Will Travel Nationwide: Cleaning Companies

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 1957 Location: Cabo

Clutter Cleaners, Inc.
info@cluttercleaners.com
www.cluttercleaners.com
949-717-9176 888-No Chaos
Sent to childrenofhoarders.com:
A member of NAPO and of NSGCD & Orange County Hoarding Task Force. Clutter Cleaners has been in business for 8 years, we were featured on an episode of Dateline, NBC, which you can watch from our website, www.cluttercleaners.com. We travel nationwide working with packrats and hoarders. We are insured and bonded. I personally work with the local police department and there fore my fingertips are registered with the FBI, because of some of that work.No job is too big or too small.

DisasterMasters/The Plan
http://www.disastermasters.com/
This company does not just provide cleaning services, but phone coaching as well. Over 25 years experience working with hoarders. You can see Mr. Alford, owner of the company, in the documentary called Packrat, The Movie.

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 1957 Location: Cabo

Bio Cleaning Services of America, Inc
http://www.biocleaningservices.com/
309 NW 12th Street
Blue Springs, MO 64015
816-229-7975 office
816-228-9269 fax
816-223-4296 cell
Bio1@sbcglobal.net

Wrote in:

Our company specializes in Biohazard Containment (Crime and Trauma scene Cleanup) as well as structures and homes of hoarders. We have been doing this work for well over fourteen years now. We are a resource for families that are overwhelmed with the task of cleaning up these sites. My company handles a coverage area that is about a four hour drive time from Kansas City , MO , and since I teach and certify technicians in this field of work I also have a net work of companies in all fifty states and Canada .

Site Admin Joined: Jul 29, 2006 Posts: 79

A couple of these are repeats from above...

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Cleaning Companies familiar with hoarded homes, local services for assistance cleaning out a hoarded home
National:

1-800-GotJunk.com
http://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en/homepage.aspx

ThePlan.com
http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/www.theplan.com

BERGFELD's Estate Clearance Services
http://www.bergfelds.com/

KRICSC
http://www.kricsc.com/

American Bio-Recovery Services
http://www.crimeandtraumascenecleanup.com/grossfilth.htm

SE U.S.: Fagala Biohazard Specialists, LLC
http://www.carolinacrimescenecleanup.com/

Warning! Some of these companies are for crime scene clean-up companies and the graphic images on their sites might be disturbing.

Crisis Cleaning Advice:
From those that have done it:
http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/coh14.php

Valued Member Joined: Jun 30, 2008 Posts: 3

I am curious what the cost is to pay someone to clean your parents home

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 1957 Location: Cabo

Hi mamahoards,
Welcome to the group!

Here is a post from one of our members from the past to give you an idea:

August 9, 2007
member post

Quote:

Hi All,

Recently, we completed a cleanout of my mother's 1 1/2 BR apartment - we threw out 20 cubic yards of garbage.

I want to publicly thank Donna (and to Cory from Stericlean in California) for helping me find a cleaning company in NYC.

Bio-Recovery was absolutely fantastic (877-246-2532, www.biorecovery.com) - very professional, finished on time, and under budget. I highly recommend them to this group.

I met with five different companies before selecting Bio-recovery. Below are my thoughts/opinions on these firms. Note I am listing these from best to worst, but in my opinion, there was a big gap between 1 and 2, and a huge gap between 2 and 3.

The range of estimates was $3300 (excluding dumpster) to $9200. In general, I was surprised by the variability in costs and the poor quality of the wording of the contracts (my wife is an attorney). All of the principals would have been onsite during the cleanup. I do believe that some of these firms were trying to take advantage of a very emotional situation

Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

1. Bio-Recovery (est $5500, actual cost $4800)
- Showed up within a few hours of my call to do a free estimate
- Met own deadline for hardcopy of estimate
- Contract looked out for interests of everyone involved; amenable to clarifying in writing some terms of contract
- No payment until end of job
- Incredibly efficient and professional - fantastic attitude made it easier on me and my mom

2. A Touch of Sass ($3300 excluding dumpster)
- Provided estimate as promised
- Fewest man hours required - with a boss who I believe could have executed well
- Least expensive option
- Could provide ongoing cleaning
- However, could not provide dumpster - I wanted the contractor to be responsible for everything end-to-end

*******

3. ServPro ($~9K)
- Provided estimate as promised on time
- Responsive to questions
- By far - largest number of man hours required and most expensive
- Had said it was their slow time of year and could start immediately
- I believe they were padding the bill with underutilized people (8
men the first day?!?)

4. Spring Cleaning (~$6500)
- Provided estimate as promised
- Assertive about winning business (returned calls promptly, etc)
- Poorly worded contract - but was willing to rework into something that made sense
- Ability to provide ongoing cleaning
- Wanted 100% payment up front - no flexibility vis a vis credit card, escrow, etc

5. Disaster Masters (~$8K plus the estimate fee)
- Charged $250 just to do an estimate
- Missed four of their own deadlines for preparing the bid causing my mom a great deal of anxiety
- Unresponsive to eMails and voice mails
- Changed timing estimate from three - four days to two - three days without explanation - why can you do this faster? Impression was they were going to understaff the job
- Did not provide detailed breakdown of manhours, etc
- Called for a deposit to be made by me into a Bank of America account - i.,e. find a B of A and deposit a check into his account
- Methodical approach to sorting salvage, donatable, and trash

Hope this helps to give you an idea.
Donna

Valued Member Joined: Jun 30, 2008 Posts: 3

Thank you,
I contacted Steri-Clean who will go to San diego and they said the lowest they've charged was a few hundred and the most they've charged was a few thousand.

My mom has taken the first step admitting she has a problem, but is not ready to have someone help her quite yet.

Thank you for the repsonse though. I appreciate it!

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 1957 Location: Cabo

Oh, glad you called Cory-he always been so helpful to me when asking things for members here-
I hope it will work out good for you-I have a feeling you are in good hands--hope you'll let us know how it goes.

Good luck,
Donna

First, thanks Donna for the kind words. I am sure we can help her out. Just my two cents on nationwide companies that will travel. I would not recommend it simple becuase there are so many good companies out there. Why pay for a companys' travel and lodging which could cost thousands of extra dollars? I will personally find you a company in ANY state and even other countries. We just started a new website www.hoardingcleanup.com that is dedicated to finding help nationwide. At least call them and get some estimates locally before you agree to hire someone out of state. If you have any questions about cleaning, please feel free to call us. We offer free phone and email support for anyone and everyone. We are at (888) 577-7206. Ask for Cory or Tammy.