Memories of Home in Abandoned Foreclosed Houses

August 31st, 2008

Firms endeavouring to clean up the mess of foreclosed houses come across the memories and mementos of homes.

Matt Paxton is one of the many assigned by banks in William County, to clean and clear up abandoned foreclosed houses. Walking into one on Eames Lane in Dale City he finds clues of yester days when this house of bricks and mortar was a home where people loved, ate and slept. Amidst a pile of trash there was a child’s composition book on which the owner had written his name nearly a dozen times. On another page he had sketched a three-storey house with a pool – it being much nicer in which his family was staying.

The name of Paxton’s firm is Clutter Cleaner. He deals with ‘extreme cleaning’ – a part of the new foreclosure jargon that refers to giving the healing touch to abandoned houses. With so many foreclosures in the fray, cleaning out junk has become thriving business. Over 4,500 units have been foreclosed in William County. In July alone there were 945 foreclosure postings.

Evicted occupants have hastily departed taking with them bare essentials leaving behind a motley collection of furniture, wearing apparel, trash, gadgets and sadly even pets. As per rules, when the bank takes over, everything must be removed before the house can be put up for sale. This is where the Clutter Cleaner makes an important appearance.

Paxton’s day starts early in the morning when he glances at his work list. He gets it from his mortgage servicing company based in New Jersey. He then divides the job to two of his staff members. Some of the work does not involve anything beyond changing locks to deter squatters or trimming of the grass to give the empty house a lived in appearance. But there are also other types of arduous tasks that involve engaging a trailer to dispose of garbage while battling cockroaches and the nausea of rotting food. Anything of value is donated to charities while the rest is used to shore up landfills in the county.

What moves Paxton most are the small things left behind that point back to happier days. It saddens him to see the dreams of people left behind as trash. All these are apparently small things – a child’s shoe, milk bottles in the frig, family pictures and cans of paint and tools speaking of a desire to spruce up that house that had been once their homes.