Think you may know a hoarder? Many of us can name someone, or somebody in their life who has a tendency to collect a massive amount of random stuff in their home. This stuff is mostly an awful lot of everything that comes from the stores and the street skip bins.
Basically, just floor-to-ceiling piles of rubbish that can range from two-metres wide to six feet high. This can include shopping bags, mixed in with rotting food and cat urine. And rubbish like that doesn’t happen overnight. It becomes this big secret, a giant burden of shame and resentment. Perhaps, you don’t need to hold your breath on this one. You personally know someone who is a hoarder, and you know that person needs help.
Is hoarding a global concern? Yes, it is. There are over 14 million hoarders in the United States. In the United Kingdom there are over 1.2 million people afflicted by hoarding. With the current Australian population at just over 25 million people, a significant 2% of the total populace has a hoarding problem. That is over 482,600 people who are afflicted by hoarding (source: University of New South Wales’ School of Psychology on Radio National Australia). Hoarding can affect anyone from all socio-economic groups in Australia; there are hoarders who are extremely wealthy professionals, academics, successful people with careers, tradesmen, celebrity families and people with disabilities in the mix. Hoarding doesn’t discriminate.
Hoarding is a psychiatric condition. Once lumped alongside obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), now with its notoriety in popular culture, medical and legal cases; the disorder has its own distinct category now. Hoarding is officially defined as a “persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value.”
For a hoarder, there is great distress associated with discarding accumulated possessions. People who have trouble parting with their stuff have often lost the basic insight on how grave their situation is. These people literally live in rubbish and refuse to see it.
But at the deeper level, hoarding is a complicated life issue. The onset of hoarding is often aligned with traumatic life events, such as:
Hoarders pose health and safety risks not just to themselves, but also to the general community. Children and animals are often the unfortunate victims living among hoarders. Councils have now taken a strict stance towards hoarding and squalor, due to deaths that have arisen in the past years. Such is the case with an elderly woman living with 488 cats, most of which were dead among her rubbish piles. The hoarder fire that razed a duplex in Sydney.
There’s also the unfortunate case of a young boy in Melbourne living with hoarder parents who died of an infected foot because he had stepped on an open can of tuna. Because of these cases, city councils are now trained in identifying hoarders and they are now prompted to take action when a hoarding case is reported in the community.
To avoid any more unwarranted loss of lives, forced clean-outs under a timeframe are imposed. This necessitates family members to mobilise quick and massive rubbish removals just to make sure their loved one doesn’t lose their home, get institutionalised or incur fines by the city council. Sometimes it’s more than that, family members remain hopeful the hoarder would finally be open to changing their behaviour and ways.
Honestly, it’s hard to stay optimistic about a clean-up if you’re living with a hoarder- or if you are aware you are suffering as one. The idea of cleaning up all the rubbish out can test everyone’s mettle to the limit. For families suffering under the hoarding umbrella, there’s a toxic mixture of disgust, resentment, frustration, disbelief and anger, all at once. That aside, the biggest advice for family members before undertaking a hoarding rubbish removal is to be very patient and understanding of the hoarder.
Like any mental illness, hoarding should have a long term treatment plan addressed by a professional therapist, coupled if possible with a professional organiser who can facilitate clean-ups over a period of time. Therapy is important because it addresses the internal emotional issues and the trauma experienced by the hoarder while a professional organiser helps in the decision-making process of the hoarder, making sure the clean-up moves forward. Without therapy, all attempts to clean up the home will fail. The hoarder will only fall back into old habits or escalate the current hoarding situation with new rubbish piles.
As uncomfortable as it makes everyone in the family feel, you need to stage an intervention; you need to gently ease the hoarder to discuss the squalor issue. Frequent visits to the home to check in on them and to say ‘Hi!’ is a good start. Do not start a conversation with a hoarder in an aggressive or blaming manner. This will only escalate their denial and hoarding.
Often a hoarder suffers from ‘clutter blindness’. A term used to describe their amazing ability to consider the clutter as a normal way of living. The condition of the property is is seen by them as not being a problem. This is the worst kind of denial because clutter blindness enables the hoarder to live in filth, literally living in an environment littered in excrement and the stink of decomposing rotting things. Only when the person starts to openly talk about the hoarding as a problem, it is then a sign that they are ready for change and are open to being helped.
