The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [47]
If there are a lot of pets in a house, animal control people may be a necessary part of the team to make sure the dogs, cats, birds, snakes, or other pets are taken to a shelter where they have food and space. There, they can be evaluated for health problems and given medical care. If the hoarder can’t care for the pets after the cleanup, then animal control has the resources to find them good homes.
The Police
There are many circumstances before and during a cleanup that might involve the police. When we were working with Marcie, the shopaholic whose husband turned out to be abusive, things came to a head when the husband took a swing at me. It seems that he didn’t take too kindly to his wife’s realization that part of her hoarding problem may have stemmed from his abusive behavior. After that, we decided that if we were to return to the house, we’d need some police oversight. As it turned out, he beat us to the punch: Marcie’s husband took out a restraining order preventing us from coming back to the house.
Don, on the other hand presented a very different sort of situation that required police intervention. An overweight, ex-military guy who had retired from his civilian job working in security, Don had suffered a heart attack but managed to call 911. After the emergency services crew picked him up and got him to the hospital, they called county officials about the house, which was in a terrible state. A few months later, county officials called in my cleaning crew. Almost immediately we found a loaded handgun underneath a pile of clothing. Don admitted that one wasn’t the only weapon in the house, so we stopped cleaning and called the police. They discovered seventeen guns and thousands of rounds of live ammunition. We then continued our work, only to uncover more ammunition and weapons, and we had to periodically call the police back in to handle the situation.
Will’s case was equally troubling. He was a hoarder recovering from surgery who needed his house cleaned out enough to allow home health care to get in and help him. We began cleaning and almost immediately started finding pornography. That’s not unusual; we find all sorts of private things when we clean, and we are usually very discreet. Will was apparently obsessed with famous cartoon characters. He had a vast collection of mermaid drawings and other characters, all in revealing and compromising positions.
The deeper we got into the house, the more disturbing the pornography became: child pornography and snapshots of Will with girls who looked underage. This went beyond “private” into illegal, and so we were compelled to call the police. Will ended up recovering from his surgery while serving a three-year prison sentence.
Police are valuable members of the team whenever there is violence, or the threat of violence. And they are mandatory when there is dangerous or illegal activity, including drugs, firearms, child pornography, or abuse.
▶ Professional Cleaners and Junk Removers
The worse the hoarding case, the less likely family members or friends can handle the cleanup themselves. Professional cleaning services can be involved to whatever extent necessary, from simply hauling away trash to cleaning the entire house and arranging for specialized support, including therapy. A reputable cleaning company trains its staff to handle everything from hazardous waste to valuables as well as to work appropriately with the hoarder or other helpers.
If a family feels that they can handle the work themselves, then they can still hire the cleaning service to create a plan and a list of necessary materials. Or they can work alongside the professionals. But if a house shows signs of a high level of hoarding, the unsafe conditions may require the