The Collyer Brothers — Down the Rabbit Hole

[sonerec]

Man . . . The fact that Langley painted stuff and collected reading material for his brother for "when he can see again" is really sad but touching . . .

[Whitedark]

“Born to a pair of first cousins. Their father was an eccentric gynaecologist.” That’s a lot of skeeve packed into 13 words.

[spencechan]

"We've no telephone and we've stopped opening our mail. You can't imagine how free we feel"

The 1930s version of quitting social media

[Rimmer]

People in the comments saying friends and families should've gotten them mental help in an age when mental help meant giving someone a lobotomy.

[GrimFelArt]

I can't imagine how awful Homer's death was. You can't move, you can't see, you only have one person helping you. One day you hear that person in trouble, so close to you. And then one day it just goes quiet. And then you slowly starve to death, smelling your loved one's body beginning to decay, before you die of either dehydration or starvation. What a horrible, miserable way to go.
And Langley too; you're pinned down, unable to move, the only person in your vicinity completely unable to help you.
I feel so awful for both of them. They just wanted to be left alone.

[wonderguardstalker]

"My brother dreams of beautiful buildings all in red and when he describes them to me I try to paint them to the best of my ability. When he regains his sight, I'll show them all to him."

Gets me every time. Unbelievably tragic

[TheGeoshark]

I hope that my younger brother would build me a murder labyrinth made of garbage if I ever went blind.
I kinda doubt it.

[totallydomestic]

I was a personal assistant to an elder lady from NYC. She told me all about the Collyers. She was over 100 yrs old but she never forgot them.
So i went & looked them up. She was right, though it is unbelievable.

[CJCroen]

I keep picturing Homer hearing the trap being sprung, and calling out to Langley a few times before realizing he's dead. Either that, or Langley realizing he's trapped and calling out to Homer and the two just...talking as they slowly died together.
...Now I'm sad.

[greens]

Just imagine - he had to listen to his own brother slowly dying while being completely helpless, knowing that that also inevitably leads to his own death. That's absolutely soul-crushing.

[fallingskies]

Thank you for presenting the brothers as humans, instead of just freaks

[Quasimodo]

My mother in the early 60's: "Clean up this room! It looks like the Collyer Brothers live here!".

[zarry]

It's heartbreaking to think of how horrible Homer's last days must have been after his brother already died... I can't imagine such a terrible fate. Blind, paralyzed, probably knowing something awful had happened to the only other person in his life... the loneliness, suffering, maybe even a sense of abandonment.

[BruceSwane]

I imagine the words "eccentric" and "gynaecologist" are probably not words a woman wants to hear in such close proximity to one another.

[joshualillemo]

Are we just not gonna talk about how Homer allegedly eats ONE HUNDRED ORANGES A WEEK???

[dbeaus]

Interesting story. I was a roofing salesman in Wisconsin and one day I was called to a house north of Madison to quote a roof. I was a 3 story+ old mansion and had a garage that was falling down. The owner and his wife were very reclusive and in their 70's. Believe it or not the inside was almost like this story. There was junk and boxes piled 6 ft. high everywhere. To get upstairs you had to navigate a path a couple of feet wide all the way to the top. In his bedroom there was junk piled and only a small path to his bed that probably hadn't been changed for a long time. Both of them were not healthy and hardly mobile. The yards were the same. The porch roof was loaded with so much stuff I couldn't believe it hadn't collapsed. Well, we got the job and I knew it was going to be rough. The insurance co. was paying otherwise I would have done it for cost. They were nice folks but only spoke when needed. In the end we took about 10 dumpsters of stuff, none from the inside as per his wishes. Moving everything took 3 days before we could start the roof. This story reminded me of them. i told the local authorities about them and was told they were aware of them and had a son looking out for them. A couple of years later I heard they had both died, I hope together.

[Vuadanee]

went in this expecting to hear some creepy and unnerving mystery, came out feeling sad
he really cared for his brother a lot

[FredrikKnudsen]

This was easily the most difficult video to make so far. Information on the brothers was often contradicted between sources, and the pool of images I could use was absurdly small. There was exactly one image of Homer Collyer that I could find.

This also was the most difficult video emotionally. I slowly became attached to the brothers while I read. and I nearly broke down crying while doing my research. Still, it's a beautiful and fascinating story, and I hope that I did it justice.

[zombiegandhi]

The whole story sounds like something Edgar Allen Poe would have written. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

[KarlaRei]

1:17
Eccentricity is not a trait I want in a gynecologist.