If they feel they are not judged, they can start reclaiming their lives. The hoarder can then start loving family members more than their stuff. If you can’t refrain from saying your thoughts out loud, get a therapist involved during your talks with the hoarder, do a therapy group session, so you can say all your honest feelings that the hoarder needs to hear as well.
Hoarding affects not just the hoarder but everyone within their living radius. A therapist can help everyone validate their feelings and address the issues brought about by the hoarding, without family members getting into each other’s throats or escalating the resentment into physical altercations. Unbelievably, hoarders will fight tooth and nail to keep their accumulated objects, even if these are unsanitary or dangerous objects such as rusty knives, used syringes, discarded nappies and dead pets.
Cleaning a hoarder’s house has to be done on their own terms. Hoarders have this anxious need to know what item goes out the door and into the skip bin. A technique used by professional organisers is to take time to sort out the clutter with the hoarder’s permission, and they ask the hoarder if they are willing to let go of the said object. By empowering the hoarder to make that decision to let things go, the hoarder can acquire that behavioural pattern of slowly letting go of things on their own, without being prodded. Initially, it may be a slow or time-consuming process, even painstaking with tears shed here and there, but it’s one of the most effective ways to clean out the hoard and change the mindset of the hoarder to see rubbish for what it is.
Buying impulsively is one of the main sources of the clutter. When the money starts to run out, hoarders can turn to scavenging through skip bins. The idea of bringing home someone else’s filth and rubbish into your own home is indeed appalling. But hoarders can’t help themselves if they are lost in this fog of acquiring, spending and collecting. This cycle of acquiring can be put under control through proper behavioural and cognitive therapies. You have to reinforce the idea with the hoarder that a day at the shopping mall doesn’t mean a day out for shopping. You can do other family activities such as dining out or watching a movie together, it doesn’t have to be all about shopping. Here you are helping the hoarder gain some self-control and curb the impulse to splurge.
A hoarder’s receptiveness to cleaning up fluctuates from day to day, but you can help the hoarder gain positive feelings about cleaning and you can build on that sense of positivity over time. Know that affirmative and constructive comments help rewire the brain networks. Consider it a gentle nudge to accept cleaning rubbish as a positive experience. Ask questions like – How do you feel about this item? Would you allow me to give it to charity, to someone who needs it more? Remember when you gave me this gift for Christmas? Maybe I can give it to someone for the holidays?
Questions like these help create more self-awareness about the hoarding and can help you gauge the emotional state of the hoarder about the object. Remember that these objects you are sorting through with them often represents who they were, who they once aspired to be and the possible futures they felt they needed these objects for. Resistance to throw these things away will happen constantly, often checking on each of the little things to toss out which can derail a clean-up. But with helpful comments, such as “I understand how difficult this is” and “I think you’re being brave right now letting go of this doll” are just small touches of support that matter a lot.
There are many legal issues as well when it comes to hoarding. A neighbour might have filed a court case, council may demand a site assessment with regards to the level of squalor, and the fire department might want to inspect the structural integrity of the house. Cooperate by all means, and tell the authorities that you are working on the problem with the hoarder and that your family has sought medical intervention as well with a therapist. Ask for deadline extensions if possible so as to not rush the clean-up and therapy.
If the hoarder is facing eviction or a number of serious legal cases such as property disputes, criminal charges such as neglect and animal cruelty, or high council fines get a lawyer involved for the hoarding relative. A hoarder will often take no action and ignore real world issues unless the authorities are banging on the door with the rubbish removalists. A forced clean-up by council, home demolition or forced eviction is often emotionally tragic for the hoarder; if possible, it should be the last remedy to a hoarding situation.
Cleaning out a hoarder’s house is a massive operation. Anyone’s family, no matter how noble or willing, can’t do it alone. There’s just too much clutter to deal with.
There are four support systems in play during a clean-up – there’s the family, the therapist, the professional organiser, and the rubbish removalists. You need all the extra hands to get things done properly.
A hoarder has no choice but to face the facts. They can either cooperate now with their family or let council do their own direct clean-up intervention which can mean a merciless no-fuss clean-up without their feelings in mind. Often the hoarder will choose to go with the help of family.
Since time is of the essence, a professional organiser can stage a systemic clean-up and rubbish removal which involves renting a warehouse or a large staging area. All the hoarder’s possessions will be loaded up, grouped into categories and taken to a warehouse for itemised sorting. The sorting will be done by the hoarder with a therapist involved, and the sorting will be done in a longer timeframe than the allotted council deadline.
