The Complications arising from Hoarding Cleanup
Hoarding is a complicated disorder—for the removal and cleanup from hoarder syndrome you need a compentent, reliable, and discreet company like Crime Scene Cleaners who is the Midwest Largest and oldest provider for these services.
According to experts, there is many reasons people hoard. Years ago, I was told that when older people hoarded, most grew up during the Great Depression, and their families had little material goods. So, as they got older and their incomes became more limited, some mental mechanism triggered a feeling they needed to hoard to feel safe.
The more I was in contact with hoarders, the more I could see that statement working in some, but mostly, I saw Depression. They were so depressed they didn’t care how they lived. Most cared how others saw them, so if they went to the store or church, they wore clean clothes and acted like everything was well.
One gentleman went to work every day, doing all the work. His coworkers had no idea he was a hoarder.
His family lived away, and he lived by himself. I engaged with his sisters, who came into town after he had missed work, notifying no one he would be absent. The coworkers came to his home. Knocking on his door, they could faintly hear him asking for help. They called the police, who broke the door.
Once the door was open, it revealed to everyone that he had been hoarding for years. He was a large guy, and it got hard for him to return to his bedroom, which he was filling up with trash. So he dragged the dilapidated mattress onto the living room floor. The mattress was so worn that springs stuck out, and one spring wounded him in the belly.
It was so filthy the wound became infected, and over the following weekend, the infection put him down. He hurt so badly and was so weakened from the infection he couldn’t move. His voice was weak, but he listened for the mailman three days in a row, but the mailman didn’t hear him calling out.
It wasn’t until his friends from work knew something was wrong. He was too loyal to an employee to miss work like that. The friends and police found him just in time to save his life with rehab to go through. His three sisters moved him back to their hometown to help rehabilitate him and monitor his living quarters.
It was his blessing that he had sisters who cared for and loved him, and he complied with their demands. But that’s not always the case. Most hoarders become recluses because they don’t want to be found out, and many die unattended in their hoarded quarters.
My first hoarder experience was such a case. A gentleman who died in his bed didn’t show up for work and wouldn’t answer his phone, so his sister- and brother-in-law sent the police for a wellness check and found he had died in his bed from a heart attack. I was called initially to clean the death scene.
I went home that afternoon, and my wife asked how the job went. I told her it was fine, but I never walked on the floor even once. She laughed and said, “What did you do then, float?” “No,” I replied, “I walked on crushed milk cartons and trash. There were piles of trash on the floor, stacking in some places as high as my head.”
The family called me back to empty the house, or as some people call it, trash out and clean what I could. Afterward, I told my wife it was bizarre and that I would probably never see another case like this for the rest of my career. That year alone, I had three more hoarding jobs.
Experts say hoarding comes from mental health issues like;
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD),
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD),
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHA) or Depression.
Stressful events such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, or a fire can be enough of a trigger for some folks. Anything that could be traumatic to a person’s mind can cause changes in a person or ourselves we never could imagine.
Hoarding is more common among people raised with family members who were hoarders.
Initially, I was naïve. I wondered when they decided, “I’m never going to remove any trash from this house ever again.” But that’s not how it happens. There is a point at the beginning where they don’t care anymore. They give up on everything optional, and taking out the trash isn’t essential to them.
Legal Issues
Initially, we didn’t know about any legal issues concerning hoarders either. Relatives would call us and arrange to have us come by the house clandestinely and give them a bid for the work. But here’s the problem. If the hoarder is still living and doesn’t know what relatives are plotting, and we remove only the trash without the hoarder’s explicit permission, we are breaking the law.
So are the relatives who plotted it. In one case, that is the only thing that saved us from a lawsuit. If the hoarder sued us, they would also have to sue their relatives. That was when we learned quickly that there are legal issues that must be addressed if we remove anything, even a single piece of trash, from the home of a living hoarder.
Let’s look at another case. The hoarder, who was a woman, died, and her brother called me out to give a price on cleaning out the home owned by his deceased sister. He told me what he wanted us to remove. Oh, by the way, can our people help him load up a new washer and dryer he wants to return to Iowa to use at his place?
The gentleman I spoke with instructed me on how to enter the home. He said he would be down from Iowa in a few days and would call me to start.
Here’s what saved us a legal headache and taught us another lesson about determining who is who in a situation. I didn’t leave home the day the brother called me like I thought I would. I went out the following day. Upon my arrival, a young lady was at the house, and she was removing some items.
I walked up, introduced myself, and told her why I was there. She looked at me strangely and said, “I didn’t call anyone to come and help. Who called you?” The brother of the woman who passed away, I explained, and she asked further to tell her precisely what he said to me, and I started to get the clue I was stepping into a family feud. You see, the young lady was the daughter of the woman who died and the rightful hire to all that belonged to her mother.
Her Uncle was trying to defraud us by complicity in removing things he had no right to process. She thanked me for telling her what was happening and said she would have the locks changed that day and call her Uncle directly. We were never called back to the house again.
Of course, all those incidents were years ago, and we have since learned everything from our attorney about the proper way to handle these situations. I’m writing this to relatives and friends who wish to help the hoarders. Unless a court of law legally determines the hoarder to be mentally incompetent, you will have little power to intervene without the hoarder’s full cooperation.
If you need help concerning hoarding, please call Crime Scene Cleaners, LLC at 816-8087642 or 913-808-7642 or Toll-Free at 800-909-2939
When dealing with hoarding, it is essential to understand that the situation can be complex and challenging. You will find compassionate and understanding people at Crime Scene Cleaners. We know many people are embarrassed to call us, but we fully understand the situation and will do our best to help you however we can.
