What Every Real Estate Investor Needs To Understand About Hoarding Cleanup
While less than three percent of the population suffers from hoarding, or more appropriately, hoarding disorder, real estate investors tend to come across it more often due to the nature of their work. As a real estate investor, you may come across hoarders who cannot clean up their homes on their own, meaning that you'll need to be prepared to handle the situation yourself once they move out. This task can be daunting, but understanding the dangers of hoarding cleanup can make the process much easier. Here's what you need to know.
What Is Hoarding Disorder?
Hoarding is defined as an excessive accumulation of items that often leads to massive amounts of clutter taking over a person's home. Hoarders may find it difficult or impossible to part with items that they believe are valuable, even if they are not necessary or useful in any way. Hoarded items can fill entire rooms to the ceiling, making it difficult for hoarders to move around their homes and maintain basic living standards.
What Are the Dangers of Hoarding?
The most obvious danger associated with hoarding is that it can lead to health risks due to the unsanitary conditions found in many hoarders' homes. These conditions can trigger asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses due to mold growth, rotting food, and even human waste present in hoarded homes. These conditions also attract pests, like rats and cockroaches, which present another set of health risks.
Additionally, hoarder homes are dangerous because the homeowner can get trapped. The piles of hoarded items can block exits during a fire or collapse onto the homeowner, causing injury.
How Do You Handle Hoarding Cleanup?
When dealing with a property where someone has been hoarding for years, there will likely be significant amounts of clutter throughout each room that needs removal before any cleaning occurs. It is important that you take appropriate safety precautions when dealing with this type of situation. Wear protective clothing such as masks and gloves when handling everything.
If you are new to real estate investing and still doing many tasks yourself to earn "sweat equity," this is not the time. Hoarding cleanup is a job for professionals. They have experience dealing with hoarder homes, so they can assess the extent of contamination and provide appropriate cleaning solutions to eliminate any lingering bacteria, mold, pests, and toxic residue still present in the home after all debris has been removed.
The dangers posed by hoarding cannot be overstated. Not only do these conditions create safety risks for those living inside the homes, but they also pose health risks to those who clean them. Professional cleaners experienced in dealing with hoarding cleanup are your best option for a clean start.
Reach out to a hoarding cleanup service to learn more.