Hoarding Help New York City and Long Island

Dealing with hoarding may seem overwhelming. In New York hoarding is very common. We see houses owned by hoarders all the time. You don’t need to be intimidated by the multitude of items and accumulations in your home. However, you should know that in most cases emptying a home from a lifetime of collecting takes some time.

Before you decide to trash everything or sell the house (contents included), you need to call a professional. We can help you understand the difference between trash and treasure. You might have some very valuable items underneath all the rubble. We will help you decide if a cleanout, estate sale, auction, or outright sale would be the best option.

You may have been collecting and hoarding items your whole life and now it’s time to move. Many times we see collections that have taken over 50 years to accumulate. In other instances, it could be antique heirlooms from multiple family members that ended up in one home. Whatever the case may be, now you need to take a closer look at an extensive amount of items. You need to figure out the next step in getting yourself organized.

Syl-Lee Antiques will assist you with this difficult, but a manageable process. With over 45 years in the antique business, we’ve pretty much seen it all. We’ve dealt with houses where you could not see the floor. We’ve seen houses that were unoccupied for multiple years and falling apart. We’ve seen houses that were so crowded with old items that you could not open the front door. We’ve even been in hoarder houses that had fire and water damage.

Of course, we’ve looked at the contents of a hoarder’s home and said that an entire cleanout is the only option. However, we have also had many homes that were filled with valuable antiques, jewelry, or fine art. In one home we saw floor-to-ceiling bric-a-brac where half of the items were rare antiques. In many instances, we deal with homes filled with costume jewelry. In an apartment in Manhattan, the children of the homeowners were getting ready to toss everything because it was all fake jewelry. What many people don’t realize is that costume jewelry can be worth more money than the real stuff. We assisted them with the sale and they made thousands of dollars. We saw a home in Long Island that was filled with water-damaged items. They figured all items were probably going to be garbage. We found a rare 19th-century bronze sitting on the floor. It was in decent shape and we sold it for them in a major Manhattan auction.

Whether you are dealing with your own accumulation, or relatives, call us for a free no-obligation home visit. We will do our best to help you with your hoarding situation in any way we can. In certain instances, we even offer to buy the contents of the estate.