Don’t Discard Hoarding Trash Without Doing These 3 Important Things
A hoarded home stores heap of invaluable items. If left for long, the hoarded items can cause series of health issues particularly to the occupants of the home and in most cases, the neighbors get a feel of the unhealthy environment. These contaminated items may include unused items, a pile of paperwork, rotten food, and other biohazards. If the appropriate authorities find out about this, they might restrict the owner from accessing the room as it is no longer safe to live in. Once the restriction is in place, the person who lived there will no longer have access to his home. So what happens to those who do not have an alternative place to stay? To avoid this ugly scenario, get help from a professional hoarding cleanup service to remove the pile of trash in the home.
Cleaning the home is a step in the right direction, otherwise, you may forfeit the home to the local authorities. In some cases, you may only discover a hoarding situation after the death or eviction of an occupant. Before storming the area with your cleaning materials, there are a few important things to know for a smooth cleaning process.
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1. Call Professional Hoarding Cleanup Service
Hoarded trash is best handled by professionals who are trained in proper hoarding remediation process. Without proper training, you risk exposure to harmful pathogens. A hoarded home is always filled with dangerous substances, hence the need to protect yourself. Some of the hazards that may be contagious when you come in contact with it include the following
- Rotten food
- Feces and urine (both animal and human)
- Mold
- Pests and insects
- Chemicals
- Blood or body fluids
- Dead animals
With these harmful substances left to linger in the home for an extended period, it begins to damage the structural integrity of the property. It causes severe damage to the walls, floors, and roof structure. Over time, these problems become even more complex to handle. If the home requires plumbing or electrical repair and maintenance services, the occupant can be so ashamed of the interior, so they do not call on professionals to fix the problem. They would rather fix the problem themselves. For others, they might just look for alternative ways to get the same service. For instance, if the toilet needs a repair job, the hoarder might resort to the use of plastic bags and keep the human waste in one corner of the bathroom.
So if you don’t have experience handling this kind of cleaning job, do not try it. Call on professional hoarding cleanup service instead.
2. Not All Hoarded Items are Trash
The hoarded items in the home of a hoarder might contain valuable items such as antiques, family heirlooms, and important documents. These valuable items are hidden in places you’d least expect. Professional hoarding cleanup services usually take their time to go through these hoarded items to see if any can be salvageable.
3. It’s more than just physical cleaning
Unless the hoarder has passed on and the property needs to be restored, hoarding cleanup is more than just a physical problem. The culprit needs to be given special attention otherwise the hoarding problem will never cease. Without treatment and proper reorientation, the hoarder thinks the items in the house, regardless of condition, are still usable.
