Here is a hoarder cleaning checklist to help organize and get rid of things.
Out of all the disorder and clutter, hoarders are known to keep, some sense of orderliness and neatness can be brought about using the right tools. All cleaners need to use a checklist for effective cleaning.
How To Clean A Hoarder’s House
Here, we’re interested in providing you with a list of specific tasks that will go a long way in simplifying the job. This will also help anyone looking at starting up a hoarder clean-up business.
Safety First
Before you embark on cleaning out a hoarder’s house, you must ensure your safety.
Hoarder cleanup may involve coming in contact with biohazards among other things. Therefore, protecting yourself should be a priority.
Getting the right protective gear is very important. Common protective gear to have include disposable hand gloves, and sturdy shoes. Others include a hard hat to protect your head, goggles for eye protection as well as a dust mask to keep you from inhaling dust and other fine particles like mold.
During mold cleaning, we recommend you use a HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) vacuum cleaner. This equipment comes with a filter that traps a large number of small particles, thus preventing them from re-circulating back into the air or being inhaled.
Tools for Hoarder Cleaning
Hoarder cleaning is usually different from other types of cleaning as it involves massive clutter.
Now, certain tools are more effective in getting the job done than others. The tools include heavy-duty trash bags, buckets, and mops, empty boxes, multipurpose cleaners, and disinfectants as well as sponges (including wipes & soft cleaning cloths).
Others include brooms & dustpan, vacuum cleaner, shovel, step ladder, a set of hand tools, extra bags, and a dumpster where necessary.
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Dumpster
When carrying out hoarder cleaning, one of the things you’ll need is a dumpster. Some readers may wonder if this is necessary. The answer is yes! Remember that hoarder cleaning has to do with a lot of clearing.
A trashcan will not be enough to hold discarded items. So, how do you get a dumpster for the job? The easiest way to do this is by contacting your city’s sanitation department or agency.
Here, you’ll get all the information on rental or purchase rates in addition to pickup and delivery information.
Hoarder Cleaning Checklist
How do you help a hoarder clean up and get rid of things?
This section of our article will be dedicated to discussing specific tasks you must perform when cleaning or clearing out a hoarding house.
The following are cleaning strategies to adopt if you want to help a hoarder organize.
Are you a hoarder and scared of how to start cleaning? Here is a way out.
How To Help A Hoarder Clean Their House
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Assessing the Situation
One thing that is common to hoarder cleaning is that certain items which are piled up may not have real value and will only be good for the trash. On the other hand, a hoarder might have a cache of highly valuable items.
Another thing you need to find out is if any of the scattered items poses any risks (such as injury or health risks).
These are necessary to help you adopt safety methods in their removal and disposal. Your safety and those of your assistants should come first before anything else.
Understanding the elements of safety is vital if you need to become a hoarder cleanup specialist. It is also important if you are trying to arrive at cleanout costs.
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Setting a Cleaning Schedule
Having analyzed the pile of items to be tidied and cleaned, you should have an idea of how long it will take to finish the job. Certain jobs may require more than a day.
For such, you must set a definite schedule of the number of times such tasks will be split.
Doing this makes it much easier and orderly. It reduces the stress involved in keeping the hoarder’s house in order. It also suggests the fastest ways to clean such apartments.
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Handling of Vital Documents
Important documents are likely to be found in the heaps of clutter lying or stacked around the room.
Therefore, it’s necessary that sorting is carefully done to identify what’s useful from what isn’t.
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Have a Staging Area
A staging area is needed to make the process much orderly.
This is a storage space where things removed from the hoard are stored or well arranged. The staging area should be spacious enough and enclosed from the elements (rain and sunshine) to prevent damage.
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Target a Smaller Room to Begin the Cleaning Process
It is much easier to target a smaller room to commence cleaning. The kitchen and bathrooms easily fall into this category. These areas should not only be cleared of clutter but must also be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized.
When carrying out hoarder cleaning for these areas, you’re likely to find severe dirt which is primarily due to neglect by hoarders. As such, a lot of cleaning will be needed. The cleaning supplies and tools listed earlier will prove invaluable in performing this task.
There won’t be many items to discard here as compared to other areas of the house. So basically you’ll be doing a lot of cleaning instead of clearing or disposing of unwanted items.
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The Rooms
Where hoarder cleaning is involved, rooms are among areas of the home with lots of items that need to be sorted and cleared. Get rid of all the trash in addition to damaged items that cannot be fixed.
These should be taken straight to the dumpster.
The best approach to adopt when cleaning the rooms is to empty them of furniture and everything else. Once emptied, it’s much easier to only return items that are still useful. The rest should be discarded.
The same process should apply to other areas of the building such as the store, garage, and basement among others.
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Cleaning and Sanitizing the Hoarding House
Having successfully cleared the building of unwanted items and clutter, it’s important to take the needed cleaning action. This includes sanitizing.
Hoarding attracts pests to an area as they find ample hiding spots among the stacks of clutter.
These will range from rodents and rodent droppings, cobwebs, darts, and more. Clear up the area by carrying out deep cleaning.
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Repairing the Property
With most hoarder cleaning comes the need for repairs. The level of damage is only evident after successfully clearing up the surroundings. Repairs will always differ from one situation to another.
Find the best way to fix such damage. The help of a handyman may be necessary to get the job done.
This checklist for cleaning a hoarder’s house is result-oriented and has highlighted basic cleaning tasks you must perform.
It is also important that the trash being held in the dumpster be properly disposed of at designated points as provided or specified by the sanitation department.