CRANBERRY TWP — Junk King of Pittsburgh, a township hauler, will be featured this month on the TLC show, “Hoarding: Buried Alive.”

Junk King, with its operations on Unionville Road, will appear in two episodes to air the next two Wednesdays.

According to TLC producers, “Hoarding: Buried Alive” goes beyond the hoarding to explore the psychology of the people involved in these attachments to seemingly worthless objects.

Each week the show examines hoarders as they attempt to regain control of their lives and extreme behaviors with the help of expert therapists and professional organizers. The show is in its fifth season on TLC.

Ed Stripay, owner of Junk King of Pittsburgh, said he was contacted by the executive producer in February who said filming was under way in Pittsburgh and extended an offer for the company to submit a bid to appear on the show.

Junk King eventually won the bid.

Although Stripay didn’t know exactly how many companies bid, he knew of at least three others.

“We didn’t get to look at the job, so we had no clue what we were in for,” said Stripay. Because he had seen previous episodes of the show, he somewhat knew the amount of work his crew would face.

The first job, Stripay said, his crews took four truckloads out of a home.

Each of his trucks holds 18 cubic yards of material. They cleaned out 75 cubic yards.

“The things we removed were everything from furniture, food, garbage, clothes and feces. It took us an entire day with a crew of six guys to complete the job,” Stripay said.

While there is an eight-hour time limitation for actual removal of the items, Junk King usually gets a call back, after the completion of the filming to finish the job.

At the second Pittsburgh area home Junk King cleaned out, Stripay said the woman had moved out earlier when her husband died.

She was a hoarder, but no one had been in the house for three years, and the city was threatening to condemn the home, he said.

“It wasn’t as gross (a job) as the first, but it was much bigger,” he said.

And there was another problem — mice. The rodent expert on the set estimated the mice population at 15,000.

“Everything we picked up had a mouse under it,” said Stripay.

The crew removed 135 cubic yards of materials in eight truckloads.

Stripay reflected on his own experiences on being part of the show.

“When you first get there, you look at the home and think, ‘how can people live like this?’” he said.

“Then, you truly experience that people don’t want to part with their items. You start to have compassion. You realize it’s not their fault. and it truly is a psychological problem.”

Stripay said hoarding is more prevalent than people think.

“You probably have a hoarder living on your street. You see it a lot in this business,” he said.

Stripay said the family is now living in the first house his company cleaned for the show. He is not sure of the final result at the second home.

He hopes his crews’ work has given the families a head start in getting their lives back in order.