What kind of service can I hire to unfuck my habitat for me?

March 12, 2016 6:09 AM

I've been depressed and my apartment has gotten totally disgusting. If it were just floors, toilet, oven, etc. I'd hire a regular cleaning company. But I have piles of dishes, rotting food in the refrigerator, dried cat pee on the floor, stuff like that. I just cannot deal and I need someone to help. What kind of person/service am I looking for?

I am on medication for depression and I am going to therapy. I am sure that once I get back to "ground zero" that I can maintain my apartment. I am just so overwhelmed that I cannot start. I have tried the Pomodoro technique, making lists, breaking it down into tiny steps, Flylady, UFYH, etc. None of this has worked. I'm at the point where I just eat out all the time, or avoid eating, because my kitchen is so awful.

I have a lot of shame so I do not want to involve a friend or family member. I am willing to throw a lot of money at this if needed. I am not a hoarder so that kind of service is not needed and I really don't think an organizing service will do dishes and clean out rotting food. In any case, I am too embarrassed to call around and ask. I just want to contact someone I know will do it and ... go to a hotel or something while they deal with it. I do not want to place an ad for a random Craigslist person. Also, we do not have anything like Taskrabbit in my city.

Again, I am on medication and I am going to therapy.

posted by anonymous to Home & Garden (22 answers total)

I think what you probably want is some sort of disaster cleanup company. ServPro is one of the more prominent companies, as is ServiceMaster, but I don't have direct experience with any of these companies so I can't offer any recommendations.
posted by DrGail at 6:29 AM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

It is okay to lie in this instance. Tell a cleaning service that you were away for a few months and your sublet person let it all go. Tell them what it looks like and let them know that you will be paying extra for their services. Try to find a service with an office where you can drop off a key and a check, and then go to the hotel. They need never see your face.
posted by myselfasme at 6:34 AM on March 12, 2016 [103 favorites]

I would just put together a request for a bid that clinically bullet-points the issues you need dealt with and send it out to regular cleaning companies (you could probably also look for "make-ready" companies since they've seen it all before too) and let them give you a bid.

Don't explain, they don't care and it just makes it awkward. Ask if you can do a key drop thing, prepare a list of things like what to do with mail and hampers for clothes and a basket for other personal pocket cruft items.

Just don't surprise anyone. Tell them up front what they're walking into so you don't end up in the situation where they stop unfinished (or worse, keep going and then hit you with a bill for extra after) or have to call you to approve additional work.

You may need to specifically have a carpet-cleaning company come in after the rest of the cleaning is done, though. I find that most cleaning services don't have the really good equipment.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:01 AM on March 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

First, if you memail me your location I'll call a cleaning service for you. But try not to feel so shameful about what is a very, very common situation. Have you been emptying your cat box into the bath tub? Do you have stacks of pizza boxes piled to the ceiling, almost entirely blocking a hallway? If not, your place is not the worst place this former house cleaner has cleaned. I cleaned houses for a few years when I was a teenager and a college student. Most cleaning services will do this kind of deep clean, but you do need to tell them in advance so that they can send enough people and the right tools, such as face masks and possibly ventilators. (Try not to take that personally. I wore a face mask and sometimes ventilator when I was vacuuming even very clean houses, I just prefer it). I agree that a bullet point list is a very good idea. This will help the service and it will tell you what the fee will be too.
"Tell them you sublet and the tenant let the place go." This is a good suggestion, but if you tell them the place was sublet, be clear to them that this is not a "move out" clean. You don't want the cleaners throwing out belongings because they think it belongs to a sublettor who left them behind.
posted by areaperson at 8:29 AM on March 12, 2016 [58 favorites]

Apartment managers are a good source for cleaning referrals. You could call some local apartments fairly anonymously.

