™About Hoarding Helpers
Compassionate, specialist support — no judgement, just practical help.
Our mission
Hoarding Helpers was founded with one purpose: to provide genuinely compassionate, trauma-informed support to people living with hoarding disorder and their families.
We work alongside housing associations, social services, and NHS teams to deliver safe, dignified clearance and declutter services — always at the client's pace.
We believe that behind every cluttered home is a person who deserves respect, patience, and practical help. That belief shapes everything we do.
"Behind every cluttered home is a person who deserves respect, patience, and practical help."
— The Hoarding Helpers team
Different from a standard clearance or cleaning company
Some firms market themselves as 'hoarding services' when what they actually sell is a crew, a van, and speed.
That model focuses on disposal. The person is often treated as an obstacle rather than the focus of the work. Our approach is different. We are a specialist hoarding support service, led by a Social Work England-registered senior social worker and Stage 3 trained by Hoarding Disorders UK. The core of our work is time spent with the person, at their pace, with trauma-informed practice and multi-agency coordination. We do offer bulk clearance when it is the right intervention — for example after a tenancy end, bereavement, move into care, or where a property has become unmanageable and a full clear is agreed. We deliver it with the same standards of care, discretion, and responsible disposal. We simply do not present it as the same thing as our ongoing declutter and support sessions, and we do not offer deep cleaning of medium to heavily soiled surfaces.
Standard clearance / cleaning firms
- Product is disposal — crew, van, cleared property
- Speed is the main measure
- Staff trained in logistics
- Resident managed around
- Little or no clinical understanding of hoarding
- Risk of trauma or loss of trust
Hoarding Helpers
- Product is specialist support (sessions or agreed clearance)
- Progress and safety are the main measures
- Led by social work expertise; Stage 3 hoarding training
- Resident worked with where present
- Trauma-informed, safeguarding-aware approach
- Designed to protect dignity and therapeutic progress
Safeguarding notice
Choosing the wrong provider can have serious consequences. Hoarding-related deaths, serious case reviews, and inquests have followed cases where vulnerable people were not supported by appropriately trained practitioners. As a referring professional, your choice of provider is a safeguarding decision.
Led by social work expertise
Hoarding Helpers is led by a Senior Social Worker registered with Social Work England, based in Marlow, Buckinghamshire — bringing frontline statutory experience that sets us apart from standard clearance companies.
Our leadership has direct experience in safeguarding, mental health hospital discharge, and complex hoarding cases — the exact situations where getting the approach wrong can cause real harm.
This means every decision we make — from how we communicate with a client to how we pace a clearance — is grounded in professional social work values and a genuine understanding of risk.
How we grew
We started working with Reading Borough Council — our first statutory partner — quickly building a reputation for sensitive, effective hoarding support that other agencies could trust.
Word spread across Berkshire. Housing teams, social workers, and NHS colleagues began referring clients to us, recognising us as a trusted specialist partner in the county.
Our reputation crossed county borders. We expanded into Buckinghamshire, bringing the same compassionate, trauma-informed approach to a new region.
Today we serve London too — supporting some of the most complex hoarding cases in the capital alongside statutory and voluntary sector partners.
Our values
Compassion first
We treat every client with dignity and respect, regardless of the state of their home or the complexity of their situation.
Safeguarding-aware
Our social work leadership means safeguarding is embedded in everything we do — not an afterthought.
Multi-agency working
We work alongside housing teams, social services, NHS, and voluntary sector partners to achieve joined-up outcomes.
Responsible disposal
We are a registered waste carrier. Wherever possible, items are donated to charity rather than sent to landfill.
Trained to the highest level
Our team holds Stage 3 practitioner training in hoarding disorder — the highest level available in the UK — delivered by Hoarding Disorders UK. This training underpins everything we do, from how we communicate with clients to how we plan and pace our work.
Hoarding Disorders UK ↗3
Stage 3 trained
Stage 3 practitioner training in hoarding disorder — the full programme delivered by Hoarding Disorders UK
Delivered by Hoarding Disorders UK
Our team
Every member of our team is carefully selected for their empathy, patience, and ability to work with people in difficult circumstances. We do not send in a crew — we send in people who genuinely care.
Our team is small by design. We believe that consistency matters — clients benefit from seeing the same faces, and our team benefits from building real relationships with the people they support.
Ready to make a referral?
Submit a referral online or get in touch to discuss your requirements.
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