A Hoarder Cleanout is a job for a Professional!
Hoarder situations are a stressful and unfortunate situation for everyone involved. Not only do hoarder cleanouts involve vast amounts of garbage and potentially unhealthy situations, but many of the individuals involved also often have extreme distress over attempts to help them clean out their homes. This can be one of the more difficult factors for concerned family and friends to navigate, as it can be difficult to understand why they are hoarding and may respond with resistance to the cleanout.
Another aspect of hoarder cleanouts that need professional know-how involves the volume of garbage and items that have been hoarded. Depending on the quantity, the structural integrity of the house, and whether the items may be hazardous (such as a biohazard), the situation may be too dangerous for individuals to handle on their own. Or you may simply find that there is an insurmountable amount of work for you or your limited manpower to handle. Regardless, hoarder cleanouts can be an immense job, and potentially hazardous, so it’s best to leave the job to experienced professionals at MSR Restoration.
Hoarder Cleanout: Clear Some Space to Navigate
The first and most obvious step to handling a hoarder cleanout situation is to begin clearing out items from the house. Although this sounds simple, many hoarders will put up resistance to allowing items to leave the home. Patiently doing so until they begin to get more comfortable can help facilitate disposal of items later. Most important is making sure that you are slowly clearing a path through the building while simultaneously making sure there is ample room to move as a crew within the home without endangerment. For many hoarder cleanouts, this process can take upwards of a week.
Hoarder Cleanout: Disposing of items & Trash from the House
There are several ways to dispose of items and trash from the property needing a hoarder cleanout. First and foremost, it is important to make sure that crew members all have a single, dedicated drop point for items being disposed of – this way, when they are ready to be loaded for disposal, they are in place to do so. The most popular method of disposal is then to rent dumpsters, into which the crew would dispose of the items. Another option is to rent a larger box truck or similar vehicle, into which the crew can load the chosen items for disposal, and thenthe truck could then be driven to the local dump.
Hoarder Cleanout: Kitchens and Bathrooms
As the two rooms in the house most likely to present a messy challenge, the kitchen and the bathroom will likely end up being two of the locations during the hoarder cleanout that require the most time and effort to get clean. Because these areas often require heavy-duty chemicals to get properly cleaned, crew are often also required to wear additional safety equipment. In kitchens, the presence of decaying food matter and expired products can present a hazardous environment, so being prepared with plenty of large trash bags and disinfecting/sanitizing products is important. Make sure to keep an eye on the stove, as a fire could be accidentally ignited during the cleaning process. Bathrooms are equally equipped to create hazards to your health. The toilets and showers/baths within these rooms are likely to be collection points for large volumes of bacteria due to the lack of proper cleaning over a long period of time. Making sure that everything is removed before the room is cleaned from top to bottom is key.
Hoarder Cleanout: Cleaning and Mold Removal
The key factor to ensuring proper cleaning of a hoarder cleanout property is to make sure that everything is removed from the house. This will allow you to clean and disinfect each surface properly using the appropriate cleaning agent. During the cleaning process you will hopefully also be able to identify any areas of poor maintenance that may be causing mold issues. These issues can be addressed by mold remediation professionals at MSR Restoration during the hoarder cleanout process.
Hoarder Cleanout: Sanitize and Deodorize
Although we can simply disinfect a variety of surfaces in a home or property, that does not necessarily mean it is ‘clean’. It is necessary to sanitize surfaces to help lower the number of germs to an acceptable and safe level. This is part of the final step of a hoarder cleanout project, meaning that it is truly clean again. However, there is likely to be some residual odors until the property has time to air out. Finding deodorizing products can assist with making the property tolerable in the meantime.
MSR Restoration can handle any Hoarder Cleanout job, big or small!
Let’s face it – hoarder cleanout jobs can be stressful, intimidating, and expensive prospects to handle on your own or even with a small group of friends and family. Without professional expertise and equipment, these can end up consuming large chunks of time without producing much clear improvement. Rather than trying to navigate a hoarder cleanout on your own, let our team at MSR Restoration handle your hoarder cleanout job.
