Hoarding Cleanup Help in Ohio

Ohio is where our Medicaid work started, and it’s the state where we’ve had to learn the system properly rather than from a brochure.

If you’re an Ohio family looking at a home that’s gotten away from someone you love — or a case manager with an authorized client and no vendor who’ll take the job — call 888-729-0490. We answer around the clock.

The PASSPORT waiver pays for this work

Ohio’s PASSPORT waiver is one of the oldest and best-established home and community-based programs in the country, and homemaker and chore services bill under it as code S5120. Chore services, in the waiver’s own language, means heavy cleaning, removing accumulated items, and restoring a safe living environment.

That is hoarding cleanup. The state just calls it something else.

We’re an enrolled Ohio provider, and we’ve already taken our first Medicaid intake here — Ohio is the state that proved the whole model works. Ohio also certifies providers specifically for this service, which tells you the market is real rather than theoretical.

The Columbus metro has a second lane: the City of Columbus Chores Program, separate from PASSPORT.

One rule, and it doesn’t move: no service authorization number, no work. Not on a verbal, not on a promise the paperwork is coming.

For Ohio case managers and Area Agencies on Aging

Referrals in Ohio come through the Area Agencies on Aging, and you already know the frustrating part of your job: a homemaker agency is authorized to clean, but the aide walks in, sees the back bedroom, and the agency declines the referral. Then the next agency does the same thing.

We take those referrals. Our crews carry respiratory protection, work bloodborne-pathogen procedure, and hold the disposal relationships for waste an ordinary cleaning company can’t legally haul. You get a written scope before you authorize, and photo documentation for your file afterward.

Authorized client, unsafe home? Call our team 24/7 — 888-729-0490

What happens when a county health board gets involved

This is the part Ohio families call us about in a panic, usually with a letter in hand.

Under Ohio Revised Code section 3707.01, a local board of health has the authority to abate and remove nuisances within its jurisdiction, and to compel a property owner to remove one — with prosecution available if the owner refuses. In practice that means a health district can order a home cleaned up and put a real deadline on it.

What’s more encouraging is how several Ohio counties have chosen to use that authority. Summit County runs a hoarding task force through its ADM Board that pulls public and private agencies into one coordinated response. Clark County’s Combined Health District operates a task force for cases that threaten life and safety. Lorain County Public Health has handled dozens of hoarding-related nuisance cases in recent years and has been building a response that doesn’t just condemn the house.

The model those counties are moving toward is harm reduction rather than eviction — fix the safety problem, keep the person housed, get them support. If your county has a task force, use it. It’s a far better outcome than an abatement order that ends with somebody losing their home.

And if there’s already a deadline on the letter, tell us the date when you call. We work to it.

What we do in Ohio homes

The same work as everywhere: extreme clutter removal, biohazard remediation, gross filth cleaning, deep cleaning and sanitization, industrial odor removal, and pest aftermath cleanup.

Ohio’s older housing stock changes the job more than people expect. A lot of these homes are pre-war, with basements that take on water, balloon framing that carries odor between floors, and knob-and-tube wiring somewhere behind a pile that nobody has looked at since the Ford administration. We plan for it.

What it costs, and who pays

If the person living in the home is on the PASSPORT waiver with an authorization, the program pays and the family doesn’t. That’s the first thing to check, and a lot of Ohio families never think to ask.

Otherwise it’s private pay, and the price depends on volume, crew-days, and disposal. Homeowners insurance may cover part of it where a covered event is underneath — a burst pipe, a sewage backup — though it generally won’t pay for accumulation on its own. If insurance leaves a gap, financing plans can help with unexpected costs, and relatives who want to contribute can do it through the Family Cleanup Fund.

Ohio families and case managers: call our team 24/7 — 888-729-0490. Tell us what you’re looking at.