Your first visit to a hoarded house can be a real eye-opener, if you believe in neat and tidy homes. If you have a first visit coming up, prepare for chaos you may not believe. Especially if this has been ongoing for years. A professionally managed hoarding house clearance could be your best solution. If not, well you might have some success by following these six steps.
Six Careful Stages in Clearing a Hoarded House
ONE – Check Out the Health of the Hoarder
Speak to the hoarder’s medical provider first (or to a local Council official if they are involved). Hoarding is a special case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Their behaviour is normal and rational to hoarders. If you run rough-shod over a hoarder, you may provoke a stormy reaction!
Hoarding disorder, for that’s what it is, is a mental condition that exhibits as a strong desire to save things. Challenging this assumption by clearing a hoarded house unilaterally can cause severe distress.
TWO – Safety First in a Managed Hoarding House Clearance
The home of a hoarder can easily become dirty and neglected. It’s not their fault. When you ponder over our image above, you’ll soon realise there’s no way the person living there could clean in the corners. Rodents and insects could easily make their homes there, especially if there was food lying around.
That brings us to one very important point that could be your take-away to remember. Hoarders are perfectly decent people behind the clutter. Bear this thought in mind when clearing a hoarded house.
THREE – Discovering Real Value in the Chaos
From time-to-time we discover real treasures while tackling projects of this kind, and clearing chaotic homes. Many older folk hang on to keepsakes, and mementos of relatives long gone. Collectible items like these don’t have to be big to be valuable, provided they are in good condition.
Many deceased-estate executors come to Avery Associates for advice, and free quotes for professional valuations. You’ll never know what’s there until you look. Don’t leave the contents of a home in a skip without first looking!
FOUR – Develop a Managed Plan Before You Start
You can’t put the clock back easily once you begin a managed hoarding house clearance, such as we describe here. That’s why you need to control the activities of your cleaning team, so you can keep an eye on them. Make a rough drawing of the hoarder’s home on a piece of paper.
Decide which rooms you want to tackle first, and where you plan to temporarily store the discarded items. Divide the living room into a few manageable sections if this applies. Don’t forget the garden. You’re bound to find hoarded clutter there!
Cannon Found by Avery Associates in a Garden©
FIVE – Discuss Clearing the House With the Hoarder
You can’t just walk in and start a managed hoarding house clearance when you feel like it. It’s just not right, and besides you’ll soon have chaos on your hands. Agree from the beginning to negotiate which items to discard, keep, sell, and donate to charity.
Your hoarder will be happier when they know what happens to their stuff, and that’s another very important take-away from this article. Their clutter is part of their life’s journey, and they feel empathy for it.
SIX – Manage Clearing a Hoarded House Sensibly
Deal with the bigger items first, to create space to work in. These may be large items of furniture for example, or jumbled piles of all kinds of smaller things. Work systematically room-by-room and area-by-area. Decide whether you need a professional to help you, or continue on your own.
Keep your mind on what you are doing step-by step. Wear rubber gloves and a face mask to avoid infecting yourself. Sanitise the surfaces as you clear them. Be especially careful of dead rodents and insects, and their droppings!
What To Do If You Need Help With Clearing
There are loads of cleaning services waiting to help on Google, if you search for ‘managed hoarding house clearance’. Many of these do little more than drop off a skip, and a few hired hands. However, this is not the ideal solution that some of the providers present.
Avery Associates offers help with clearing hoarded houses, although we operate at a different level. We have professional valuers on our team, and one of them will be present at all times to spot items of collectible value.
We don’t promise to make you wealthy this way, or even to cover the cost of clearing a hoarded house. But we will check everything carefully before it goes into a skip, and offer to value any collectible items.
We’ll also make sure that all the unwanted items go to charity shops where that’s practical. And that the rest of the stuff ends up at the Council recycling depot, not at the end of a country lane. Please call us for a quote for a managed hoarding house clearance. It could cost less than you think!
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