Cleaning Tips for Hoarders

This article will share four cleaning tips for hoarders to help organize your space. For the most part, we all have some clutter somewhere. Maybe it’s in your car, home, office space, or even a little bit in each place, which is a normal part of life.

However, that’s an entirely different ball game when it comes to hoarding. That’s a situation where clutter is taken to the 1000th degree! While hoarding has a psychological component and how that happens, we aren’t delving into that. We’ll leave that to the professionals in that space.

Cleaning Tips for Hoarders: Step-by-Step

Only handle an object one time

You might tend to pick an item up and put it aside “for now” as you’re cleaning, but we want to encourage you to fight this urge. As you’re sorting through your things, make a mental note to handle an item only ONCE!

Now, you might be wondering why this is important. Well, if you place something off to the side and plan on returning to it later, you could do one of two things: talk yourself out of getting rid of it or forget about it entirely. Have boxes labeled: keep, trash, and sell or donate at your disposal so you don’t have to think twice.

Then as you’re going through everything, place the different things in the appropriate box.

Draw out a Plan

Deciding where to start cleaning a cluttered house can easily overwhelm you, so start by drawing out a game plan. We recommend working in incremental steps so that nothing feels too much. For instance, start with the bedrooms, move to the bathrooms, and end with the common areas like the living room and kitchen.

If you’re feeling stressed, step back and start even smaller, with something like the clothes or cleaning the dishes.

 Cleaning Tips for Hoarders: Boxes

Put unsure items into a box.

There might be an item that you can’t decide whether or not to keep. Have a separate box to store things you can’t determine what to do with. Once finished, put the box off to the side and keep it for only SIX MONTHS. During that time, if you never retrieved an item(s) from that box, you know you don’t need them and can let it go. If you use an item, pull it out, and eliminate anything you didn’t use.

Donate, Donate, Donate

Not everything is meant to be thrown away or recycled – you can sometimes easily find a new home for things you no longer want or need. For example, the items that you didn’t use during the six-month test are items that you could donate. We understand it can be hard to get rid of things, but if you haven’t used them, allow them to find a new home somewhere else where the owners will enjoy and cherish them.

After using our cleaning tips for hoarders, upkeep by using our Professional House Cleaning Services                 

Keep your home clean, managed, and organized with Diamond Maids. Check out our website to learn about our professional house cleaning services.