Rubbish removalists and skip bin hire companies will come to collect the rubbish at the warehouse on a schedule. By transferring all the clutter, the hoarder’s house will be left empty and easy to clean. You can now scrub down and decontaminate the house. Pest control services and renovation services can come over to restore the home to an acceptable condition. With such a move, council can then make their site inspection of the home. This can save the family from any forced evictions.
The family can arrange for daily or weekly clean-ups with the therapist and professional organiser present. Skip bin hire companies and rubbish removal services will come weekly to clear out the yard and the home. They will also leave a large skip bin and make it accessible for the hoarder to dispose of rubbish whenever they feel like it. Often the clean-up happens from room to room, making new living areas possible and accessible. This helps the hoarder see the difference in the home. Seeing this change can be transformational from the inside of the hoarder’s mind, helping them feel less gutted when things are thrown away. Gaining the ability to let things go can be a healing form of release and a cathartic experience for everyone.
Now you have successfully done the impossible which is cleaned up the home. Help the hoarder embrace the living areas that have emerged behind the piles of rubbish. People can actually sit down now and have a cup of tea. The household smell is no longer offensive and the air is remarkably fresh and breathable. Don’t hesitate a minute more, celebrate and invite people over.
Hoarders didn’t start out as hoarders; they once had social lives, but once their hoarding went out of control, they felt ashamed to invite people into their homes. Their emotional lives have suffered as a result, and the isolation from friends and family have exacerbated their hoarding problem. By introducing back a social circle of friends and neighbours, the hoarder can feel connected once more. It can be a great motivator for the hoarder to willingly keep the home clean, making the change and even consider rubbish removal as a permanent lifestyle habit.
Slip-ups can happen; a hoarder can face an emotional roadblock and start piling up the rubbish again. That’s why checking up on them is crucial. Always be generous with affirmations of love and concern during visits. But be firm when reminding them of their hoarding past. Emphasise how the change has brought great joy to everyone who loves them, and how the anxiety associated with the clutter is gone now – isn’t it such a good feeling? Also remind them if they need help cleaning out the rubbish you are there for them at any time.
Never hesitate to get the support you need locally. For anyone who believes that they may be living in a hoarding situation in Australia, you can take a collaborative approach between local council, mental health professionals, professional organisers and rubbish removal services. You can reach out to organisations and services for support such as NSW Fire Brigade and NSW Health. There are support groups like HRSU Australia(link to https://www.hsru.com.au ) and hoarding therapists (link to http://www.woodcockpsychology.com.au/hoarding-disorder/) Wholistic Professional Organizer (http://www.horder.com.au/) For thorough rubbish removal services for hoarding situations, call 1300 Rubbish Removal for a consult.
Cleaning up a hoarder’s house is not a lost cause. Though it’s a specific condition that can affect anyone at any point of the lives, hoarding can be successfully overturned. Many locals living in New South Wales have overcome hoarding. With these tips in mind, you can help yourself or a hoarder you know carry on a better life free of any filth and clutter.
You might have heard your grandma say that ‘Gardening is a gift.’ Well, she’s quite right on that one. What you plant, what you sow and reap, you can share with others. Gardening connects people and builds rapport within a community. It provides a lot of benefits but also responsibilities such as green waste removal that you need to keep in mind.
Gardening is an activity highly recommended by health professionals for its mental and physical benefits. There’s a lot of body movement involved in gardening, you get to do squats and stretches, and a lot of times you might find yourself on your knees. Who says gardening isn’t much of a work out? You get to walk up long rows repeatedly or rake leaves around your whole property. You get to bend, stretch, twist, and lift heavy loads similar to an intense work out at the gym. Maybe not at all under an hour, but your muscles get adequate strength and toning for a few good hours.
It’s not just an activity that benefits old people, you can start young and enjoy time spent gardening with your family and friends. Having a garden is both pleasurable and profitable, and makes the best use of our natural surroundings. There’s nothing like being outdoors and getting the much needed sunshine your body needs.
