Hoarder cleaning across Canary Wharf.

Hoarder cleaning is the clearing and deep-cleaning of a property where belongings, rubbish, or accumulation has built up over months or years to the point where standard cleaning no longer fits. The work combines clearance (sorting, bagging, removing items in agreed categories), heavy-duty cleaning of every surface once the property is cleared, and, where needed, odour treatment, biohazard remediation, or pest treatment coordination.

This isn't "tidying" or a "deep clean" in the standard sense. The teams who handle this work understand that hoarding cases are often linked to bereavement, mental health, age, disability, or a long period when no one was checking in. They are trained to be slow, careful, and respectful of the customer and the property.

You won't be judged. The Canary Wharf specialists we work with have walked into properties at every level of accumulation and they treat the work as work, not a story.

In stages, and every stage is agreed with you before it starts, so nothing comes as a surprise.

First the team walks the property with you (or whoever is authorised) and agrees what stays, what goes to charity, and what goes to waste. Items of sentimental or financial value are flagged and kept aside. Documents (post, ID, financial paperwork) are bagged separately and given to you to sort through later, not thrown.

Clearance is then done in zones, room by room. Bulky waste is removed via skip or licensed bulky-waste channels depending on volume. Charity-suitable items go to nominated charity shops or collection. Hazardous items (sharps, expired medications, contaminated material) are handled separately and disposed of through the correct licensed routes.

Once the property is cleared, the deep-clean stage begins. This is heavy-duty cleaning of every surface: floors, walls, ceilings, fittings, appliances, inside cupboards and drawers, behind and under everything. Odour treatment follows if needed, typically with ozone or hydroxyl generators that neutralise smell at molecular level rather than masking it.

Where the property has biohazard cross-over (urine, faeces, decomposing food, pest contamination), the specialist switches to biohazard protocols for the affected zones: PPE upgrade, hazardous-waste disposal, certificate of cleanliness at the end.

When you call a specialist directly about a hoarder case, the first hard part is telling a stranger what state the property is in. If you then have to do that two or three more times for quotes, the call becomes the obstacle.

Coming through us means saying it once. The specialist gets the picture from us before they ever ring you, and turns up to the walk-through already knowing the rough scope.

Years of sending these teams work has taught us which one is right for a deceased estate, which one is patient enough for a living resident, and which one turns a landlord case around fastest. The match is the value.

And the introduction is free to you: the specialist settles with us after the job, and the walk-through price is the whole price.

A hoarded property with a resident in it is a different job from an empty one, and the better specialists treat it differently. Clearing too fast is not a favour. For many residents the accumulation took years to build and carries real attachment, and a crew that strips the flat in a day can leave the person worse off than the clutter did.

Paced work looks like this: short sessions, the resident present and deciding, one zone at a time, keep-piles honoured even when they seem irrational, and progress measured in usable rooms rather than van loads. Some cases run alongside support from a GP, a social worker or a family member. The specialist fits around that rather than driving it.

There is also a practical Wharf wrinkle: most of these properties are flats in managed buildings, so there is no driveway for a skip. Clearance runs through the lobby and the lift in sealed bags and boxes, booked with the building where one manages access. The teams we introduce plan the route with the concierge so the process stays as invisible to neighbours as the resident wants it to be.

Hoarder work is matched on temperament as much as capability. All three of the specialist teams we introduce can clear and clean a property; not all of them are the right fit for a frightened resident, or a grieving executor, or a landlord on a deadline, and those are three different jobs.

For hoarder cleaning we connect you with a vetted specialist team that covers the Docklands and travels to the job. Decluttering and hoarder-home support is a core part of their work. They handle bereavement-context cases regularly and approach the work without judgement.

We choose between the teams case by case, and you deal with and pay the specialist directly once the walk-through price is agreed.