BEING attacked by a nest of false widow spiders isn’t what most people expect from a shift at work but for Rob Nash it’s just a normal day at the office.
The home clearance boss, 40, has cleared out scores of filthy hoarder dens over the last eight years – and has the scars to prove it.
Rob Nash has cleared out several extreme hoarders homes[/caption]
He has encountered some truly disgusting things in his eight years of waste management[/caption]
His work regularly brings him and his crew in touch with people in desperate need of help, and not just with emptying out their garden sheds.
Rob and his team are brought in to deal with the worst cases of hoarding in his local area.
He has seen it all from “300 to 400 bottles of urine” to “thousands of pounds worth of gold” squirrelled away under mounds of rubbish.
Rob has seen whole flats covered in four feet of clutter and “rooms come alive” with 30 to 40 rats.
Often, the work is thankless, hoarders find it extremely hard to part with their long-loved possessions and don’t want Rob and his team to gut their dwellings.
They are usually brought in on the request of family, friends or officials to get the job done.
Coastal Clearance – Dorset Hampshire are sometimes called in on short notice when a hoarder is taken to hospital or into care with social services and housing associations ringing Rob and instructing him to get in and do what he has to do while the hoarder is gone.
His team doesn’t shy away from the work and neither does Rob who said: “I get stuck in, I love it, you never know what you’re going to find.”
Rob said: “We’ve found people’s relatives’ ashes, one hoarder lost their cat and we found the skeleton buried under the rubbish.”
The work may seem grim and dangerous but Rob stays protected in a full hazmat suit and says he tries not to judge, enjoying being able to help people in need.
He said: “It’s hard not to feel for the person who lived there, even amidst the challenging circumstances of the clean-up.
“It’s a tough job, but we’re here to restore these properties to a safe and habitable state and not judge these people who clearly need the help of someone like ourselves.”
Aside from the grim and sometimes disgusting discoveries, the job can be seriously dangerous – a recent clear-out at a hoarder’s home saw Rob attacked twice by swarms of insects.
After disturbing a nest of what the waste management boss suspected were false widow spiders, Rob was set upon by the arachnids.
A nasty bite on his right arm left him with a large infected wound and the very next day at the same property Rob was attacked by a swarm of wasps.
The false widow nipped Rob’s right arm after he disturbed a nest of 20-30 of the critters[/caption]
The spider bite became infected and left Rob in serious pain[/caption]
Rob was prescribed antibiotics for the nasty bite[/caption]
Even with “taped up trousers” and hazmat protection, the insects found a way in and left Rob injured enough to force him to take time off work while he healed up.
He said: “It’s healing slowly after being given antibiotics but it was bloody painful and I had to have a few days off as I can’t lift anything.”
Vermin pose the biggest threat to Rob’s team, with rats being the most hated among his staff. The critters can give a nasty bite, wreak havoc on homes and even damage cars.
Rob said: “We see rats and mice all the time, when I first started out I was working out of a little van and a rat had got into the roof lining in the back and worked his way into the cab, it ended up scrapping my van.
“There was a hoarder’s place we did and we just started on the room and it just came alive, must have been 20-30 rats in that room.”
He added: “I don’t mind the rats and mice, maybe now I’ll care more about spiders though” Rob’s job is certainly not for the faint-hearted.
Rob has seen some horrible things while clearing hoarders properties[/caption]
Rob has made some amazing discoveries amongst the clutter[/caption]
The team have to be careful of biohazards, wearing full hazmat suits for protection sometimes[/caption]
Hoarders store bizarre collections of items so, aside from the threat posed by vicious insects and troublesome rats, Rob’s team has to contend with biohazards.
He adds: “It’s definitely becoming more common for us to deal with hoarder properties, and it’s not an easy job. ‘Grim’ is a pretty accurate description sometimes.
“We’ve encountered everything imaginable: rats, mice, insects, human waste, needles, rotting food and not forgetting spiders, the list goes on.
“It’s not just the volume of stuff, but the state it’s in.
“We did another one that was a two bedroom flat, it was four foot deep throughout the whole place and you couldn’t see the floor at all.”
Other, less extreme jobs the firm undertakes make for easier work but in recent years Rob feels he has encountered more hoarders than usual.
Word of mouth is everything for his small business and some posts on social media have seen business boom.
Sharing before and after snaps of his work online and always making sure not to judge the vulnerable hoarders Rob’s company has become a go-to for the challenging job.
He manages to keep busy six days a week, often working upwards of six jobs a day.
The team averages 1-2 hoarder’s homes a month with these jobs posing the biggest challenges but Rob takes a stoic approach to the work, simply saying: “We get in there we clean everything out.”
The job brings him into contact with people who usually don’t want his help, with their problem developing over time hoarders end up overly attached to their collected rubbish.
It can build slowly, beginning with a reluctance to throw away worthless but treasured items developing into a refusal to throw anything away at all in extreme cases.
It results in cluttered, filthy and unhygienic dwellings with serious cases eventually requiring outside intervention, Rob has seen a case where an individual was “going to the toilet in carrier bags and just tying it up and throwing it in rooms.”
Hoarders will rarely ask for help to clear their dwellings with Rob’s team usually called in by social services, housing associations or concerned family members.
Often, the team will have to come to properties when the hoarder is away.
Rob said: “The smell and the amount of stuff they have, just general rubbish where they don’t want to go to the dust bin, they get embarrassed and don’t even want to open the front door.
“It is hard if they’re there, a lot of the jobs recently it’s taken months to get in there, but we might get in if they are taken to hospital.
“The housing association might say ‘they’ve been taken in you should get in and do what you have to do.’
“Each and every job is different, there’s never two similar jobs, ever.
“It’s usually family that intervene or social or someone.
“We seem to be doing a lot more with social or housing getting involved.”
What is a hoarder & is it a medical condition?
According to the NHS, Hoarding is a mental health problem that involves storing an “excessive” number of items in an unmanageable way. Newspapers, clothes, junk mail, bills, containers, and household supplies are among the variety of items kept.
The disorder can impact a person’s everyday life by putting a strain on relationships when someone else tries to clear the clutter and also makes it difficult to move around the house. The condition causes unhygienic living conditions, fire risks, and trip hazards.
Hoarding is often associated with other mental health conditions including severe depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.
A GP can recommend the best treatment, which may include therapy or antidepressants.
Rob began sharing before and after pictures of his work[/caption]
His company specialises in waste management[/caption]
He has cleared out flats, garages, houses and gardens[/caption]
Rob loves his work and is keen to get stuck in alongside his employees[/caption]