Having a garden is one of the most rewarding things you can come home to. But like any creative and personal project, starting a garden requires sufficient planning and research. Here are some things to keep in mind before building your garden:
Decide on what kind of garden you want. Will it be a small home garden, a fancy garden with all the landscaping and trimmings, a roof garden, a flower garden, a vegetable garden- a mix of both? Or a vertical garden, a hydroponic garden, a tray or box garden, a topiary garden. There are so many options when it comes to starting your very own garden. So consider the space you have at best.
You can start small with little to no supervision in creating a garden. There’s no one right way to do it. But if you have the means, and want first-hand training, you can hire a gardener, a landscape artist or a farmer to teach you the basics of planting seeds and maintaining a home garden. These days, seed packets come with instructions so you can plan ahead on what your garden might need. You can easily grow vegetables, fruits, flowers, nuts and crops. Or you can simply have a garden for aesthetic reasons; you can start with a landscaping project or even animal shape topiaries. The best laid plans can produced the best gardens.
Before you stick any seeds in there, understand what kind of soil your garden might have. Understand that the composition of the soil, its alkanility and acidity greatly affects the health of your plants, the colours of the leaves and flowers, and even the taste of the fruits and vegetables. Topsoil is the most important layer of the soil. It is the first 12 inches and contains the mineral portion or the fertile layer. Below this would be the less fertile layer called the subsoil. The topsoil usually has a darker colour than the subsoil because it has more organic-rich matter from decaying plants and fertilisers. Roots will grow out into this layer and absorb water and vital minerals needed by the plant.
A garden’s beauty is transient and cyclical; it changes its character with the shifting of the seasons. Each season, certain flowers bloom and some plants go to rest while some wake up and offer you a visual feast of arresting colours. Know that your garden can look distinctive and magical with each passing season, plan and design it according to the changes in time, growth duration and weather patterns.
For vegetable gardens, planning its layout is more on the functional side than what is visually appealing. If you have a choice in the matter, let your garden be a long rectangle shape instead of a square. This gives you a chance to create long rows and use a plow in preparing the ground. Time will arrive to spade the soil for planting and cultivating seeds between rows. For beginners, spading can be laborious.
Have garden bed plans or a planting chart to keep tabs; this is just to map out what you have planted on each row. In setting your garden rows, the ideal distance between rows is 60-100cm (2-3 feet). You may plant different things on each row using different methods. This is good if you are beginner doing some experimenting and want to compare crop and bloom outcomes between each row.
Keep in mind, the amount of sun exposure your garden gets, its good to know its orientation in relation to the sun. As the day progresses the light from the sun shifts, in time, creating these shady pockets, sunny spots, and even microclimates. So before planting anything, assess the moist and sheltered areas, and the areas exposed directly under the sun, know what plants can thrive there.
Don’t be afraid to do color-themed plantings, mainly to create striking contrasts in your garden. For instance, a balance between green foliage and flowers can bring out the best mood in your landscape design.
Don’t forget to create focal points in your garden. This can be a dramatic point of reference such a grand tree or a group of bright flowers. Overall, your garden can follow something thematic, an idea that binds the planting and the landscape design together. Some gardens have tropical or mediterranean themes while some are simply utilitarian vegetable gardens with a rustic feel.
Be realistic. Know ahead how much time you can devote to the upkeep of your garden. Some plants require constant care and are high-maintenance. Some plants though tough require regular pruning to stay healthy, and some plants can easily outgrow their space if left behind for too long. Careful plant placement and monitoring are just the basic requirements of having a garden. So know if the garden size you have is something you can maintain over time and overall, fits your lifestyle.
Water sources are essential in planning your garden and water should be readily accessible, so the burden of watering the garden will not be too great. Keep a storage barrel or large tub of water near the garden, also a sack of manure or natural fertilizer can come in handy. You can mix the natural fertilizer with water to come up with an organic-rich solution, though quite smelly, this mixture is quite excellent to use in watering the soil around the plants. Of course, there are other irrigation options such as having a really long garden hose and sprinklers.
Sometimes a fence around your garden may be necessary to keep animals and strays away, and sometimes even nosy people. You may opt for a mesh, wooden slats or woven wire common known as chicken wire. Plant thick shrubs or low hedges with thorns around your garden as a fence or a marker. A garden can be attractive and looking well-kept using densely planted hedges or flowering shrubs .
