Dika's Story of Building an Anti-Hoarding Service: From Angry Clients to Homes Full of Mice
Jakarta – Establishing an anti-hoarding service, which provides home cleaning for people suffering from hoarding disorder, is no simple matter.
Service providers frequently face various challenges, ranging from severely filthy house conditions to direct confrontation with disorder sufferers who refuse to have their homes cleaned.
People with hoarding disorder are typically gripped by anxiety when items they have accumulated for years are cleaned or discarded. Yet most service requests actually originate from family members of hoarding disorder sufferers who can no longer bear the sight of homes piled high with possessions.
“There are indeed many difficulties, especially when encountering stubborn clients or when parents change their minds,” said Dika in an interview, Friday (13 March 2026).
He recounted his experience when a client requested him to clean his parents’ severely cluttered home. However, upon arrival, Dika and his team became targets of the parents’ anger.
“It got to an extreme point, with shouting and complaining. So the difficult part is often being scolded by the parents,” Dika said.
Dika stated that the most bitter experience in running his anti-hoarding service was cleaning extremely filthy homes piled high with items. This experience frequently occurred in the early stages of the service’s establishment in 2024.
The most memorable experience happened when a client asked him to clean a parent’s home in Bogor, West Java.
“It turned out to be a two-storey house with severe hoarding, resulting from the parents’ belongings left behind after their death. The home was extremely cluttered, and there was so much filth like dog urine that I felt nauseous upon entering,” said Dika.
Beyond the filth, the house was filled with unusable items that ultimately had to be removed using four pickup trucks.
Given the sheer volume of accumulated items, Dika and his team struggled to enter the house. The anti-hoarding team also discovered extensive rubbish inside. Due to the severity of the condition, Dika required approximately two days to clean the home.