How to Clean A Hoarders House

Living with a hoarder isn’t an easy task because you have to deal with piles of items and a lot of clutter around your home.

Because cleaning can be time-consuming and exhausting, it is essential to know the basic rules and learn how to sort out everything effectively. With the right strategy and method, you can save a lot of time dealing with that issue.

With that in mind, here are five simple steps on how to clean after hoarding.

Create A Staging Space
Prepare and Area To Place Trash
Sort Out Your Items
Clean Your Home
Sort Your Remaining Items

Step 1: Create a Staging Space

Staging spaces are important in planning to clean the house of a hoarder. You can place items on these areas and then sort them out to determine which should be sold, donated, thrown away, or kept.

If the basements, attics, porches, and rooms are so cluttered that it is difficult to identify these areas, you can use folding tables and place around the lawn of your house to use as the temporary staging space. Remember that the weather might also be a vital factor in this task.

Step 2: Prepare an Area to Place Trash

Many tasks might require the removal of large amounts of debris and trash. In addition to obvious garbage, make sure to throw away any items or furniture items that look filthy or damaged. Prepare an area to place these stuff. Ideally, it should be near the front door so that you can easily bring out.

After that, hire a waste pickup service to dispose of your garbage to the disposal facility. For small projects, a trailer or pickup truck is enough, while a roll-off container is highly recommended if you are hoarding for years. When picking up and removing the debris, make sure each bag is tied properly to prevent these items from dropping on the highways, which might cost you a large fine.

How to Clean After Hoarding

Step 3: Sort Out Your Items

The most difficult part of cleaning a hoarder’s house is to determine which items should be kept or donated. In fact, donations can be beneficial because you can get a tax reduction.

More importantly, the charities are often willing to pick up the stuff right in your house, thus saving you a lot of money hiring a pickup service. In general, if you don’t use the items for years but they are still in good conditions, then donation can be the best option to reduce clutter and bring happiness to other people.

Step 4: Clean Your Home

Once you have removed all of the debris and garbage, it’s time to thoroughly clean and disinfect all of the remaining items and other spaces in your home. These include the showers, bathtubs, toilets, baseboards, window sills, cabinets, ceilings, fan blades, and more.

Step 5: Organize the Remaining Items

After cleaning everything, it can be challenging to organize the remaining items to the right place. Consider buying utility shells, or using a shed to ensure everything is placed functionally. Now you can enjoy a clean and fresh living space that you might dream for years.

Do You Know How to Clean After Hoarding?

Cleaning up a hoarding situation can certainly be a process. The above five steps can help make the clean-up process run more smoothly and efficiently. It is best to go through room-by-room to decide whether items are worth keeping or trash/donation.

Go here if you would like to know more on how Joe’s AZBIO does Hoarding Cleanup