There are some essential best practices that professional restoration providers should adhere to when remediating a hoarding environment. Safety should be the primary concern, communicating with fire, police and other authorities to understand the potential hazards prior to the cleanup. The project manager and the team should consider the possible presence of biological hazards, including animal or human feces, mold, bacteria, insects and blood-borne pathogens. For this reason alone, everyone should wear full personal protective equipment (PPE) throughout the entire project. Additionally, the restoration company should provide full training to their teams on biohazard cleanups for employees annually. Provide employees post-exposure evaluations and follow up with medical personnel in the case of an exposure incident. Have an emergency process and plan established well before hoarding mitigation services are offered, and create a staging area.
Hoarding is such an attention-grabbing topic; that’s why they make TV shows about it. The term hoarding means to “gather something in large quantity.” More specifically, the disorder that has been named hoarding is defined as “a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them.” There are many types of harmless hoarders out there. As restoration partner to our clients, doing a thorough, professional job for everyone is the goal regardless of the conditions.