Fear. Illness. Isolation. These are some trying times. Right now, many of us are spending way more time at home than usual, either because our schools or workplaces are closed or we’re trying to be caring human beings who won’t unintentionally infect vulnerable members of our society through unnecessary contact. In times like this, tidying up can provide some comfort. Hear me out. Tidying: keeps your mind and body busy, and that is priceless when you are prone to saturating…
Alrighty. You’ve done some hard-core thinking, you’ve gone through your cleanup planning checklist, and you’ve set your rules of engagement. Now it’s time to dive in. There are distractions aplenty in a hoarded home, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed or daunted by the sheer scale of the task ahead of you. Good news! You can split the cleanup into steps that will help you focus and be as efficient as possible. It helps to separate tasks like purging, cleaning,…
Before you dive into any kind of cleaning project, it helps to create your own cleanup guidelines about what can stay and what has to go. It’s useful to make decisions ahead of time and determine “What am I going to do when I see something like XYZ?” Mark Your Trail Things can rapidly get overwhelming and confusing when you’re surrounded by clutter chaos, so it’s best to have some mental guideposts firmly established. That makes it easy for you…
Here’s a hoarding cleanup checklist with 10 steps to help you prepare for your cleanup project. This checklist applies to houses where there is a mix of garbage and items that you want to salvage. If your hoarded house is one that’s too hazardous to enter, don’t attempt to clean it yourself. Call a professional crew trained in dealing with biohazards or mold remediation. If the house is full of junk that can’t be donated or that you don’t…
First Things First: Think This Sh*t Through Before you decide to clean up a hoarded home, you need to sit and have a serious think about it. This is absolutely required and is the #1 thing you need to do before you ever pick up a broom. I’m not talking about coming up with your action plan or assessing the situation, although those are important parts of the process. Those will come later. I’m talking about an honest-to-goodness, soul-searching gut…
Hoarding: A Family Affair When I was a little kid, our home was pretty normal. We had the usual amount of clutter, toys, books, and miscellaneous stuff, but it was nothing that couldn’t be shoved into a closet when we needed to tidy up for company. “Hoarding” wasn’t a word in my vocabulary. As I got older, our home began to morph. The “usual amount” of stuff turned into much more. The hoard of objects took on a living quality…