Why hoarding is a sanitation job
A hoarded unit reaches a point where the building itself is the problem. Health and Safety Code section 17920.3 lists infestation of insects, vermin or rodents as determined by a health officer, inadequate garbage and rubbish removal, and premises carrying an accumulation of junk, dead organic matter, debris, garbage, rodent harborages or combustible materials among the conditions that make a building substandard. Those are sanitation conditions, and they are what this work clears.
Needles come out of the contents before the contents come out of the unit. A hoarded room can hold sharps under bedding and among papers, and in a multifamily building they are home-generated sharps, which section 118286 keeps out of the roll-off a cleanout brings in. They are collected into a sharps container as the room is worked, before the hauling crew arrives.
Rodent droppings and nests are wetted before they are touched. The CDC's rodent clean-up method is to open all doors and windows for 30 minutes before starting, then to spray droppings, urine and nesting material with disinfectant, or with a solution of one and a half cups of household bleach in a gallon of water, and let them soak for five minutes or for the time the product's label gives. Sweeping and vacuuming are ruled out by the method.
The sanitation work and the volume work are two different jobs. Sharps, human and animal waste, droppings, nests and soiled absorbent items are cleared, and the surfaces beneath them are cleaned and disinfected. The sorting, carrying and hauling of everything that remains is junk removal's hoarding cleanout. Most hoarded units need both, in that order, because the sanitation half makes the rest safe to handle.
What hoarding cleanup includes
The unit is walked before anything is moved, with the sanitation items marked off from the belongings: where sharps are likely, where waste and droppings are, which rooms have absorbent material that cannot be saved, and which surfaces will need disinfecting once the contents are out.
Doors and windows are opened for 30 minutes before work starts where rodent evidence is present, and protective equipment is worn for sharps, waste and airborne material throughout.
Needles and anything else capable of cutting or piercing go into rigid, puncture-resistant, leakproof containers before the contents are handled, and broken glass is lifted mechanically.
Human and animal waste, soiled bedding, mattresses, upholstery and absorbent items that cannot be cleaned are bagged and taken out, with each category listed as it goes.
Droppings, urine and nesting material are soaked for five minutes or the label's time, then wiped up and bagged.
Floors, counters and fixtures under the cleared areas are cleaned and disinfected, and the record of what was removed goes to the owner or manager before hauling begins.
A hoarded unit is cleared in two passes. The sanitation pass takes out the sharps, the waste and the material holding it, and only then is the sorting and hauling of belongings safe to start.
Where hoarding cleanup is needed
Apartments and older rentals
A long-tenanted unit turns up sharps among the contents, and as home-generated sharps from a multifamily residence they stay out of the cleanout roll-off.
Older single-family houses
Deferred upkeep and years of accumulation bring the rodent and rubbish conditions the code lists, and the sanitation scope is set room by room.
Mobile homes and trailers
Small floor areas fill quickly, and the 30 minutes of ventilation is taken with every door and window in the coach open.
Garages, sheds and outbuildings
Storage buildings on a hoarded property are cleaned by the same method as the house, because nesting material collects wherever it is left undisturbed.
Farm dwellings and outbuildings
Rural properties see rodent infestation, and where there is evidence rodents have reached the heating and cooling ducts, an exterminating service removes the rodents first.
Vacated units before reletting
A unit handed back in that condition is cleaned on the sanitation side first, so the turnover crew and the hauler come to a safe space.
Questions about hoarding cleanup
Junk removal does. The split is deliberate: this page covers the sharps, the human and animal waste, the droppings and nests and the absorbent material holding them, and the sorting, carrying and hauling of everything else is a junk removal cleanout. Both are usually requested for the same unit, with the sanitation pass first.
They are never swept or vacuumed. Doors and windows are opened for half an hour first, then the droppings, urine and nesting material are sprayed with disinfectant, or with one and a half cups of household bleach to a gallon of water, left to soak for five minutes, and wiped up.
Sorting and keeping belongings is the cleanout side of the work, and the owner or the occupant decides. What this page removes is narrower: items soaked with waste or fluid, bedding and upholstery that cannot be cleaned, and anything holding sharps or nesting material.
Into a rigid, puncture-resistant, leakproof container on site, and out of the building in that container. Home-generated sharps, which include those from a multifamily residence, are kept out of trash, recycling, green waste and any roll-off by statute.
A unit with the sharps boxed, the waste and soiled absorbent items gone, the droppings and nests removed and the surfaces beneath them disinfected, and a written list of what left.
Hoarding cleanup by city
A hoarded unit is requested through the biohazard cleanup page for the city it is in, where the arrival window is set out.
Related biohazard cleanup services
