Tenancy Sustainment Packages
We devise practical solutions for Tenants, Landlords, Homeowners and Housing Associations to deal with the underlying mental health and addiction issues that often surround the hoarder or person in extreme disorganisation.
We work with Environmental Health departments by direct referrals or complaints from neighbours. Hoarding can cause an unhealthy community dynamic especially with the stigma around the subject of hoarding ~We strive to promote social bonds within communities The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on mental health disorders and more generally on how people view and value their home life.
We aim to collaborate successfully in a multi-agency approach to tackle the anti-social behaviour of hoarding. We help homeowners and self-funded applicants with individually tailored packages, but we are particularly focused on helping social housing tenants with our low-cost Tenancy Sustainment Package thereby avoiding eviction and the escalating costs across multiple agencies when eviction is actioned.
Hoarding can manifest itself differently and one of the difficulties is determining an individual’s self-awareness of the hoarding problem. Many of our clients are aware of the issue but have feelings of extreme embarrassment. Some are very defiant about it and others do not acknowledge there is a problem at all.
Tenancy Sustainment Aims
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To prevent the premature ending of a tenancy by providing the necessary information, advice and support for tenants with Extreme Disorganisation and Hoarding Disorders to be able to maintain their tenancies
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To encourage tenancy sustainment, recognising certain conditions are required including the property meeting the needs of the tenant, the tenant having the ability to maintain their tenancy and for the tenant to meet their responsibilities as the occupier of the home.
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To provide Therapeutic Cleaning services in specific relation to:
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Reducing Acquisition
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Decluttering
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Professional Organising
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Hazard to Health clear out interventions
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Advising Landlords of issues identified in the home relating safety and maintenance issues.
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To ensure these properties remain homes to the tenants, encouraging them to stay in them, by providing ongoing support with their organising and cleaning requirements. We aim to work with our landlord’s tenants and help them sustain their tenancies.
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To recognise that the cost of a failed tenancy can be high for both tenant and Landlord. Every failed tenancy represents additional resources in the allocation and lettings procedure, as well as possible additional costs resulting from:
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Rent and service charge loss during void period
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Costs incurred in preparing the property for re-letting including advertising
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Staff resources associated with the lettings and eviction/abandonment procedures
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Legal costs
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The costs incurred by other organisations who subsequently take responsibility for accommodating the former tenant
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To recognise the difficulties within communities due to antisocial behaviour, to which Hoarding and Extreme Disorganisation can contribute.
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To raise awareness of the impact of aging for seniors who live with hoarders, and clutter prone individuals or seniors who are hoarders themselves. Excessive clutter in frequently walked areas can easily trip a younger person, let alone elders with poor vision and response time. Recently there has been an increase in awareness of elderly care and it has manifested a substantial fall prevention movement. A justified amount of the focus has been placed on creating a safe and manageable environment, and that means reducing hoarding tendencies and clutter.
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To reduce the need for authorities such as Social Services, the Fire Authority and Environmental Health to intervene as we work with the hoarder to raise their awareness of the seriousness of their hoarding in a legal context. Most hoarders are not aware that their hoarding may result in a protracted legal process where they may lose their children, animals, home and in some circumstances be prosecuted, fined and/or imprisoned.
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To maintain regular, personal and sustained contact with ‘at risk’ householders and work in partnership with specialist support agencies working with vulnerable client groups as well as the statutory authorities.
A Therapeutic Model for addressing
a Tenant's Hoarding Behaviours
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Harm Reduction approach
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Positive behaviour plans
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Wellbeing support plans
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Client Centred
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Interventions that show how the hoarding is affecting them in a negative way.
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Assessments to determine a person’s attitude for change
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Post Settlement Support
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Acquisition reduction
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Addressing ‘hobby’ collecting
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Detailed spending budgeting
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Relapse Prevention - the tenant is supported in coming to terms with the new lifestyle ahead of them
Our client centred approach means that the hoarding resident should be involved in every aspect of the process involving his or her home. Aside from the physical challenges of treating a hoarder’s home; many professionals face the psychological challenges of their clients. Our team is led by a clinical psychologist to overcome these barriers.
We help clients understand that their lifestyle creates harbourage for insects and rodents and can be hazardous to their health.
We emphasise respect to our clients, providing educational information and assistance, and we always keep in mind that these clients are individual people with individual needs.
We must convince the hoarder to let go of their clutter so that we can adequately prepare their home. Although we do everything in our power to help them, some people just can’t bear to part with their clutter, and this takes several psychotherapy led interventions.
We aim not to embarrass the person who has been hoarding. Often these people are dealing with serious emotional issues. As professionals, we remain patient and understand that this isn’t something that can be rectified in a day or two.
Our treatment plans for hoarding (whether it be clinical/therapeutic and/or community intervention) always follow a harm reduction approach: striving to make the home safe and sanitary in a way that does impede the hoarder’s therapy. We never touch or move anything without permission from the resident— we assume that every single belonging holds significance. Therapy will be a slow and time-consuming process.
Hoarders don’t respond well to extreme clean-outs. Like removing alcohol from an alcoholic, that doesn’t address the situation itself, and if you remove the person’s belongings without their involvement, the hoarding can come back more intense than before. We offer to support our clients into developing new and healthy belief systems about their belongings.
We pay particular attention to children and vulnerable adults within the home living with the hoarding and comply with all safe-guarding duties.
We recognise that continued personal and sustained support for vulnerable and potentially vulnerable individuals is critical to the future success of their tenancy. The role of our Therapeutic Cleaners and Hoarding Practitioners is important in undertaking this work and in using housing support plans to detail the nature of assistance provided and actions to be followed to meet priorities agreed with the tenant. We provide a full case management service.
1 Day Hazard to Health Intervention
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A bespoke, budget 1st level intervention at a fixed price for tenants or landlords on a limited budget.
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We offer 1 day of 6 hours with a team of 3 Therapeutic Cleaners who will do a ‘blitz’ of the worst of the clutter and disorganisation and fill a 12 yard skip.
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Skip hire (as of Feb 2026 is around £400 per fill)
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A 1-day intervention filling a 12 yard skip will make a significant dent in the level of rubbish and disorganisation. It should then provide for a further assessment of the situation.
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This service is a fixed price of £1150. This service can only be provided if the tenant is accepting of the intervention and understands the level of rubbish is a hazard to health and must be cleared quickly.
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This solution does not include general decluttering and organising the personal belongings.
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If a client is unable to afford the intervention, the landlord may be able to pay the fee up front to Clearout NI, and then arrange a repayment plan with the tenant.
Regular Therapeutic Cleaning
We can then offer an ongoing service to attend the property every 2 weeks for 2 hours for further organising and eventually ongoing cleaning. This would be a £70 charge every 2 weeks.
Our Therapeutic Cleaners are trained to challenge the client (tenant) to establish why the cluttering behaviours are occurring / reoccurring. Making simple suggestions to changes to daily routines and ways to deal with general household tasks over a sustained period will allow the client to regain control of their home and prevent a relapse.
Should you wish to avail of either the 1st Level clear-out Intervention or the ongoing Therapeutic cleaning services then either the client or the landlord (whoever will be responsible for payment) will be required to complete a Contract for Services with Clearout NI.​​​
Contracting our Services
After an initial telephone call, we will make an appointment to meet the Tenant at the home and provide a full assessment of the situation.
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We will then create a proposed treatment plan containing different levels of interventions.
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We will provide you with a full quotation for our services.
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We will ask you to enter a Tenancy Sustainment Package Contract and pay an agreed deposit. You will also need to commit to a payment plan.​