Learn How To Support A Hoarder As They Learn How To Overcome Their Compulsion To Hoard

9 April 2015
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Living with a hoarder can be quite stressful because you more than likely feel trapped when you are inside of your house. If you live with a hoarder who is willing to try to change their ways, you need to jump on the opportunity to have the house cleaned out, but need to do it in a way that will allow the hoarder to feel in control of the situation so that they do not relapse into their hoarding ways as soon as everything is out of the house. The following guide will walk you through the steps to helping your hoarder clean out the house.

Prepare for the Clean Out

The first step to cleaning out a hoard is preparing for the clean out process. You need to rent a dumpster to sit outside of your property so that you can easily throw the trash into it so that it can be hauled away immediately when the process is complete. Lay tarps in your front yard with signs labeling the sections donate, keep, and sell. As the person is going through the home, they can choose if the items are tossed in the dumpster, sold, donated, or kept for their own use.

Hire Professionals to Help

There are professional organization companies and junk removal companies that you can hire to make the process go a bit easier. The removal company will send individuals to the home to help with loading heavy pieces of junk into the dumpster. They will also be able to help with loading trash and anything else that needs to be hauled away. The organizer can help your loved one realize how they plan to organize the things they want to keep and that not everything has a use. Contact a company like A. Viera Disposal & Sanitation, Inc. for more information.

Support the Therapeutic Process

It will take a lot of time for your loved one to realize that not everything needs to be kept. They may need to go through therapy to figure out why they hoard, what sparks their hoarding, and what steps they need to take to control their hoarding. There is often a source of the hoarding, and finding it out is important.

Hoarding is not something that anyone chooses to do. It is a compulsion that the person may not know how to control. Through your help and intervention with professionals, your loved one can learn how to identify when they are getting a compulsion to hoard and learn how to avoid hoarding in the future.