Know what crops or plants can be grown together, and how much of each kind to grow. Competition for light and water can arise with various species of plants. Consider the maturation of each plant under the circumstances of the kind of soil and weather you have- which ones will harvest quickly, at what season and which ones should be grown under direct sunlight or under a shade. If you have seedlings and you’re quite unsure how they would fare, leave enough space in your garden for such experiments.
For veggie gardens, there are certain plants or long-season crops that are better off undisturbed for the most part. Plant them at the side or the back of the garden. Plant flowers at the borders and mix with naturally growing wildflowers in your area.
You will need basic garden and hand tools. Although you can also work with your hands, without such tools, you will roughly end up breaking your skin open or cracking your nails.
For garden tools, keep it simple, what you need is a rake, a hoe, a shovel, a pick and a spading-fork. For hand tools, you should have the following handy- pruning shears, a hand weeder, a spade, a trowel and a dibber.
You need these tools to break-in seed beds, to do dust mulching, to loosen hard or lumpy soil, to remove roots or obstructions, to lift and transplant crops. Remember, these garden implements also cost money, so to take good care of these; there should be a dry, ample space for them in your house or in a garden shed. Having an assigned space for all your tools will make them last longer. Clean away debris and dry the tools adequately before storing.
Gardening maybe such a lovely endeavor, but there’s a side to it that you need to be aware of before it gets out of hand. The true caveat with gardening is that after all that hard work, there’s the dreaded yard clean-up and the piles of green waste. Taming a large shrub, pruning an overgrown bush or cutting down a periliously dangerous tree branch will definitely start that garden rubbish pile. Yes, you’ll end up with a lot of garden waste and there’s no avoiding that. Trees and plants shed constantly as nature intended. Property rubbish left unmanage can cause safety hazards or incur council penalties. You are responsible for your green waste and where it goes, so always have a rubbish removal plan in mind.
Green waste is a kind of biodegradable waste, mainly composed of organic materials and scraps from garden, parks and large public spaces. It includes organic leftovers and debris such as large dead and diseased branches, vegetable scraps, tree stumps, palm fronds, tree limbs, twigs and small branches, drift wood, lawn and yard clippings, dried leaves, weeds, and other garden waste. Mostly these are all rubbish materials from garden and landscaping projects, home renovations, farm lot clean-ups, greenhouses, arboretums, botanical gardens, highways managements and park maintenance clean-ups.
Sift and process organic material through various eco-friendly means. It’s treated differently from plastics or general household waste as food and garden wastes should generally not end up in a land fill. After rubbish removal, the garden waste collected can be taken to a local sorter or recycling facility. It can be turned to mulch or compost which can be used back into gardens and farms.
You can manage green waste by opting for green waste skip bins or even better professional garden clean up and rubbish removal services.
Keeping one’s garden mess-free is one of the best ways to ensure maximum productivity and peace of mind in your landscape haven. While there are various ways to keep your yard spotless, one of the most efficient ways in maintaining a clean and orderly garden is to utilize skip bins or even hiring skip bin experts in rubbish removal. Using skip bins is not only beneficial for the garden lovers and property owners, their use also help the environment as it promotes a proactive and practical waste management approach.
Skip bins are essentially waste containers with an open top and are made to attach easily on a special type of truck or lorry. Typically, trash bins are emptied onto a garbage truck as soon as the rubbish collectors come by to pick them up. With the use of skip bins, however, the whole bin is taken and removed where its contents are released directly onto the site of the landfill or the transfer station. Additionally, skip bins are possessed with a unique shape making them easier to be identified.
There are different types of skip bins. Open skips are the most popular type of skip bins. They are usually found on constructions sites. The open-top feature makes loading waste materials easier. Closed skips prevent unauthorized use from other people, making it more secure. It ensures that the volume of the waste loaded does not exceed the maximum limit and avoid waste spillage.
Similar to open skip bins are what is called roll-on roll off (RORO) bins. These bins are rolled into a wagon with a hook as opposed to being lifted by chains. Another type of skip bins are mobile bins. Set on a four-wheeled trailer and are lifted to unload and load the skip to the trailer.
The skip bins are used in a wide array of operations, but mainly during rubbish removal in these areas. These include places like construction buildings, garden clean up, handyman repairs or service, and home renovations, among others. Typically, skip bins are used to contain construction and demolition wastes and garden wastes, among other uses. Skip bins are also used in various cleaning out operations where a lot of scrap, debris and green waste materials are to be taken out. This goes for arboreal and landscaping projects producing tons of garden waste from all the trimming and pruning of trees and plants.
