Cleaning for a Hoarder

homealone · #1 07-30-2010, 05:25 PM

Recently a neighbor of mine sadfully passed away. She was a very quiet person and mostly kept to herself. Though her daughter and I have been good friends for many year.

Though when her daughter went into the house several weeks later to get it cleaned out, she called me and broke down crying. She was not crying only for the loss of her Mother but because she couldn't believe how her Mother had been living.

Her Mother made sure that no one ever entered her home and now I know why. I went over to the house to help my friend get it cleaned out and I was completely and totally shocked at what I saw.

I never knew or would have guessed that she in life had been a hoarder!! Her daughter just could not deal with the huge task that was thrown at her alone.

She and I put our heads together and decided that we of course would tackle the mess, but while tossing things away we would seperate most of the stuff and place it for sale in a yard sale or even on EBay and of course keep what ever we found that we needed or wanted.

We started on this mess about a week ago and we have only finished cleaning 2 rooms of the house. Anna plans on getting a storage unit to store the items she plans on selling because she does not have enough room at her home for it all and neither do I.

In the end with everything that we have already gathered up to sell she will make a profit in the end. Her Mom managed to collect it seems like everything possible. I don't know how someone manages to keep this kind of illness a secret, but she managed it for many years.

flip_it_fast · #2 07-31-2010, 01:49 AM

Hoarding truly is an illness much like alcoholism, gambling addictions and so on. It's a very difficult thing to deal with and therapy is a must. I can't imagine how your friend must have felt and God bless you for helping her.

homealone · #3 07-31-2010, 04:55 PM

It's not an easy thing to do. Going in there to clean is bad enough but knowing that I will never see her Mom again is what is even worse. Though it is all going to be alright eventually.

homealone · #4 08-07-2010, 04:43 PM

Well just a little bit of an update here. Most of the cleaning is now finally finished. It took longer than we expected it to, though there was a whole lot to go through there.

We pretty much have everything gathered that we are going to be selling in a yard sale. Though I haven't a clue when that is going to be taking place as of yet.

We didn't need a storage unit like we thought we were going to need. She decided to stop parking her car in her garage and that is where we stored everything.

Now we are in the process of scrubbing walls, floors, carpets and so on getting the house really cleaned up. Once the house is cleaned up I do believe that she is planning on renting it out because she already owns the home that she is living in.

She has never done anything like that before so she is a little nervous about that, but in the end it will all work out.