Hey Tillie,

Yeah I would love to do it full time. :D

Even though it got a little stressful at times, I really enjoyed helping them. My aunt's parents were amazing. They let a lot of things go and they never really complained a lot. The only time they really got frustrated was when my uncle tried to make them throw away some stuff that they wanted to keep.

I know that every hoarder and every hoarded house is different. So if someone asks me to clean another house, I know that that hoarder might not be as cooperative as my aunt's parents were. But I'm up for any challenge and I hope that I will get to clean another hoarded house soon. :)

So MayMay
Do you think you would like to do this kind of work full time?

I know from my experiences that I wouldn't. ;)

I was tricked into decluttering someone's squalorous house about 15 years ago.
When I got done with them they have never dared to neglect housework ever again. :D

Before that I was nagged by a Fireman to help someone clean up their house so he could get his children back.
The 5 young boys started a fire in their bedroom bathroom.
Only the bedroom/bath were damaged.
The fear caused the mother to go into premature labor.
The children were placed in my care.
The house was terribly cluttered & had lots of garbage and bugs.
I had to motivate & instruct the father to get it clean and repaired in order to get that Fireman to quit bugging me. :D lol
The kids were returned and mother & new baby boy were fine.

These cases were not my friends but friends of Steven's.

I just got back from a 2 week trip to Seattle. I went to Seattle to help my aunt and uncle clean out my aunt's parent's level 5 hoarded home. The trip was definitely a shocking experience. I remember when my uncle first showed me pictures of the house, I was totally shocked by what I saw. But when I actually went into the house for the first time, it was even worse than the photos. The smell was awful, I could barely walk through both the front and back doors, and all of the bathrooms in the house were so full of dirty adult diapers that I couldn't even enter them. There were bugs crawling all throughout the kitchen because of all the old rotted food laying around. And they had to sleep in the hallway because they couldn't get into any of the bedrooms. The whole time I was walking through the house I was in total shock and disbelief. I kept thinking to myself about how sad and scary it must be to live this way. :(

The day after I walked through the house I came up with a plan for the clean-up. I talked with my aunt and uncle about me redoing some rooms for my aunt's parents, but they told me that it wouldn't be necessary because her parents will be going into a nursing home soon. :(

Even though the clean-up was very exhausting, it went really well. It definitely went better than I thought it would. There was a little bit of arguing between my uncle and my aunt's parents, but nothing big enough to have to shut the clean-up down. We got rid of a lot of stuff. We totally cleaned out all of the bathrooms and we cleaned out the kitchen too; so there are no more bugs crawling all around the kitchen. We cleaned out and got rid of a lot of stuff from all of the bedrooms. We also cleaned out the living room and the hallways. :)

Even though the house is now clean, my aunt's parents are still living with my aunt and uncle right now because they will be going into the nursing home soon.