Aside from convenience, however, usage of skip bins ultimately enables an individual to reduce his carbon footprint. Now you can spare yourself the sweat of endless pruning or getting hardcore with a chainsaw. Hiring a rubbish removal service, you don’t need to cut down large chunks of green waste into smaller sizes. They can fit into a skip bin or have these clean-up professionals do the green waste disposal for you. Of course, for a reasonable fee. Rubbish removal companies have standard rate cards, you may consult them for their service fees in managing specific garden waste.
You should know how to fill up your skip bin. Before rubbish removal day, check what kind of waste, how big and heavy it is. Make sure no branches are poking out of the top of the bin. If you can, do bundle your green waste. It’s a good idea to sort your garden waste before the skip crew gets there.
You may incur penalties or additional disposal costs for prohibited waste, so know the waste types that you can put in your green waste skip bin. If not, call up the garden clean up and rubbish removal company for more information, especially if you’re not sure how to classify the green waste you have.
Companies are very professional and customer-friendly that they will not have a problem answering your questions, as this will help make rubbish removal easier for both of you when skip day comes. They have other service options in disposing certain green waste and landscape rubbish such as bricks, clay, rocks, dirt and hard soil. More importantly, you can make your passion for gardening eco-friendly by using skip bins or hiring professional green waste and rubbish removal services.
Through gardening you can feed the people you love, even feed your soul, nourish your body and uplift your spirit. But by being responsible with your green waste, you can keep gardening sustainably throughout the seasons.
Keeping one’s home rubbish free is surely a challenge. Clutter has a way of sneaking up on us- a small purchase at a sale, a trinket at a bargain bin, tokens from parties, gifts from relatives, leftover packaging from deliveries – all these things accumulate in our homes, leaving us with piles of stuff to manage. And we spend a good, awful lot of our free time in rubbish removal instead of enjoying our weekends relaxing with the family.
It’s true, most of us find it hard to let go of the stuff in our home even if most of them are not being used anymore. What most people don’t realize, however, is that these unnecessary stuff are only doing us more harm than good. So do something positive for your home, do a major rubbish removal, and have a plan in mind. The goal of planning out your decluttering schedule is to make the rubbish removal quicker and less overwhelming.
The best thing about decluttering is that it can simplify your life and create good energy around the home. It can get you into that clear emotionally state and give you the physical space that you need to do the things that you love the most.
The first thing we have to remember in the process of decluttering is to void ourselves of our attachments to our stuff. The problem with the things we keep in our homes are the memories that come with it and that precisely makes things difficult to throw away, even if this sentimental object is too far broken, useless or just accumulating dust. Like that mosaic pot you made in gradeschool or that broken radio your husband said he would come around to fixing. We must remember that not all things which bring memories should remain in our homes.
The questions that should be answered when decluttering are: “Do I really need this?” “Have I used this thing for the past three months or so?” If the answer is no, then there’s no way for that thing but to go to the rubbish bins.
Every household item should be something used regularly, daily or something truly cherished. It has earned its place in your home. If you can’t remember the last time you used it, or plan to repair it, then simply let it go. The question of ‘I might use this someday’ is a common pitfall, usually that ‘someday’ never comes, or when that moment does happen it’s already 5 years down the line. So was that object worth keeping in the drawer for half a decade?
The reality is – you have to be practical with what you keep.
The clutters in our home are not limited to small pieces of paper or kick-knacks. Sometimes, we keep white elephants in the room – junks that are too big to not notice yet we simply don’t care. These junks include unused and broken appliances and mismatched pieces of furniture, among others. There are also kinds of rubbishes we simply toss in our storage bins and cabinets and forget they are there for a long period of time. In fact, there are a lot of clutters lying around our home but due to our busy schedules and lack of interest, they are simply there collecting dust, expiring beyond their best dates, reeking horrible smells and breeding pesky bugs.
You can declutter your home anytime. You can declutter gradually or in one go. This depends on how much time you have on your hands. You can get your family into the action by organizing a large scale rubbish removal and sorting out the rubbish from room to room. You can start with the kids room down to the
kitchen and living areas then the finally the basement or garage area. Or you can choose to do your rubbish removal routine based on the severity of the clutter.
