Category: Hoarding Cleanup

4 Ways to Control Clutter in Your Home

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control clutter in your home

How many times have you left something uncleaned or messy in your home, thinking “I’ll worry about it tomorrow”? But when tomorrow comes, that same phrase is repeated, and eventually you’ve sort of put yourself in an endless cycle. This has happened to almost everyone, especially when their focus is cluttered by work or school.

While RestoPros understands that Dallas/Ft. Worth homeowners may not have all the time in the world to deep-clean their homes, we do recommend practicing proactive cleanliness. Cluttered homes only get dirtier as time progresses, and they can eventually be victim to mold growth if they go unmanaged.

We have detailed 4 tips to control clutter in your Dallas/Ft. Worth home.

1. Have Specific Locations for Each Item

Organization is one of the key solutions for a messy home. Creating designated spaces for important documents, office supplies, tools, cables, and other items makes finding items easier. This also helps prevent clutter in your home.

2. Donate Items You No Longer Use or Want

Don’t hold onto items, thinking they’ll be of some use later. If you haven’t used it in three months to a year, it’s time for it to go. Consider selling these items, giving them away to friends or family, or donating them.

Donating valuables such as clothes, blankets, pillows, movies, video games, canned food, or even electronics can be a great way to both give to those in need and reduce clutter in your home. Additionally, donating is easy to do. Just find local center that accepts your valuables.

3. Clean Messes as Soon as They Occur

Right now, your first habit when a mess is made might be to put cleaning off until later. Create a new habit: Clean the mess as soon as it’s made. Cleaning the mess in that moment may seem draining, but it creates less trouble for you in the long-run.

The longer you wait to clean a mess, the worse it can become. A simple dirty dish can lead to a pile-up in the sink, which may take several hours to clean if you’re doing it by hand. Save time and create a cleaner living space with this new habit.

4. Minimize Paper Usage

A few small piles of paper can turn into stacks upon stacks of unorganized documents if you’re not careful.

We recommend minimizing your paper usage as much as possible to help avoid clutter. This can be done by switching to digital filing for most situations that require paper, such as receipts, monthly newsletters, bank statements, and other documents.

Help reduce clutter in your Dallas/Ft. Worth home by following these tips! And if you’ve discovered any instance of mold while removing clutter, contact RestoPros for our mold remediation services. Give us a call at 855-587-3786 to schedule an appointment and get started.

Related Links

Quick Tips to Stop Hoarding Before it Starts – The Spruce

Healthier Homes Lead to Healthier Families – City of Fort Worth, Texas

 

Signs of Hoarding

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It is essential that a home is clean for both the health and psychological well-being of a household. At RestoPros, we know the detrimental effects of a home that has been neglected. In addition to trauma cleanup, odor removal and blood decontamination and cleanup, we also offer hoarding cleanup. Reclaiming a home after it has been compromised by hoarding can be a long and difficult process. Sometimes a home will have fallen into such disrepair that it requires a complete remodel to ensure the safety of its occupants.

Are you currently living in a home that might be impacted by a person with the obsessive-compulsive anxiety disorder known as hoarding? The symptoms of hoarding are not always easily detectable as they manifest and grow over a period of time. Read over this list for common signs of hoarding – and take action if they reflect the personal habits of yourself or a loved one.

Rooms Are Unusable If your home contains rooms that are no longer usable because of the amount of clutter, this is one key sign of a hoarding issue. Boxes stacked to the ceiling, stacks of newspapers and piles of random products and refuse are standard impediments in the home of a hoarder.

No Organization to the Clutter There are some people who are better described as “pack rats,” who keep collections or keepsakes in organized storage. A hoarder has no clear organization to the clutter in their home. However, the association with the clutter and where it is located does often become a point of obsession.

Hoarded Items Have No Value Most of the clutter in the home of a hoarder has no real value. Common signs of compulsive hoarding include keeping newspapers, junk mail, magazines, old clothes and broken electronics and appliances. This is in addition to collections of debris that could be described as trash: fast food bags and boxes, spoiled food and other products used with food.

Unwillingness to Give Up Items A hoarder has an unhealthy attachment to items of no value. They will refuse to give up objects that have no real monetary or sentimental worth – which sometimes includes trash and organic debris. Bags of trash will often accumulate because they are reticent to throw them away. One of the most telling signs is a home filled with bags of garbage that have begun to spoil.

Lots of Pets Sometimes the obsessive-compulsive behavior associated with hoarding will manifest in a large collection of pets. Aside from the animals creating more trash (and spreading the clutter around), there are often more animals than can safely be cared for. This is a particularly unhealthy situation as pet debris and waste can contain bacteria that can promote disease and exacerbate allergies.

The Home is Becoming Unsanitary Living in a home that is filled with clutter, trash and organic debris can lead to unsanitary conditions. A hoarder is more likely to stop cleaning dishes, the bathroom, washing clothes and other basic tasks that keep a home clean. This not only affects the psychological well-being of the household, but is also an extremely unhealthy environment.

Increased Social Isolation/Defensiveness Another common sign of hoarding is increased isolation, which is usually impacted by the state of the home. A hoarder will try to keep people from coming inside the house by making excuses about the mess. They will sometimes disengage from friends and family; a byproduct of depression and an unaccommodating home. They can also be very defensive about their living conditions – and any suggestion of change.

If you or someone you know are dealing with these common signs of hoarding, seek help right away. Remember that RestoPros offers complete cleanup services for homes affected by hoarding and similar issues. Call us at 855-587-3786 to schedule an assessment with our cleaning professionals today!

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