I get paid to clean hoarder houses – clients are at risk of being buried alive

A WOMAN who gets paid to clean hoarder homes has revealed some of the most extreme cases she has encountered.

Victoria Gordon, 41, is a biohazard cleaner, which means she cleans up after extreme situations, such as crime scenes, hoarder houses or needle sweeps.

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“There’s nothing we won’t do,” she told Alex Light and Em Clarkson on their podcast Should I Delete That?

Victoria revealed in hoarder home situations that it is often not the hoarder themselves who call her, but other parties, such as social services or environmental health.

She often said that the hoarder doesn’t want the cleanup to happen, so she has to spend a lot of time gaining their trust.

“Some of the houses we go into are clearly not safe to live in. The risk of being buried alive is enormous,” she said.

“One time we were at a house and the lady was sitting in the living room while we were there [cleaning] and she wasn’t feeling well so she went upstairs to bed…

“One of the team members went to take some trash to the dumpster and she found herself at the bottom of the stairs under a pile of stuff.

‘She had tripped on the stairs, fallen backwards and landed under a huge pile of stuff that we hadn’t gotten to. [cleaning] yet.

“If we hadn’t been in the house, she probably would have died there, she would have been there for days or weeks,” Victoria said in the podcast.

The woman in question was “hoarding newspapers, magazines, newspapers, books, CDs.”

“Old paracetamol boxes, but everything had to be checked because we found thousands of pounds in a small paracetamol box, or notes filed away in a book,” she added.

Victoria shared an insight into the lifestyle of hoarders, explaining how they often isolate themselves from friends and family because they know they shouldn’t be living like this, and are often chased by a neighbor or someone coming to check the gas meter. .

The extreme cleaner explained that people often think hoarders are ‘lazy’, when in fact hoarding is a mental illness.

“It can be caused by all kinds of things, like trauma and grief,” she said.

Most people are also not open to the help. Victoria told how hoarders refuse to leave their homes while they are being cleaned, meaning she has to spend hours convincing them to throw away their belongings.

“Some haven’t thrown away trash in decades,” she says. “You can stay at home with some people for weeks if they are really resistant.”

In addition to newspapers, CDs and books, Victoria has also encountered hoarders who have saved urine and feces, while others refuse to suck up spider webs.

As a result, most hoarders suffer from rat and mouse infestations, which can lead to extreme health risks.

Victoria said the process of cleaning the houses can be very traumatic for the hoarders, which often makes her very sad.

She added that she sometimes has to return to the same house twice because hoarders often go back to their old habits.

“Sometimes it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a severed artery,” she said. “They don’t get any help with the actual mental health status.”

She said hoarders are often offered therapy but rarely take it, meaning their problem is not properly addressed.

When she first started this job, Victoria judged the hoarders, but now understands that they are really struggling and are often traumatized.

She said sometimes the hoarders don’t believe they deserve to live in a home Nice at home, which prevents them from cleaning their house.