I've hired a few different companies that basically haul out all the items and clean afterwards. However, we have always had them remove everything left. You will likely need to leave very detailed instructions and be prepared that some items you wanted to keep will be thrown away.
posted by vespabelle at 8:29 AM on March 12, 2016

Most places that clean out hoarders' homes will also clean out places that have become cluttered and dirty for other reasons. I don't know what you mean by "that kind of service," but if you know of a service that works with hoarders, don't count them out as a possibility. Otherwise, I second what everyone else has said. Many cleaning companies do this. Just make sure you're honest about the condition of your apartment.
posted by Mavri at 8:31 AM on March 12, 2016

Addressing this is a big step forward, don't be ashamed! I was once in a somewhat similar situation, and I hired a cleaning woman recommended to me by a friend. I actually did clean my apartment before she came, but when she did, she looked around and said, oh my you really need me.

She cleaned for me twice a month for about ten years before she retired, but she was like an auntie to me, and never ever made me feel worse for not being able to clean - she just had the attitude that I did what I did best, and she did what she did best, and in the end she said I was her nicest client!

Also, while I was at the beginning of recovering from depression and cleaning felt overwhelming, having her come twice a month meant never letting anything get too bad, and I learned slowly over the years how to take care of things.

Good luck, and really don't be worried about your cleaning person judging you. As others have said, they have probably seen worse.
posted by maggiemaggie at 8:52 AM on March 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

ServPro is one of the more prominent companies

They're probably more than you need in this case. I've hired them for jobs where there was a disaster and they are amazing and professional but also expensive and maybe overkill.

Congrats on getting a handle on this! You have a lot of emotions wrapped up in the state of your house but people you pay will not. Which is great because they will do what is mostly-normal work for them and you get to feel like a huge weight is off of your shoulders. Win! I have done this for people and really, when it's not your stuff it's pretty easy to be dispassionate or even empathetic about situations that can snbowball out of control. We have all been there.

And you are not a hoarder! But people who help hoarders with their houses may have some good advice for you AND they (usually) have a lot of experience with people who have a lot of emotions wrapped up in the state of their house and their belongings. They could give you a shame-free referral to someone who could help you. I would take areaperson up in their suggestion. Make a short list of what you really want done in a single go-round and make it accurate

- toss all food out of fridge and clean fridge
- do all dishes
- clean all floors (and possibly carpets)
- take out all trash

Then once you have that done you can decide if you want/need a regular cleaning person while you are still healing or whether you think you can manage moving forward. Either option is okay. It may also help to get a lot of ... incentivizing household stuff in while this is happening. I know it's stupid but if I am in LOVE with my dish soap I am more likely to tackle dishes so I spent the few extra bucks on something that I like the smell of. Good trash bags. Maybe some new containers for tupperware type stuff so you can toss out the old stuff with NO GUILT. This is a good thing you are doing for you and part of the healing process. I wish you luck in continuing to move forward.
posted by jessamyn at 9:08 AM on March 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Good for you for addressing this! You deserve a nice home.

My best friend in the world struggles with depression, and in the past his apartment was a strong barometer of his mental health. He hired someone (didn't want me to help him) and over time was able to view home care as self care. (Which it is.) He now lives a gracious life in a beautiful, well-kept apartment. This will be you. Take care of yourself!
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 9:27 AM on March 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

I had a similar situation at work where a visitor from another culture went home and left fish to rot and various other forms of trash in the apartment my company was leasing, to the point where the "regular" cleaning service representative I hired actually vomited when he entered the apartment from the stench and then refused to do the work. So I called ServiceMaster and they were a godsend, they took care of everything, I never had to leave my office, and the price was reasonable. They must have done a good job because we got our entire security deposit back on the apartment.
posted by miaou at 10:07 AM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I went through something similar. Friends offered to help but I was to embarrassed. I ended up just throwing away all of my dirty dishes. It was wasteful but it was the only thing I could handle at the time. I felt a lot better after I did that.
posted by LaunchBox at 10:14 AM on March 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I could have written this a few years ago. I had been putting it off because I didn't want to have to explain or forewarn the cleaners, until finally I had to do something about it. I ended up doing a google search for companies that dealt with hoarders in my area because I figured as bad as my home had gotten, they would have seen much worse. They were extremely nice, and not judgmental. They sent a person out to give an estimate on how long it would take, and he was completely unfazed by what I thought was horrible. Then the next week they sent a small cleaning crew and they knocked it out quickly. Although it wasn't a pleasant job, they assured me they had, in fact, seen much much worse.

