You may think a ‘filthy pig’ made this disgusting mess in their kitchen. The trolls call hoarders all sorts of horrible names. But I know the truth

The smell is unbearable and the mess is staggering – but a top cleaner says sprucing up hoarder homes like this is the ‘most rewarding’ job she’s ever done.

Arlene Jayne Batefrom Victoria, was forced to quit her corporate job in 2019 and didn’t know where her career would take her.

“I had a bit of a nervous breakdown,” Ms Bate said.

‘I had a burnout and didn’t want to return to the corporate world.’

But eventually she found purpose in helping people who have “lost” control of their homes and have not been able to properly maintain their properties for years.

Many tend to judge hoarders unfairly – because they cannot see beyond the accumulation of dirt and waste – but Ms Bate understands that this is the symptom of a complex mental health problem.

“The general perception is that hoarders are lazy slobs, which is far from the truth,” the cleaning professional said.

‘We’re getting thousands of comments on our social media pages with people calling them ‘filthy pigs’ and all kinds of horrible names.

“But what most people don’t realize is that hoarding is often a condition usually caused by some kind of trauma.”

Such triggers range from a death in the family to physical injury.

Mrs. Bate, running now Mrs. Muscle Cleansinghas worked hard to dismantle harmful stereotypes about hoarders and rebrand them as “hoarders” to alleviate the stigma.

Sometimes collecting is a learned behavior.

For example, Ms. Bate has had clients who grew up in a collector’s home and then became collectors because that’s the only way they can make a living.

“People don’t live this way because they want to, or because they’re lazy,” Ms. Bate said.

Ms. Bate gave an example of a young man she helped a few months ago.

‘He lived with his mother and they had agreed that no matter what, he would not send her to an old people’s home. But unfortunately, she developed dementia and it became a challenge to care for her alone.

‘Eventually he decided to put his mother in an assisted living facility, and the first night she was really horrible to him. The mother was not lucid, she was not in the right state of mind – she told him that she hated him and that she would never forgive him.

‘The client went home after the argument and his mother died that same night.

“That traumatic event triggered his hoarding and he started collecting things he thought his mother would like.”

Ms Bate admitted that hoarding can be fatal.

“Hoarders live in an environment that poses a fire hazard,” she said. ‘

Many home fires are not caused by the condition of the home, but because it is messy.’

There are different types of hoarding and patients collect items for different reasons, Ms Bate said.

Sometimes it’s because they have an emotional bond. For example, the cleaners enter a house where there are a lot of baby clothes, even though the residents have no grandchildren.

“They think they’re going to have grandchildren and they want to be prepared,” she explained.

‘It’s difficult to work with the customer in those circumstances, because those things are not necessary now.

‘Then you have those who collect things that might come in handy one day, like jam jars. If someone has an empty one, he cannot throw it away because he can fill it with something in the future and give it away. There is no way to get rid of that item.”

Sometimes customers become obsessive about an item.

“They may have a can of beans, but they want to be able to see all four sides of it, so they buy three more and put them together on a shelf.”

The cleaning company’s longest job lasted 200 hours and lasted more than a month.

‘We advise our customers during every step of the process. We have two people work with a client to clear out items in their home that they don’t need. Normally we carry out a large-scale emptying and then a deep, industrial cleaning.

‘Another approach is called the ‘get sh*t done’ method. We go in, take out all the trash, remove everything in the house. There is no customer intervention, we just clean until the house shines again.

“But the other form of hoarding is when you can’t clear everything out, because it causes additional trauma and can worsen the disease.”

Ms Bate also revealed it is a myth that hidden treasures are often found under piles of belongings.

‘What collectors have usually has no value. They collect cardboard boxes, old newspapers, furniture from the street, empty jars, cans of beans.’

The one thing Bate always encounters when she’s cleaning out houses are spiders.

“There aren’t always cockroaches or other insects or rodents, but there are always hundreds of spiders,” she said.

“We just worked on a house where hundreds of redbacks came running out.

‘We found dozens of nests everywhere, dark and dirty everywhere. On the back of a laundry basket, under the trash on the floor, they were literally everywhere.”

Ms Bate and her team move the spiders when they can, but that is not always possible.

Despite the hard work and difficulties, Bate revealed that she far prefers cleaning collective housing over simple household chores.

“In my opinion, domestic clients are much more demanding and are never satisfied with the work you do,” she said.

‘They are often not grateful for the hard work involved in cleaning, unlike our hoarders.

‘Now I know we provide a service that allows customers to make a huge positive change in their lives. You don’t get the same satisfaction from working as a domestic helper.

‘I like that we provide an environment where clients can move from a life of chaos to a life of peace and tranquility. Hopefully the transition in their home will allow them to incorporate that into the challenges they encounter in their daily lives.”