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I eventually paid back my debt and I haven’t gambled since, but I know what it feels like to be lonely and miserable, and to turn to something that feels good at the moment but is ultimately destructive. Timothy’s situation felt more than a little familiar to me and I found myself wishing I could have met the guy and talked with him about it.

With the estate sale completed and after a final cleanup of what was left behind, I started looking for another messy house to clean.

The second job was referred to me by a social worker in a nearby county. She had a case in which a woman in her mid-forties, Aimee, was living in a terrible state of squalor. She was all but confined to her bed, where she slept, ate, and went to the bathroom by leaning off the side of the mattress. The place had been officially condemned by the county, and since there was some funding to clean it up, the social worker, who had seen a copy of my flyer that said no case was too extreme, called us in. She did give us fair warning that it would really test the limits of our claim. And she was right: The whole place stank from rotting food, urine, and feces. During our first visit to Aimee’s house, the social worker gave us the background on this case—and it was the first time I heard the word “hoarder.”

I went home and started researching hoarding. The disorder was fascinating because I could relate to a lot of the feelings and experiences that a hoarder goes through. I knew I could really help these people in need.

As my two buddies and I cleaned her house, we talked with Aimee, asking about her life. She admitted that she had rejected everyone because of her hoarding. Although she didn’t want us in her home, she was happy to know that someone was interested in her story, and I wanted to find out more about her—and about the phenomenon of hoarding.

Since Aimee, I’ve had hundreds of hoarding clients, ranging from people who just have a cluttered garage that they want to get under control, to those with entire houses overflowing with trash, feces, animals (alive and dead), and vermin.

I didn’t set out to be an extreme cleaning specialist. What hooked me was learning that hoarders are people with serious issues, and that only a few of their life decisions or events separate me from them. What if I hadn’t been able to pay back my bookie? What if he had broken more than my nose? What if my friend hadn’t loaned me his couch for a few months when I was down on my luck? I could have ended up like any of the clients I work with, or worse.

I have learned that hoarders don’t love the way they live. I see them struggling to clean up but just not having the means or the willpower to get it done. Maybe their families don’t understand them, or perhaps they have an untreated mental illness that blocks the path to staying clean.

After years of working with hoarders, I’ve figured out how to make sense of their world because I understand the hard times they’ve experienced. I can get them talking about their issues and help them straighten out their houses—and their lives. I’m not a therapist, but I work closely with experienced psychologists like Dr. Suzanne Chabaud, who specializes in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and hoarding at her clinic in New Orleans; Dr. Robin Zasio, who runs the Compulsive Hoarding Center in Sacramento, California; Dr. Lisa Hale, who heads the Kansas City Center for Anxiety Treatment; Dr. Renae Reinardy, head of the Lakeside Center for Behavioral Change in Fargo, North Dakota; and Dr. Elizabeth Moore and other specialists at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut.

The bottom line is that hoarders are good people who are struggling with difficult issues. To move toward recovery they need love and help, not ridicule. That doesn’t mean we don’t talk about their issues. Hoarders aren’t stupid, and they know that what they are doing is a problem. But threatening, bullying, and issuing ultimatums aren’t going to prod them to clean up. They want to de-clutter, but they can’t unless they have