If this is a solo cleaning venture, and you’re entirely on your own, you can allot yourself one room to clean out per week. Or make it a point to sort or dispose at least 10 items per day, you can allot bins for this. The bins can be organized into categories such as recycle, sell, donations, or for disposal.
Doing it in stages can help you from feeling overwhelmed, or getting frustrated with the monumental task of cleaning up the whole house.
You can go through your mess, and turn all that clutter into cash. You may even find some items in perfectly good condition. Surprisingly, some may even have the price tags on it from the day you bought them. And these can be a challenge to purge, how can you let go of something still useful and beautiful? Yet, ask yourself why these items have remained untouched all this time. The answer is simply ‘aspirational excess’, we just have too much of the good stuff which is the result of the times we live in. We just have all the means to purchase, store and hoard all we want. And the consequence is that we have closets and pantries bursting to the brim. Even though it’s hard to let go of the good things, we have to, if want to mainatain a clean home.
So through selling, you can easily get rid of stuff and recoup the most value for it. You can save money this way and with the money earned, you can encourage yourself and your family to declutter often.
This is the easiest way – get your phone, take a snap of the item and post the price you want for it online. Surely by now, everyone is familiar with Ebay and how Ebay works. Selling online is a good way to sell large items or items that may require a long time to load off, such as furnitures, musical instruments and old appliances. Even high-value items such as jewelry, antiques and art pieces.You can also go for public trade listings such as Gumtree and Craigslist. People regularly browse these sites for bargains, vintage and hard-to-find items.
There are local groups in your neighborhood that accept donated items for charity. Often the sale of these items, go into funding community needs or helping individuals with medical bills. Sometimes giving away things can give more joy than keeping them. And you will be happy that you did!
If you have specific items that are linked to certain hobbies, trading your stash at Facebook groups or at Facebook Marketplace or even the small niche sites is the way to go. Often collectors or hobbyists are in need of parts or rare items that might just be in your possession. Most collectors will even offer to have the item to ship for free or do a public meet-up.
They may not pay much when it comes to looking at cast-offs. But if they’re willing to take it in and pay you a bit of money, the local thrift store is one of the best avenues where you can unload your junk or your grandmother’s really dusty antiques.
All you have to do is set up a table in front of your house and put on some price tags. You can even make this into an annual family tradition, so family members can prep what items to purge beforehand. Plus your neighbors can easily come over and see what you have in store for them. If someone wants a discount on an item, don’t drive a hard bargain; remember your goal is to dispose of things as quickly as possible.
Now if we really want to live a stress-free life, and feel we must rid ourselves of unnecessary things and if we can’t do it alone, we could always seek professional help.
Hiring a professional clean-up and rubbish removal service gives you a two-fold benefit. First, the rubbish service providers are not at all emotionally attached to your stuff and they can be the best judge on whether or not these things should go. They will not have a hard time letting things go which will give you an objective perspective on your decluttering process. Ultimately, however, hiring a professional rubbish removal service is basically for your convenience and protection.
Cleaning your house entails a lot of moving and carrying all that heavy stuff and if you are not used to this kind of manual labor, you may risk getting a broken back or some injuries. Additionally, there could be some venomous insects or toxic chemicals infused with the junk you have built up over the years and dismantling them could pose some serious health issues for you. Rubbish removers also have a keen eye when it comes to estimating piles of junk, or breaking down large debris for hauling. They know what specific skip bin you’ll need to tow everything out of there.
Since a professional clean-up service is equipped for these kinds of roadblocks, it is best to leave the matter to the pros.
If you don’t know your numbers, you can’t estimate what you need. You have to come at a price for the service that is both fair for you and the tradie doing the physical work. You may opt to hire a tradie or a service company that specializes in rubbish removal. Some services allow you to pay for how high you fill, the amount of waste dispose or the number of service hours rendered.
A good step would be to call up a few rubbish removal service companies and ask for their cost or professional estimate. Give yourself time to compare prices. You can also ask friends who have hired such professional cleaning services about their experience.
Having residential waste lying around for a long time can be hazardous not just to your family, but to the whole communty as well. Pets and wildlife can easily get into your trash and make a bigger mess of your pile. It also leaves a bad impression to your neighbors on how you manage your household.
