Part Two: Hoarder's Home the 'Absolute Worst'

Skokie Patch was invited to get an inside look at the hoarding business. A few weeks ago, firefighters had to cut a hole on the roof to remove a dead body inside the home.

Craig Strauss, the owner of American Hoarders in Skokie, is working on his biggest job yet. Piles of possessions collected for more than 30 years have "totaled" what looks like a once normal-looking residential home.

Inside the house, many of the items are water damaged. Pillows, cleaning supplies and clothes are packed in so tight that it looks like a machine compressed them.

Strauss is allowing Skokie Patch to tag along and get an inside look at the hoarding cleanup business.

It's a dirty, grimy, smelly, perilous and laborious business with few rewards - aside from the satisfaction of a job well done.

Workers from American Hoarders have to climb and stand on typewriters, grills and suitcases while they dig with their hands to remove material that will eventually go into a Dumpster outside. After they get through the slime in clearing out the refrigerator, there are condiments from Heinz and Kraft that are so old they belong in a nostalgia shop. Elsewhere, floors are littered with decades worth of newspapers, some dating to 1989.

In removing leftover items and other junk, workers usually wear protective masks to prevent breathing mold and other airborne threats to their health. They also put on gloves to contend with grime, cobwebs, dust and other hazards.

During jobs when the air gets too foul, his crew members use respirators to battle the overwhelming stench, Strauss said.

"The nastiness of it, the exhaustion, thank goodness it doesn't have that putrid smell," he said about the current job. "You gotta deal with it."

That "putrid smell" can come from a variety of sources collected by hoarders.

"When a hoarder collects animals, the smell is just putrid," Strauss said. "Even myself, I become overwhelmed and [say] 'Oh my God. This job is a nightmare'

"You have to wear masks and goggles because bugs and maggots and flies are everywhere," he added.

When Strauss' team started the project about two weeks ago, every area, including the garage, was filled with such objects as bottles, clothes and even mattresses from floor to ceiling. The crew's first task was to remove all the debris from the garage as its members worked to reach the kitchen.

"This is the absolute worst I've ever seen," said Dan Dugan, site supervisor for American Hoarders. "In six days we've filled up eight Dumpsters – that's 12 tons of trash. And we still got our work cut out for us."

The crew even found a live cat inside the house.

"It was caged and terrified," said Dugan. "I have no idea how it survived, especially in this summer heat."

Yet for Strauss, the job does have its upsides.

"I'm a huge history guy," he said. "It's like I'm on a treasure hunt. Sometimes I find old family Civil War pictures of relatives, old firearms, old coins, bonds from railroads — that to me is really exciting."

Most of what he finds he keeps, but for some of the more valuable items, he contacts family members to see if they want them. He said his hardest working employees get rewarded with items the family doesn't want.

Strauss said he has already collected a "whole black garbage bag full of cash" from this job.

"Some [of the cash] is nice and crisp, some nasty and dirty," he said. "I'm sure I threw out hundreds of dollars. You just can't go through everything -– there's just to much stuff."

While finding hidden "treasures" may sound like fun, the job also has its downsides.

Click on Part Three to read the conclusion and Part One if you missed it.