I've seen the process a couple of times although I've never been directly involved in it.

Usually a dumpster is placed in the driveway. Then people wearing hazmat type suits enter the home and work all day to sort out savable items from trash. The salvageable items are set aside in an area of the yard (far less than you would think) and the dumpster is filled up with the junk. The full dumpster is then taken away and the "good" stuff is either donated, sold or distributed among family members. The next day, a new dumpster is set in the driveway and the same process is repeated. And then repeated again as necessary.

Once the clean up happens, the home is then fully rehabbed and then sold.

Don't use a realtor, sell it as a tear down to a builder (get a lawyer to help you with the transaction -- will cost less than $1k). Leave the stuff in the house and let the builder deal with it.

call a waste management company. have them drop off two 30 yard roll off containers.

Then go to home depot, buy some leather gloves dust mask and safety glasses. and take 2-3 latino's that are waiting outside, to the house and tell them.

everything inside, goe into the dumpters until they are filled.

roll-offs will cost 2-300 each plus tip fees and the latinos will cost you about 100 bucks each per day.

let them at it.

they will probably set some stuff asside they want to keep and as they are cleaning, which is fine. if you see stuff that you want, you grab it...

keep in mind that hazardous waste like paints, pesticides, cleaners, chemicals ect. should not go in the dumpster.

Can anyone recommend a few service people that could help?
I am thinking of (1) a cleaning company that could get all huge dust bunnies out of basement and (2) someone who could help go through things and throw them out. I guess personal organizers do this, but how much would they charge?
Any ideas?

You might need a company like Servicepro that specializes is flood cleanup, mold etc.

I agree, get the stuff out, fix the major issues (leaking plumbing, etc) and then sell as is. Then get mom therapy and OCD meds.

Anonymous wrote:Contact a builder; they will not care.

You just contact a builder.

My neighbor was a hoarder and got $700K cash for a tear down.

I still remember that Arlington County trash people had to bring an extra truck to haul all the trash away.
The builder made them dump the trash before finalize the deal.

Contact a builder; they will not care.

Dumping used cat litter on top of stuff kept my mom from bringing it back inside.

Jewish Lightening

Anonymous wrote:If the cost of demolishing is more than the land value , you could just abandon it

If it's near a metro that is highly unlikely.

Get it cleaned out and see what you are working with. Don't let realtors see it when it's full of junk. It will get a reputation.

I was about to recommend a great real estate agent in Bethesda who dealt with a situation like this in our building, but I see the thread is two years old. OP, what did you end up doing?

Sell it As Is.

I can sympathize. We live on a residential street in Bethesda that has a hoarder. It is unreal. Three stories of so much "stuff" that the man can barely open the front door. To make it worse, he lives in one half of the third floor--the rest of the house is unfinished. No drywall. A temporary staircase. The entire situation is a mess. I have heard that his family doesn't know what to do since he resists help. I often wonder how they will handle cleaning up the situation. Sounds as if you just need to take it one step at a time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP already said it is in a close in location, 1 mile to metro so we know there is value to the land. No need to abandon anything OP, worst case scenario sell to a builder and have them take responsibility for cleaning it out.

Cost to abandon can mean many things, there are plenty of spots close in and near metro with marginal value like most of PG and parts of MoCo like East of the Pike Rockville and Silver Spring.

Come on out of Bethesda. You'll be surprised at what's out here.