Relying on the neighborhood garbage truck for pick-ups, may not always be the best way of disposing large wastes, by the time they get to your house, they may already have a full load of rubbish in their trucks, leaving little room for yours. Or there might not be enough garbage collectors on hand to do heavylifting into the trucks. Like if you were disposing of a large couch or an old piano, such a task would require several people just to carry it out of your house, so do consider the size and weight of your residential rubbish. Also through the regular garbage collection, the total rubbish removal might take several days to a week to complete, or you might be vouch to pay for extra garbage fees by the council for a scheduled pick up.
If you don’t have the time to dispose of your waste properly, particularly large ones which usually happens when you have renovation work done on the property. You can opt for a rubbish removal service to keep your residential area clean.
If you do have enough time in your hands, and you want to do things yourself, you may opt to book the right-size skip bin for your waste disposal allocation. An average skip bin can range from 2-4 cubic metres, roughly 16 to 20 bin bags. There are much larger ones, maxi skip bins or what they call a builders skip, these are large 6-12 cubic metres and mandatory on construction projects. There are a variety of skip bins – some have lids, some have wheels for more mobility, and some just come with a flat-base that can be lifted unto a truck bed.
With skip bins, you will have to handle and load the rubbish on your own using a trolley or a wheelbarrow, as they are easy to load and quite accessible. Most skip bins have lockable lids, so strays and wildlife won’t easily get in it, even your sneaky neighbors would have a hard time chucking their rubbish on you.
Even better, some skip bin services offer discount pricing if you fill out your bins earlier than schedule. Because they are often large, skip bins can really contain the wastes properly until they are collected. Skip bins are good for debris allocation and are the ideal eco-solution for construction work, landscaping projects, and even the simple undertaking of home spring cleaning.
Now if you really don’t want to be hands-on in clearing your garbage, and you can’t just stand the idea of sifting through a filthy pile, then opt for a full-service rubbish removal to do the dirty work for you. Clean-up professionals will come on site, and load the wastes into the skip bin themselves. The great thing about rubbish removal services is the quick response time they have. They can handle things quickly for you and assess your growing garbage situation; they can deliver a skip bin at your site pronto and haul away the skip bins once full. Once, the cleaning pros load off with your skip bins, the waste will be dropped off at a recycling or sorting facility where the rubbish will be disposed of sustainably.
Invariably, whether you choose renting out a Skip Bin or a Rubbish Removal Service, both are great convenient options when doing a major rubbish removal.
To make things easy on rubbish removal day, remember the following:
Not all kinds of wastes are allowed by law to be thrown in the skip bin. There should be no surprise there, just common sense.
If any of these wastes are found in your bin load, it may be taken back to your home. Know what regulations are there in your area about proper waste disposal when it comes to hazardous waste or health-care waste. As much as Rubbish Removal Services are reliable, there are laws in place to protect everyone from hazardous materials and infectious waste.
With all of that in mind, hopefully your residential clean-up operation will go smoothly as plan. Remember, the rubbish removal service guys are there to help. You can ask for a consult ahead of skip bin collection day for all your concerns.
Make sure to keep a steady eye on your purchases. Know what things are coming in or brought home by family members. Every time something shiny and new comes in, make it a point to get rid of something. And get rid of it fast!
The trick to keep the clutter from coming back is to have a regular clean-up routine. Have a ‘staging area’ where your sorting bins are visible. Make sure these are accessible to family members all the time.
Give gentle reminders to your loved ones to toss out things they no longer need from time to time. Remember that cleaning up the house is not solely your responsibility; everyone has to be in on this. Otherwise, you can expect messy piles to show up within days.
Extend a nice note to loved ones and friends. Informing them not to send gifts or large things over without consulting you first. Let them know you appreciate the gesture. However inform them you’re on a minimalist streak or a clean-up phase to simplify your home. If they are considerate enough of your feelings, they will understand and comply with such a request.
Hope reading through this helps you take a hard look on what you own and have at home. Take time to think if all your household items are well-used as intended.
Decluttering becomes more and more important as one gets older. We accumulate more things as each year passes, moreso after holidays and birthdays. The clutter only becomes alarming when excess stuff starts to occupy and take over common areas in our home. To which, from another perspective, the stuff we treasure now becomes a burden. Clutter is not a burden you want to leave behind. Part with the unnecessary things early, simplify your life, so you can have more space to breathe. Creating more time to make beautiful memories with your loved ones. So don’t put off your clean-up efforts, remember, you can start it any day. A clean home equals a clear mind.
