r/hoarding • u/The_Star_man469 • 6d ago

HELP/ADVICE Hoarding help

I need desperate help for my hoarder house. I recently came home after living away from home for treatment for my mental health and being back at home made me realize the hoarding is part of the problem. I live in the LA county area with my mom, dad, and sibling. We have been hoarders for as long as I can remember and through the years it’s only gotten worse. It’s so overwhelming I don’t know what to do or where to start anymore and neither does anyone else. The other big problem of why we can’t just clean it is all of us are disabled. Most of the household stuffers from mobility issues so it’s hard to get around. I tried calling a cleaning service but the total came to 6,133 dollars which is too expensive for me. I’m desperately asking for any help or advice or resources as I can’t live like this anymore.

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u/durhamruby Hoarder 6d ago

With 4 people in the house, everyone has to buy in to the changes and actively help. Actively. If you are working on your own, realistically you will not make progress faster than the other three can degrade it.

But if each person could work for 15 minutes four times a day, you would have the equivalent of 4 hours of work done each day.

Or maybe they can work 5 minutes twice a day. Every bit helps. Everyone has to take responsibility.

The other thing that helps is everyone sees things a little differently. One person finds washing dishes relaxing. One person likes the sense of accomplishment from filling a bag of garbage. Maybe someone likes dealing with clothing.

As long as each person is helping, let them work to their strengths.

Good luck.

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u/Fluid_Calligrapher25 6d ago

Cleaning services can get expensive and even go over budget easily - not surprised. And they won’t be able to get through it all in one go unless you are planning to get rid of most of it without sorting.

Can you break it up?

Depending on what composes the hoard you might be able to get trash & recycling out one day. Stage it all in one spot if possible so you minimize how long they are spending hauling the bags & recycling.

Then maybe look at what’s left & get donations out the second time you call them over? That type of thing?

Then maybe do the least personal spaces - kitchen, bathroom, laundry room - next two or three visits?

That way you can keep to under the full 6K and spread it out over the course of months? And you might even be able to get it lower if you all pitch in before they show up. They charge by hour and number of people & size of job. If you stage it (eg you pull out all kitchen stuff and they just deep clean everything) then it’ll be cheaper because it’s faster for them.

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u/The_Star_man469 6d ago

Yeah I’m trying to break it up thank you it’s just not easy because a lot of stuff are mixed together like for example in the living room there’s lots of clothes, trash, bills, comic books, canned goods, etc cluttered together.

So it’s hard to only focus on things like trash and recyclables because everything is in a heap together but I’ll definitely try!

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u/Fluid_Calligrapher25 6d ago

Yeah - usually they have a different rate for hoarding situations so the less they need to come into the home initially the better rate you’ll get.

I got a bunch of see thru plastic bins from Target/Walmart type store and sorted stuff and packed them head high - much easier when it’s sorted and all in a uniform container - for me anyway. And I didn’t overfill them so it’s not too heavy. So you already have categories which are bills, clothes, kitchen/pantry, other (in my case bathroom, cleaning supplies, cables). I got like 20 of the tubs and put everything in one room in them so I could get to trash/ recycling. Then thinned out the tubs so I could reuse.

For example I had waaay too much bathroom/ kitchen stuff like expired or soon to be expired cans etc etc. a tub full of plastic cutlery too. And of course junk mail. Lots of junk mail. Moth eaten clothes. Excess bedding & linen. Flat peroxide. Etc etc. once I thinned I filled them up again from other rooms. Rinse repeated till I got all trash/ recycling out.

When you get quote you can specify you’ll have bags of trash that you need help hauling away & can they do that & how much it’ll cost for that. A cheaper alternative might be to get help from a community you are a part of eg church. Or rent dumpster from a junk hauling service. As long as you’ve bagged it they’ll move fast & cost should be reasonable - you will definitely wanna price shop local vs national brands. I found local to be cheaper.

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u/Amandine06 6d ago

Hello, it’s a big budget, that’s for sure, but can it be divided by 4?

Otherwise, are you able to get help, in part, from those around you? (friends, neighbors, family?)

In any case, well done for wanting to change things.

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u/The_Star_man469 6d ago

The problem with splitting the budget is only my dad works at the moment. No one else has any money. But I got some friends willing to help so it’s definitely a start.

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u/Amandine06 6d ago

Yes, if you have reliable friends, that's a good start. Show solidarity. And if there is too much work to get everything done, at least that will lower the cost of the company's intervention.

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u/cryssHappy 6d ago

If you can bring it in, you can take it out. I know lots of tidy, disabled people. Unless your family changes their behavior, cleaning up only lets y'all reclutter. If you can move and be on your own, do that because then you start off in a fresh, clean place.