HOARDING CLEAN UP
24/7 EMERGENCY RESPONSE SERVICES
45 MINUTE EMERGENCY RESPONSE IN THE GTA
(416) 602-4355
Extreme hoarding is a disorder that consists of excessive storage and collection of contents. Sometimes these items are valuables, newspapers, music and video collections, magazines, old or unimportant documents, food and even animals. There are even cases of people hoarding waste, feces and other bodily fluids. It is important to note that although we may look at a hoarding project and see only garbage and unsalvageable items, many of these items are extremely valuable to the hoarder and they will have tremendous anxiety parting or disposing of the contents. Hoarding does not only affect the hoarder but will affect the hoarder’s family and work life. There are severe and negative impacts on a person or persons’ mental health from living in these cluttered environments. There are also potential health risks for residents and visitors, especially depending on the type of hoarding.
As mentioned in our section on biohazard cleaning, many hoarding cases require some sort of biohazard remediation usually because we often find mould, bodily fluids and animal feces. Many of these contaminants are absorbed into all horizontal and vertical surface building materials such as carpeting, flooring, drywall, wood and contents and furniture. They can become a breeding ground for toxic mould to reproduce and pose health risks to building occupants, especially young children, aging adults or those with compromised immune systems.
What is involved in the hoarding cleanup process?
At Metro Flood Services we are prepared to work with several stakeholders involved in the hoarding cleanup process. Often, it is the hoarder’s family or a government agency that steps in and requests cleanup. Our team is trained to work with discretion and respect as we understand the process is stressful for most people involved. We work with family members, friends, property owners and managers, realtors, lawyers and trustees, social workers and even mental health support providers. Our primary objective is to ensure that the property is habitable and that the hoarder and any other occupants are now in clean, safe living conditions.
The hoarding process can be divided into these 6 main steps:
1. Inspection & Assessment
Metro Flood Services will inspect and assess the damages. We will provide a detailed report documenting and photographing room by room, all the potential risks and damage caused by the hoarding. We will then tailor a unique strategy that addresses the hoarder or hoarder’s representative’s main concerns. We will also implement protocols to ensure an initial safe work environment for our staff and other occupants. These protocols include having separate eye washing and cleaning posts and the use of a fogger to apply disinfectants.
2. Biohazard Remediation
If upon inspection we find biohazards only in one or a few areas of the property, we will seal that area off under containment as to prevent cross-contamination throughout the home and complete the biohazard cleaning first and foremost. Trauma scene cleaning is sometimes required during a hoarding cleanup. Many times, the hoarders have had a traumatic accident and either pass away or are in hospital when the family reaches out to request the hoarding cleanup.
3. Sorting & Cataloguing of Contents
Metro Flood Services is proud of its technicians who take painstaking care to protectively sort contents, identifying and separating valuables such as important documents, photos, money, and jewellery, and sorting them into salvageable and non-salvageable groupings. Difficulties can arise in hoarding cleanups because the hoarder feels that almost everything is valuable, and many contents are contaminated and hazardous and should be disposed of immediately. We clean and sanitize any valuable or sentimental items to the best of our ability.
4. Decluttering & Disposal
To declutter the home, we remove any garbage or unsalvageable contents. This can also include damaged carpets and flooring. Typically, we have a disposal bin on-site for convenience but in case this is not possible, we will have staff dispose of garbage daily. We will then move the disposal bin to an off-site location when the hoarding cleanup is complete. It is not uncommon to have many bins dropped off and exchanged full of garbage during a hoarding cleanup. Our trauma-certified technicians identify, contain and package for disposal of any biohazard materials. A federally regulated biohazard waste disposal company then transports those materials off-site per federal laws and regulations.
5. Cleaning & Sanitizing
This is the stage where we use lots of labour and specialized equipment. We determine the best cleaning technique for that hoard and use powerful truck-mounted and portable extractors to wash and sanitize the affected areas. We also may utilize thermal and ULV foggers. We choose the former to kill odours, whereas we use the latter (in combination with disinfectants) to eliminate bacteria. This stage is very labour intensive as we usually require multiple staff to manually wash walls, floors and ceilings, vacuum, and steam clean carpets and upholstery. Many times, our powerful and efficient equipment reduces the need for additional staff, depending on the situation. We often install negative air machines to filter the air and reduce contaminants and odours lingering in the air.
6. Reorganization & Repair
Depending on how detailed the client would like the hoarding cleanup, they may request that we reorganize and put away all the remaining salvageable contents that we previously cleaned and sanitized. Some clients choose to complete this phase themselves or with their family members if they consider it to be a personal process and are very particular about where they want their personal belongings. We can also take a hybrid approach where we provide the labour, but the reorganization is under the complete direction of the client. This is also the stage where we offer our clients repair services for any damaged building or structural materials that we removed in the hoarding cleaning process. We know that every hoarding cleanup is unique, and we treat them as such.
