Firm clears 12 tonnes of rubbish stored by obsessive hoarder in Kent bungalow
A house clearance firm removed a massive 12 tonnes of belongings, rubbish and furniture from a bungalow.
The rubbish was collected and stored by pensioner who was a compulsive hoarder.
After the homeowner died, an elderly relative who also lived at the address had the home cleared - and it took a week to remove everything.
“The poor tenant began lodging with the relative in the early 1990s,” said Kevin Porter who owns the firm which removed the rubbish.
“We found piles of clothes, shoes, books, umbrellas and rotting food tins all over the house when we arrived.
“The food cans had been there for so long the contents had vanished and the tins were crumbling.”
The relative, who owned the property in Maidstone, Kent, died in 2017, by which time the pensioner was too frail to shift the waste.
Mr Porter, 50, of East Peckham, Kent, added: “I’ve cleared a lot of houses since forming the company.
“But this one got me emotionally because of how this person had been made to live.
“They didn’t even have a bed and in the summertime they slept in the garage because it was too hot.
“It’s such a sad story. To make things worse, the landlady left the property to charity and not the relative."
It took six men seven days to clear decades of junk from the obsessive hoarder’s house, which involved dozens of trips to the tip.
The tenant asked the clearance team to look out for a £2,000 piece of jewellery which had become lost in the rubbish.
The team were not hopeful they would find it, but eventually uncovered the lost treasure and returned it to the delighted owner.
After the mess had been shifted, the team mopped the floors and cleaned the walls which had been blocked for years.
Builders then repaired the neglected bungalow and cleared the black mould which had spread.
Mr Porter added: “When we first contacted the pensioner she was too embarrassed at the state of the house to speak to us.
"But they were so grateful and overwhelmed that they broke down in tears when they saw the transformation.”