Good luck.
posted by rakaidan at 10:15 AM on March 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

The apartment I live in now was formerly inhabited by squatters, and it showed. Particularly one room was so trashed, I called a pro company to clean it up. They didn't ask me why and I didn't tell. They were professionals and that was that.
posted by mumimor at 10:56 AM on March 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

And Hey, good luck. Don't you worry bout a thing, because you are on the right track.
posted by mumimor at 10:56 AM on March 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

All of the above suggestions are great. May I also suggest hiring a cleaning service to come on an ongoing basis once this is all sorted out? As someone with depression and anxiety myself, I can't tell you how calming it is to come home once a week to a freshly clean house with the bed perfectly made. It also forces me to do a quick tidying right before they come, which I am not always great at doing without motivation.
posted by radioamy at 11:24 AM on March 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Please don't concern yourself with being efficient, saving resources, doing things the "right" way. If you need to throw out your dishes or some rugs, go ahead and do it. If you can't face folding a big load of laundry, do a small load and don't worry about water consumption.

The fact that you're even addressing the cleaning issue shows that you're feeling better than you had been. I'm hopeful for you.
posted by wryly at 11:53 AM on March 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

areaperson is my hero today. Thank you for that compassion and willingness to intercede with matter-of-factness and competence.

Sending you hope and good thoughts. If it helps you to remember how far you've come, take some "before "pictures so you can remember the day your life turned around.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 1:24 PM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just chiming in to say re the kind of service needed, I have been where you are now (depression, anxiety, awful clusterfuck, house just disgusting) and I hired a regular cleaner but explained really clearly what I needed done (food thrown out, dishes washed, rubbish collected, laundry done, serious deep deep clean, it was pretty far gone) and that I was willing to pay whatever it took. I think I might have said I'd been ill and let things go but I definitely didn't need to apologize or go into detail about the why. They could not have been less judgy. They said two people, X hours, Y dollars, I told them where they could find the key and payment. I came home to heaven. And it was SO worth it. I would have paid twice or three times what I did and it would have been money well spent. Worth several sessions of therapy in its own right. Good luck - hope you are soon enjoying your beautiful clean home.
posted by t0astie at 6:11 PM on March 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Going to throw in there my latest epiphany which is that if you feel like shit you are totally fucking absolved from things like recycling etc. I am a sustainability driven person, I try to up-cycle, recycle, pass on unneeded items to refugees and all that good shit, but recently I have just given myself permission to throw out fucking leftovers and milk cartons and things like that. For now it needs to be done that way. In the future I will do what I can, when I can, and that will be more than most people do anyhow.
posted by Iteki at 11:42 AM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm in a somewhat similar situation- super-depressed, filthy everything. I moved into a ~600 sq ft apartment January 1st and have only half-unpacked. Things that I have unpacked are mostly on the floor, and walking through the apartment requires... agility.

I agree with Iteki: let things go. I'm generally really concerned about stuff like recycling, but have been so unwilling/unable to even feed myself that I finally gave myself permission to buy pre-packaged food and frozen stuff and just throw the plastic containers away. I have so little appetite that any food that appeals to me - no matter how unhealthy - I buy, just so I can eat. A lot of frozen appetizers, ice cream, pesto, etc. The advice to break things down into smaller tasks and the other things you've tried haven't worked for me either.

This isn't something to be ashamed of, no matter how hard it is to believe that. I'm loving all the suggestions here about hiring a cleaner and that they'll totally be non-judgmental.

Basically, I just want to let you know you're not alone. I hope this thread encourages you as much as it has me.
posted by bendy at 5:38 PM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

P.S. After eating for a few weeks, I've been able to graduate to scrambled eggs and fruit. Doing good things for yourself releases endorphins - positive changes beget more positive changes. Best of luck to you.
posted by bendy at 5:42 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've arranged for cleanings for places similarly unkempt - Service Master has always been good to me, and if you describe it to them they can often give you a beginning quote over the phone. Having money to throw at this is awesome; good luck in continuing your recovery!
posted by Deoridhe at 7:11 PM on March 17, 2016