We are an experienced national house clearance company and we are regularly hired to deal with clearances involving compulsive hoarding. In fact, compulsive hoarding house clearance services are somewhat of a speciality for us, based on our years of experience working in partnership with councils, landlords, home owners and other associated parties, with house clearance London, Essex and Surrey are just some of the areas where we have carried out this service recently, and we know from experience it can be a really serious issue.
However, when compulsive hoarding in a property is present, never is it more serious than when it involves animal hoarding. Although you may not be familiar with this term, animal hoarding is a problem which you may recall appears in the news from time to time, sometimes following an investigation from the RSPCA or other similar animal welfare organisations. It can involve a property which is being used to house excessive amounts of animals, whether it’s cats, dogs, reptiles or any manner of creatures. Animal hoarding is essentially a form of compulsive hoarding. It is the same obsessive condition which compels someone to hoard huge amount of household items in an irrational manner, but instead of hoarding objects, unfortunately it involves hoarding animals.
There have been a number of stories in the US recently involving problems with animal hoarding. One story was reported in the Livingston Daily about a cat hoarder who was only discovered when neighbours reported a strong smell of ammonia to the authorities. The smell associated with animal hoarding is often the first sign that something is wrong, but by then the problem is usually out of control. In this fairly typical episode of animal hoarding, the mental health professional attached to the case mentions that as many as 2 to 6 per cent of people are hoarders, which reflects an increasingly common view from professionals about how serious a problem hoarding has become.
Another similar newspaper article, again in the USA, this time in Ohio, reported 86 animals being rescued from a property, including two horses, two potbelly pigs and four sheep, many of which were in bad health. Clearly a lot of distress can be caused to animals which are the victims of animal hoarding behaviour, a major problem with animal hoarding being that it can lead to serious health problems for the animals concerned. Yet another quick browse of the Internet reveals, again in the USA, a dog animal hoarding story involving a person living in Lancaster, South Carolina, who was found keeping 97 dogs in his home back in 2005. The dogs were taken away and the person moved, only to be found recently living with another 50 dogs.
This goes to show how serious this obsessive problem can be and how addictive it becomes for sufferers. Animal hoarding can have an absolutely catastrophic effect on a property, as well as being a cruel animal welfare issue. In terms of cleaning and clearing a property which has suffered from animal hoarding if you are a landlord, family member or other responsible party involved in the clearing up campaign, we strongly advise you to use a property clearance professional to sort this out, on account of the hygiene issues involved. If you are dealing with an animal hoarding house clearance in the London area, or anywhere in the UK, why not consider us for dealing with this problem? We are a very experienced house clearance company, when it comes to dealing with hoarded houses, including animal hoarding and are aware of all the health risks and the social issues involved. Visit our hoarding help page to find out more, or contact us for more details on the full range of house clearance services we can provide.
For confidential advice call Jeffrey Avery on 0800 567 7769
