Not all hoarding situations require professional hoarding clean up services like we offer here at Clean Earth Restorations. Depending on the amount of belongings and the presence or not of bio-hazards in a home, you may decide to do the clean up yourself. Here are a few recommendations from San Diego’s hoarding clean up pros for how to approach small-time, non-biohazard hoarding on your own.
1) Have a sorting strategy
When sorting through a large number of belongings, you might become overwhelmed with making decisions on what to do with them. Decide ahead of time what your choices will be and then make sure each object is allocated to one of those choices. For instance: keep, donate, trash, or recycle.
2) Bring the right tools and materials
Make sure to bring cleaning gloves, face masks for dust, heavy-duty trash bags and empty boxes, a bucket, grease-cutting detergent, Lysol, sponges, rags, a broom, a dust pan, a mop, a vacuum or a shop vac, and bug spray. Wear clothing that covers your arms and legs as well as closed-toe shoes.
3) Have a gameplan
As it’s likely you will spend more than a few hours (or days!) cleaning, it’s a good idea to start with the bathroom first as you will no doubt need it at one point or another!
Having a game plan will help you get the job done. Decide before you start when you’d like to finish. Try to spread out the work evenly over the number of days you have and give yourself time to rest and refresh yourself as this kind of work can be very physically and emotionally draining.
4) Arrange pick ups
If you know you will be getting rid of useful items that could go to local charities, call them in advance and see if they have pick up service and what their schedule is. The faster you get items removed, the more momentum your project will take on.
5) Call the pros if needed
At Clean Earth Restorations we offer hoarding clean up services as well as other services that may be useful in hoarding situations such as carpet cleaning or replacement, mold and bio-hazard remediation, and other general contracting services that could be useful for those with dealing with a hoarding situation.
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