If you suffer from hoarding or know someone who does, you are familiar with the anxiety and fear associated with even the thought of allowing someone into the home. As time passes, that fear and anxiety becomes worse until allowing someone into the home becomes impossible.

Allowing nobody into the home compounds the situation. Furnaces, cooking equipment, plumbing and other utilities in the home go unrepaired and the resident will adapt by resorting to other means. We see hundreds of homes each year without the basic necessities like functioning toilets, showers, air conditioning, heating, gas and electricity. The process of adaptation means replacing the broken items with something portable that they can bring into the home themselves like portable hot plates to cook on and space heaters to stay warm. The danger of portable heating devices and hoarding conditions is huge. Each year there are dozens of fatalities from fires in homes with severe clutter. As a retired Fire Captain, I can assure you that it is next to impossible for us to come in and rescue you. When plumbing problems occur, it is common for hoarders to resort to using buckets, 2 liter bottles, and other containers to store their waste. Bathing sometimes stops altoghter. My message to anyone reading this that is living this way is this. Please consider that help is available and we have seen it all hundreds of times before. You will not be judged by us. We just want to make your home and your life normal again. If you are not quite there yet with your hoarding situation, deal with it now, because it will ge there.

So how do you find qualified help? Well this website is a great start and chances are if you are here, you are still interested in change. The first thing to do is learn about the different help available. From support groups and therapists to hoarding cleanup companies and professional organizers there are options out there. If you are ready to clean, great! But for many, the thought of letting go is just to much to bare. It is extremely important to be mentally and emotionally prepared before the attempt at a massive cleanup, especially if outsiders will be touching your stuff. The last thing you want to do is let someone in to help, and they are untrained in the hoading disorder and behaviors so they say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. This can be traumatizing, which will result in you never wanting to reach out for help again.

Finding a therapist or cleaner isn't hard but finding one you are comfortable with can be. Learning as much as possible is a great place to start. Check BBB, Angies List and an other places you can read reviews. Call them and see how they respond to you on the phone and how comfortable they make you feel. If you don't get a good vibe from them on the phone, it will not be any better in your home, while touching your things. A hoarding specialist needs to understand that until you trust them, there will be no progress and that can take days, weeks, or months. I have worked with people over the phone and through email for as long as 3 years before they allowed me in their home. But that is my job. Even if it takes years, I know that eventually I will give that person a completely new life and there is nothing more rewarding than that. Anyone that works with people suffering from hoarding behaviors should have this same belief. It takes patience, understanding and a little determination.

At the end of the day it all boils down to you, and how bad you want to change. Nobody can force change upon you and even if they try, it will fail. A clean house is only as good as the person living in it. Sure the house may need a lot of work, but the person living there needs just as much and probably more. Get to know the help that is available on this website and others, and when you are ready, make some calls and find someone that you can trust. You will know when you have found them, and your life will change drastically.

Cory Chalmers
Hoarding Specialist
Steri-Clean and 1-800-HOARDERS
1-800-462-7337 ext. 111