Bathtubs full of pet poo, rooms stacked to the ceiling with rubbish and a MUMMIFIED dog: Inside Australia’s worst hoarder houses
- Dead bodies and mummified pets have been found in Sydney’s hoarder houses
- Cleaning companies now specialise in cleaning up hoarder houses
- 8,000 to 18,000 Sydney homes are owned by compulsive hoarders
Bathtubs full of cat litter and a mummified dog are among the grim discoveries made inside hoarder homes as they hit the market for the first time in decades.
Hoarding specific cleaning companies have boomed in recent years to deal with the increasing number of deceased estates in dire need of clear-outs prior to sale.
An estimated 8,000 to 18,000 Sydney homes are owned by compulsive hoarders, according to realestate.com.au.
Among the most unusual finds in properties across Sydney include bathtubs full of animal faeces, cockroach infestations and a mummified pet dog
One of the companies leading the charge is ‘Hoarder Clean-up’ fronted by Chris Burgess and his sons.
They’ve seen some of the worst homes in Sydney, including a home in Greenwich where a dead body was found in 2018.
The body was discovered in a rolled up carpet in the home and when the home went for auction the property was flooded by curious onlookers keen to find out more.
The deceased estate resold for $2.07million despite the macabre discovery.
An estimated 8,000 to 18,000 Sydney homes are owned by compulsive hoarders, according to realestate.com.au
Bathtubs full of pet poo are a common find in Sydney’s hoarder homes
Mr Burgess told realestate.com.au they also found a mummified dog inside the drawer of a home in North Sydney and an alarming number of homes with bathtubs full of pet poo.
He said they also found another corpse – but it was likely being used for academic purposes.
‘We found a skeleton, which they got from way back in the days when medical students could buy them from places like India,’ he said.
Meanwhile Hoarder Cleaning Team director Sharon Nohra said when things get really bad, it isn’t just animal poo they’re cleaning up.
‘When there is so much rubbish you can’t move, the (residents) can’t get to the bathrooms anymore and they use bags,’ she said.
One property in Parramatta was sold on Saturday for over $1.1million, despite a towering mass of wooden crates and boxes outside the home.
Another in Darlington which featured stacks of newspapers as tall as the ceiling will go up for sale on Tuesday after a lengthy clean-up of the deceased estate.
Old newspapers stack up in a Sydney home where the owner has been accumulating them over the years