Hoarding Clean Up (Helpful Cleaning Tips & Advice)

Hoarding is a mental health condition that can cause people to dwell in dangerous living conditions, avoid friends and family, and suffer through social isolation. You may question what to do when you have concerns about a loved one that hoards items in their home.

However, this is a mindset that you force them to abandon. It will take the guidance of a trained professional and an expert cleaning service to see the recovery your desire. Please continue reading below to learn what mistakes you should avoid as you assist a hoarder with cleaning their home.

Refrain From Taking Their Belongings

You may toss away items once your loved one has filled their home with old magazines, expired newspapers, clothing, and trash. You may believe that quickly discarding their items will cure their condition. But, this choice will not treat their underlying issues. Worse yet, it may wreck your relationship and leave them to remain in a poor environment. Furthermore, a hoarder may undergo serious emotional anguish when their possessions get taken away. Your good intentions may actually cause more harm than good.

Avoid Enabling Behaviors

You will not be able to stop a hoarder from carrying out that activity. However, you can ensure you do not encourage the behavior even further. You may want to leave your loved one out of the loop when you go shopping or provide them with additional room to store their possessions.

Celebrate Accomplishments

When a considerable amount of work must get handled, you may want to complain and argue until the job is done. But, this will only drive a wedge between you and your loved one. They may have had this issue for months or years and will need just as much time to see a visible improvement. But, you can celebrate small accomplishments along the way to remain motivated to the end.

Seek Education

From the outside, hoarding can seem illogical and irresponsible. By bringing these judgments to your loved one, you may prevent the success you hope to gain. Understanding their fear and anxiety may allow you to demonstrate empathy when interceding with them. You may become better equipped to deal with the issue once you have reviewed books, journals, and websites that explain what is going on. You can also join a support group so that you remain healthy and well as you assist them in tackling their problem.

Help With Sorting

There are levels that get used for identifying the stages of clutter you can expect. Within a hoarding environment, you can find a person at level one, which includes light clutter and a collection that may seem like a hobby. This intensity can advance up to level five, which gets indicated by structural damage, sewage issues, and unusable spaces.

You can provide help when the issue is at a beginning level and safe to handle. But, you will need a specialized cleaning team when the hoarding has progressed past the initial stage.

Avoid Taking Over

Even though your loved one struggles to handle their belongings, you should not step in to take over. They will need time to process what is happening and a chance to choose the help they need. You can cause them to shut down and revert to harmful, unhelpful behaviors by doing the work for them. A person that hoards needs to make their own independent decisions which means you must demonstrate patience along the way.

Find Treatment

Taking the initial steps toward becoming well can be daunting for anyone struggling with this disorder. Rather than forcing them into treatment or a home cleaning, you will need assistance from an accredited therapist capable of safely getting them through their issues.

Uninvited guests and forced removals can spur feelings of anger and despair in a hoarder. To ensure these emotions do not get out of hand, a discerning cleaning agency will make sure you have prepared the hoarder for their presence.

Try A Tactful Cleanup Service

There can be tremendous feelings of shame around their circumstances that add more strain to the hoarding issue. Not only can your loved one feel embarrassed about what has occurred, but you may also feel mortified about the collection. To aid in getting past these emotions, you can rely on an expert cleaning team to handle their work discreetly. They will not bring unnecessary attention to your clean-up. Instead, they can patiently work with your group so their work will not cause additional pain and trauma.

Get Consideration for Your Belongings

Some risks come with cleaning any home. These threats increase when dealing with a hoarding problem. However, knowledgeable staff can wisely navigate these issues and do more than a traditional cleaning service. These workers are well-trained and certified to extract hazardous materials and waste. As they get this done, they note what gets accomplished during their efforts and salvage any items that remain in a suitable condition.

Contact our Cleanzen Team Today

When you assist a hoarder with cleaning their house, you give them a sense of accomplishment and a chance to feel control over their situation. Once the entire home has been cleared, its time for some deep cleaning! If you are looking for nearby cleaning services, you can trust our Cleanzen team. We are a group of professional house cleaners who can provide you with quality cleaning service. Check us out at www.cleanzen.com/houston and request for your free estimate!