Professional Hoarding Cleanup Process

Where do you begin in dealing with a hoarder’s mess? Professional hoarding cleanup is both dangerous and daunting. Before highlighting the tips in cleaning a hoarder’s home, here are the dangers you probably didn’t know about:

The Hazards of Professional Hoarding Cleanup

  1. Sanitation problems

When your home is cluttered, cleaning can be frustrating. As the hoarder brings in more contents, it becomes quite tricky to dust, vacuum, scrub, and remove trash in the home. Think about it; a collection of dirt and debris encourages the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms. More so, you are exposed to hazardous byproducts when trash such as waste and rotting food build up. If you attempt the cleaning process without help, you could be at the mercy of bacteria and related diseases.

Hoarding Cleanup

  1. Contamination with biohazards

You get pests and rodents when you abandon decomposing food materials for a long time. After a while of being ignored, they get buried in the mass of hoarded contents. Therefore, professional hoarding cleanup experts often encounter biohazards in their line of work. For example, cleaning might involve cleaning up urine, removing animals, and body fluids.

Cats are examples of hoarding animals compel hoarders half of the time. People who hoard animals should understand the sensitivity of animal hoarding. Both the animal and its owner are inherently endangered by hoarding because piles of urine and feces can replicate biohazards that put the health of the occupants at risk.

Tips for Hoarder Cleanup

Cleaning up a hoarder’s home is quite challenging and time-consuming. More than cleaning and organizing, hoarding cleanup is quite elaborate. Indeed, hoarded homes are plagued with roaches, mice, and rats with traces of mold and bacteria where moisture is present. Tips from professional hoarding cleanup personnel include:

  1. Do not forget your face masks and gloves before the hoarding cleanup

When professional hoarding cleanup teams tackle hoarding problems in the home, they are put at risk of Hantavirus, E.coli, Staphylococci, and histoplasmosis. Your highest priority during the cleanup process is to use protective gear.

  1. All hoarded items should be labeled in 3 categories

Hoarded items are categorized as ‘items to trash,’ ‘items to donate,’ and ‘items to keep.’ A general rule of thumb suggests that the trash category is for items in the home you haven’t found a use for in a year and more.

  1. Mental disorders are generally responsible for hoarding

Mental disorders sometimes lead to traits of hoarding, but that’s not saying that hoarding could stem from other causes. Professional hoarding cleanup experts usually associate the following traits with people suffering from hoarding:

  • Depression
  • Attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)
  1. It is okay to ask for help if you have slight traits of hoarding

Hoarder cleanup is elaborate. Most times, a hoarder finds it difficult to part with old items without consulting a professional. In hoarding cases, biohazard cleanup companies may come on board when it involves extensive workforce and expertise. Similar situations involve animal hoarders and hoarding of dead bodies.