What happens if you have so much stuff running in your mind? Do you ever feel overwhelmed and unable to perform anything? Well, it’s common to have a cluttered mind. And it’s even more common to feel tiresome and numb when you have almost the whole world revolving around your tiny brain. However, for hoarders, piling many unwanted items is an undiluted source of joy and contentment.
These tips are useful for any hoarder or cleaner who want to make their cleaning work easy. As a matter of fact, no one would want to keep all the hoarding mess in the house and thus cleaning should not be a one-time activity but a lifestyle that should be developed. We are going to give you some of the most invaluable tips to save your day.
But who are these hoarders?
Hoarders spend most of their time collecting and excessively saving items that others may view as worthless. Simply put, they have desirable love for material possession and find it quite challenging to let go of the items.
Medics categorize hoarding as a disorder (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), making the hoarders keep a relatively large assortment of these unwanted items. And hoarders, on most occasions, do not display their items.
Instead, they keep their items in a disorganized manner- and they love it that way.
However, hoarders aren’t positive about how to keep their items neatly arranged. If you know where to start with cleaning a hoarder’s house, restoring sanity in the house, it becomes so simple.
Here are five tips on how to clean a hoarder’s house.
You won’t just walk into a hoarder’s house and begin the cleaning process. However, you can analyze your environment and come up with a comprehensive cleaning strategy.
- Do an assessment of the home and the whole situation
Before you set out to empty the bins and clean the shelves, it is vital to know what you need to throw out. But more importantly, you will also need to find out how the hoarder will come in during the cleaning exercise.
And for an effective clean-up, you must make the hoarder part of this exercise.
But you need to know that this is not an overnight process. You will need to be patient, compassionate, and diligent in the way you work.
- Develop a cleaning strategy
Most of the hoarders can’t differentiate between worthless and valuable items. For them, as long as they’ve got items, all stuffed up in one place, everything else can wait.
And that’s where the problem lies.
The pile-ups slowly become home to molds, insects, and dust, making living conditions quite unbearable.
The most important thing to do is to involve the hoarders in your cleaning exercise. Only then can you understand why they collect so much garbage and how best they can stop it after all.
When you have the cleaning strategy, the right tools like vacuum mops, you are ready for the big cleaning task.
- Arm yourself with protective gears
You must know that the piles you want to relocate have stayed there for longer than you can imagine. And it would be difficult not to find any harmful animal or insect inside those pile-ups.
Moreover, the items piled up could also come down on you, causing unwarranted injuries.
To cushion yourself from any harm, ensure you have gloves, fire extinguisher, flashlight and a first aid kit for any emergency.
- Prioritize small rooms
Remember, you are up for a huge task. Getting straight into the big rooms can not only be discouraging but also tedious.
Identifying small rooms and emptying them will make you have a sense of progress. I guess you don’t want to give up midway through your work.
Some of the rooms you could start with include bathrooms and study rooms with a few stuffs.
- Slowly, but thoroughly clean the home
The mission here is to declutter the home and leave neater rooms for the hoarder. It is not a one-day task. So, bring in a few more people to help you carry out the items and do the cleaning.
Before you begin washing the room, ensure you sort the hoarded items, and decide on which ones to dispose of. Once you are done with arranging the items, ensure you wash the rooms using soap and water.
You may also need to deep clean thoroughly after you have sorted everything and, in this case, you need an effective vacuum cleaner and mops to help you achieve better results within a shortest time.
In conclusion, once you are done with your cleaning. Don’t wait for all the mess to pile up again. Create a checklist for cleaning maintenance, and you can even get a robot vacuum cleaner for scheduling your daily cleaning.