t good for any of us. He shouldn’t have stayed, either. Just look at what this place did to him.
Mid shot: Steve paces in his backyard, muttering to himself. He lights a cigarette and throws the match onto the hoard of items in the pool.
NANCY (interview): A lot of people left in ‘86. They said the town was cursed. There’s no such thing, of course, but people panicked after the earthquake. People packed what they could in their cars and left the rest behind.
STEVE (interview): I’ve got neighbors now, but for a long time I was the only one on this whole block. Most of Loch Nora was deserted for a lot of the ‘90’s.
DUSTIN (interview): Apparently he started breaking into people’s houses.
STEVE (interview): I didn’t “break” anything . Those people didn’t even lock their doors. They abandoned their homes like none of it even mattered. Don’t act like I’m the crazy one because I cared more about their stuff than they did.
DUSTIN (interview): The first time I came back and saw the house, I couldn’t believe it.
Wide shot: the longest wall of the Harrington living room, to the right of the fireplace. Clumsily hung picture frames cover nearly every inch of the wall. There are bent nails visible in the rare empty spaces between the frames. Many frames are askew, many have broken glass. The photos portray many seemingly unrelated people of all ages.
STEVE (interview): It’s not that simple. I didn’t want to steal anybody’s grandma’s earrings, or anything. But if they ran away and left grandma’s earrings, don’t you think she would want somebody to take care of them? Don’t you think somebody should look after it all?
DUSTIN (interview): I think he has at least one thing from damn near every house in Hawkins. Where else did it all come from? The house is enormous, and he’s got some rooms filled to the ceiling. Where’s it all coming from?
Dissolve to black.
Wide shot, late at night, exterior of Steve’s house. Steve climbs into his vehicle, a maroon cargo van, starts it, and pulls out of the driveway.
ROBIN (interview): We really need your help, you know?
Wide shot, dawn, exterior of Steve’s house. The van pulls into Steve’s driveway, and he climbs out. He opens the rear trunk doors of the van and starts pulling out its contents, starting with several bolts of landscaping fabric.
ROBIN (interview): But if he says anything about, like, conspiracies, or anything, please just ignore him.
Long shot: Steve hauls his new acquisitions to the backyard. He throws the final bolt down near the pool deck, then raises his head, listening. From the woods around him, the sound of crickets in the early morning. He climbs the steps of the back deck. There is a baseball bat propped up by the rear door. Steve grabs it and begins to patrol as the dawn sky begins to lighten.
ROBIN (interview): He doesn’t know any better. I just– I hope you can ignore the stuff he says and just help us clean the house. We have to.
Close up: A beam of bright sunlight hits Steve right in the eye. He grimaces, accentuating the deep wrinkles on his forehead. He looks exhausted.
ROBIN (interview): That place is a death trap. If we don’t fix it this time, that house will kill him. It’s only a matter of time.
Mid shot: Steve enters the house through the rear door, holding a lit cigarette aloft as he makes his way down a narrow pathway through to the staircase leading to the second floor.
Dissolve to black.
Music: Somber piano tones.
Mid shot: Steve climbs the stairs and enters his bedroom. There is a clear path to the bed, but all other surfaces are covered with detritus.
STEVE (interview): I’m sure they’re all used to their cushy little houses where even the closets are all clean. That’s the cost of living in Hawkins though, isn’t it?
Mid shot: The bed is half-covered with dirty clothing but there is just enough room for Steve to sit on the edge of the bed. He does so and finishes smoking his cigarette, ashing into a coffee mug on the nightstand.
STEVE (interview): I’m willing to let go of some of my things. If I clean a bedroom or two, maybe they won’t have to get a hotel when they visit. It’s a big house, you know. I could have houseguests if I wanted to. I just need to clean first.
Text over black: Steve’s friends have never brought their families to visit him, despite his requests. Steve has never left Indiana.
NANCY (interview): Robin and I have twins. Two girls.
Close up: A photograph of Nancy, Robin, and two young teenage girls. They stand huddled together on a sailboat, shivering and beaming, with wet hair dripping onto their shoulders.
NANCY (interview): I love Steve. We both do. But no. We’re in agreement on that. They’re thirteen, and they adore him. They’d love to visit, but they just don’t understand the situation.
STEVE (interview): I never had my own family. I never went to college. Never got married, obviously. I got to live vicariously through the girls, you know? It’s a lot cheaper that way. (laughs.)
MIKE (interview): I loved Steve’s house. Steve himself? I could take him or leave him, at least in high school. But I always felt safe at his house. My kids will never get to see that house. (shakes his head. ) Now there’s nothing left but garbage. He’d be better off just burning it and getting the hell out of there. Sorry, what was the question? My kids? In that house? Absolutely not.
STEVE (interview): And now all my other friends are having kids, too.
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: Lucas, 40, sits against a blue studio backdrop.
LUCAS (interview): My name is Lucas, and Steve is an old friend. I really looked up to him. I still do.
Close up: A photograph of Steve and Lucas playing basketball together in the driveway. Both wear Hawkins High student jerseys.
LUCAS (interview): But the last time my wife and I were here in Hawkins was before we had children.
Close up: A recent photograph of Lucas and his kids in front of a stately Colonial-style home, captioned with their names, Katie (age 8) and Liam (age 11).
LUCAS (interview): Yes, this house used to be my favorite place in the world. I have a lot of good memories here.
Close up: A photograph of the group sitting around the dining room table. Teenaged Lucas, Max, Mike, and Jane decorate Christmas cookies with icing and small colored candies. Robin and Nancy build a gingerbread house. Will and Dustin make popcorn balls.
LUCAS (interview): We used to play D&D in his dining room and watch movies in the basement, and swim in the pool, when you could still do that. But now? My wife uses a wheelchair. She couldn’t even make it through the front door anymore.
STEVE (interview): We’re overdue for a family reunion. We just have to find a week that works for everybody. They’re all so busy.
DUSTIN (interview): My daughter is the youngest. She’s six. She’s never been to Hawkins.
Close up: A photo of Dustin in a ball cap and a young girl in a sunny yellow camp t-shirt. They sit in a canoe eating sandwiches.
DUSTIN (interview): Even when she gets older– no, I can’t imagine bringing my family here.
Music: Somber piano tones.
STEVE (interview): Dustin has told me I need to clean up before they’ll come. If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. It won’t take all three days, though, and I don’t need the psychotherapist. You send the dumpsters and the organizers, and we’ll get this place back in business in no time. The gang's back together, and that’s all there is to it.
Close up: Steve eyes the camera warily. The lines on his forehead deepen.
Music: Theme plays, dramatic piano melody.
Dissolve to black.
Commercial break.