The Road to Recovery

Five weeks after Peter and his team began unburying their house, Sharyn and Marvin tackle the only room she begged Peter not to touch—the master bedroom. Piles of clothing swamp all the furniture, from the bed and chairs to an exercise bike.

Ninety-five percent of all that stuff must go, and Peter gives the couple only 20 minutes to decide which clothes to keep. "The first step in organizing is to purge the stuff you don't need or wear or use," Peter says.

As Sharyn struggles to part with the mounds of clothing, Peter asks her why she buys so much in the first place. "I go crazy. If I get [a shirt] in red, I have to get it in the other colors, too. I get them all," she says. "I hate myself [when I get home] because I don't know where to put it."

Once Sharyn's 20 minutes are up, it takes eight hours for the team to take all the discarded items out of the house. When they're done, the lawn is covered with 21 bins of purses, 16 bins of shoes and two piles of clothing almost as tall as Sharyn.