HGTV has come to Netflix. I assume the House Hunters and Love It or List It collections were released in time to coincide with cold, rainy fall weather that keeps people like my shut up in the house, drinking tea, eating soup, and staring at the walls thinking about all the things we would change. Here’s the thing, though: If you watch Love It or List It back to back, you start to realize that about 75% of the people are just slobs/hoarders who don’t know when to stop having children. The people on this show are just lucky that HGTV showed up at their doors before TLC and the Hoarders crew.

Yes, sometimes you get people who genuinely have a mess of a house. Their kitchens are falling apart, their windows leak, and the walls are drafty. But most of them could get by with hiring a professional organizer and buying some new furniture. Alternatively, they could stop having kids, because more often than not the big problem seems to be that the kids’ toys are EVERYWHERE! A simple trip to IKEA could solve all their woes. 

But there are so many other things that I don’t understand about Love It or List It.

• Why doesn’t Hillary ever consult with the owners about her plants BEFORE knocking down their walls? In what other world would a designer talk through the basic needs and wants of her clients, find out her budget, and then just start knocking down walls? Half the conflicts on the show could be avoided if she just sat down and said, this is what I think I can do for this budget, does it work for you? Producers probably wouldn’t be happy with less conflict, though, so let’s just take a wrecking ball to the whole place! Woo hoo!
• Why do the cosmetic improvements always seem to take precedence over the structural issues? Every single time Hillary has to tell a homeowner that she can’t give them a new bathroom because of some unforeseen issues, I wonder why she can’t just scale back the tile work, or reuse their old furniture. Instead of buying new couches, chairs, and dining furniture, give them what they actually asked for!!
• Where does all the junk go? It seems that the homeowners’ toys, clothes, and miscellaneous junk seems to disappear from Love It or List It like goat cheese from my fridge. But I can’t go for more than a few days without the delicious fruit of goats’ loins, and I’m guessing these people can’t last long without their clutter. Before you know it the kids are leaving their toys all over the house again. (Get them a toy box for goodness’ sake!)

Ok. Tirade over. Back to hating myself and watching David try to sell the latest set of homeowners a bigger house to contain their junk!