Havre de Grace Business Helps Hoarders on TV

Nettie Owens speaks so softly, you may not peg her as a TV star.

But the small business owner of Sappari Solutions in Havre de Grace will be just that when she appears on TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive at 9 p.m. on Sunday.

Owens said the program is titled: "Is that a goat?"

Without giving too much away, Owens—whose business specializes in home, office and lifestyle organization—told Patch the title isn’t misleading.

“There are all sorts of different kinds of hoarding situations, and although this gentleman doesn’t have a problem with hoarding animals, he does have an affinity for them,” she said. “So there were some goats on the property.”

The filming took place earlier this summer on the Eastern Shore.

Owens was contacted as a local organizer. Her clientele come from all around the Baltimore metro area, although she focuses on Harford County. “We help people streamline their lives so they can live more effectively,” she said.

Initially, she believed the show would air late in the fall. She was surprised when she received a call this week that it would be showing this weekend.

“It really has been quite exciting spreading the word,” Owens said about the show. “People want to know when it’s going to be on. It’ll be just as much as a surprise for me as everyone else as I won't be able to see it beforehand.”

There will be at least one local viewer on Sunday; her 6-year-old son seems excited about the prospects of seeing his mom on television.

With all the generations-old families living in Havre de Grace, and the history residents tend to collect, the city could have its fair share of hoarders—although Owens said there are less than a handful of Havre de Grace residents she’d qualify as having a true hoarding issue.

The Grace Harbour resident thinks the program will open eyes locally, and she hopes those open eyes will focus upon Sappari Solutions.

“I really hope so,” she said. “Especially in this past year, I’ve tried to work on positioning the company as Harford County’s organizing company. I hope this gives me some publicity in Harford County.”