3 Tools You Need To Help Clean Out The Home Of A Deceased Hoarder
Posted on: 6 February 2015
Sorting through and cleaning out household items and personal belongings in a deceased relative's home is a large job to handle. When that deceased relative is a hoarder as well, the job is much larger. Here are three tools you will need so you can be ready to tackle the worst hoarding clean-up job.
Exterminator
When a deceased relative's home is full of decades of possessions, it creates an environment where mice, cockroaches, and other pests can live. Because the space is so cluttered, pests have plenty of areas to live, thrive, and multiply. With so much clutter it would also be hard for an exterminator to successfully treat the home, if the homeowner were to call one. So, you will most likely need to call an exterminator to treat the hoarder's home for mice, cockroaches and other pests.
Cockroaches can multiply at an amazing rate if they are not exterminated from a hoarder's home. A German cockroach can have up to one million eggs in her 100-day life. Cockroaches are tough survivors as they can live for up to six weeks without eating. But, they will eat almost anything, including leather, paper, soap, grease, and wallpaper paste. So, even if the hoarder keeps all their food items cleaned up, an established colony of cockroaches can live off the piles of other items in the home.
Mice and rats in a hoarder's home bring in diseases you don't want to have to worry about while you are cleaning out the home. Mice and rats carry hantavirus, leptospirosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, and the Plague. It may take an exterminator several days and many treatments, but they can clean out some of the worst pest infestations.
Roll Off Dumpster
While you clean out the entire contents of the hoarder's home, you will be throwing away large amount of trash, clothing, and broken furniture. Anything that cannot be kept, recycled, or donated needs to get thrown away. Hoarders keep items in any state of disrepair as they consider the item to still have value. So, you will need one or more large dumpers for all the trash you will find.
A roll off dumpster is a great solution for this large amount of trash because you can call to order the number of dumpsters you will need for the cleanup. Dumpsters are sized by their cubic yard capacity and can range in size from 8 cubic yards to 40 cubic yards, depending on the dumpster company's availability. The company will deliver the dumpsters to the property, then haul them away to be emptied once they are filled up. So, you don't have to worry about taking truck loads of trash to the city dump and emptying them yourself.
Visit http://www.tri-statedisposal.com/ to learn more about roll off dumpster options.
Protective Clothing
When you clean the home of a deceased hoarder who was diabetic or on a medication taken subcutaneously with syringes, you should look out for used sharps. If you are not careful and get stuck by a used needle, you could be at risk of contracting a blood-borne disease such as HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C.
If you encounter any evidence of medical waste, it is important to take safety precautions when cleaning them up. Wear thick rubber gloves, heavy shoes or boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. Seal off used sharps in a thick plastic or metal container as you find them and dispose of them with a local medical waste company.
If you feel overwhelmed by the amount of medical waste in the home, you can hire the services of a bio hazard clean-up company. They can professionally clean up and remove from the home any dangerous medical sharps.
Using these three tools, you can clean up the worst hoarding situations.
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