Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. Excessive accumulation of items, regardless of actual value, occurs.
Hoarding often creates such cramped living conditions that homes may be filled to capacity, with only narrow pathways winding through stacks of clutter. Counter tops, sinks, stoves, desks, stairways and virtually all other surfaces are usually piled with stuff. And when there's no more room inside, the clutter may spread to the garage, vehicles, yard and other storage facilities.
Hoarding ranges from mild to severe. In some cases, hoarding may not have much impact on your life, while in other cases it seriously affects your functioning on a daily basis.
People with hoarding disorder may not see it as a problem, making treatment challenging. But intensive treatment can help people with hoarding disorder understand how their beliefs and behaviors can be changed so that they can live safer, more enjoyable lives.
Signs and symptoms may include:
Excessive acquiring and refusing to discard items results in:
People with hoarding disorder typically save items because:
We have a lot of experience helping people with Hoarding Disorder. We take a gentle, compassionate approach to helping our clients. It is important to understand that this is a mental disorder and not just a "want" to keep things.
We understand that people have become attached to their items, and simply "throwing them away" is not an option.
We work with the client to scale back items inside the home, often storing items off site when recycling or donating them is not an option.
Working with fire departments, health authorities and family members, we are able to get our client's homes back into a safe, healthy living condition while keeping the client's privacy and emotional attachments at the forefront of every move we make.
We take full advantage of the "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle" method when dealing with issues around hoarding. It is often a very slow process at first, however we have found that over time dealing with the same client, building that trust we can start to make progress quicker and quicker with each visit. We understand that the first couple visits may not be as productive as later ones, dealing with hoarding is a long, ongoing process that needs to be approached gently. If you move too fast you could lose the trust of the person and then you will no longer be able to help.
Our teams are patient and trained in all aspects of Hoarding Cleanups. Give us a call today if you or someone you know is suffering with a Hoarding Disorder.
OUR PROCESS
1. Visit with the client. We ask that a trusted family member or community advocate be with us if possible. This can help with us gaining trust with the client as they will have someone present that they are comfortable with.
This first visit will just be a talk with the client, we will gain valuable information about what the need for our service is. Is it ordered by the fire department? Is the client at risk of losing their home due to unsafe conditions? Is a family member concerned? What is the level of willingness to cooperate with us to remove items off premises to storage or donation/recycling centers.
2. We put together a plan of action. This will give the client a timeline of work to be done, how many visits we anticipate we will need to meet the client's goal. Along with this we will include the cost per visit/per hour or as a whole. Depending on what the needs are of the client.
3. Put our plan of action into motion. We will provide updates after each visit to the client and/or family member/community advocate.
4. Once the plan has been completed, we will then offer some advice going forward to
keep the client's space in the condition we have left it. This could include monthly/quarterly visits from us to help with any new items brought in, or just to keep an eye on things and make sure they don't get out of control again. We will provide reports of these visits.
We are as discreet and compassionate as possible, we know this process can be traumatic and we do everything we can to alleviate the stress to our clients.
Team of 2 specialists
Recycling, Storage, Donation of items - Per Cubic Yard, in addition to the above hourly rate
Storage fees vary depending on length of time and space needed
Health Authorities, Fire Departments, Community Advocates - Please Contact Us for a Quote
We understand that finances are not always available to pay for our services. We will work with the client to come up with a solution. Often there is funding available through community and government organizations, in some cases we can offer in-house financing solutions.
Our priority is to help the client live in a safe, healthy environment.
