A couple who clean hoarders' homes for a living have revealed shocking images of one of their worst ever properties - which featured 19 dead cats hidden under mountains of rubbish.
Tamara Bender travels the USA with her husband, Jeremy and a team of helpers tackling homes that are full to the brim with rubbish.
Tamara, 37, who keeps her own home in pristine condition, said the discovery of the cats was one of the worst cases of hoarding she's ever seen.
The animals were hidden beneath mounds of rubbish in the home in Arizona, which she then transformed to its former glory.
The mum of seven said: "The same property had five other sheds on it and another mobile home that were all the same, stuff piled literally to the ceiling.
"You have to mentally prepare and take a break or go shopping to try and forget about what you've seen.
"The lady with all the cats appeared not to know they were there but some were pretty obvious.
"We love what we do. We always say that we get paid twice, at the end it's rewarding to see we've changed their life, we can really see a difference.
"We have to form an assembly line and pass items back one by one until we can all fit into the room.
"If the owner works with us then we sit them down and bring them stuff one at a time so they can decide whether to keep it, donate or bin it."
In total, Tamara claims there were more than 60 cats in the property, including 19 deceased animals and three litters of kittens.
After rescuing the remaining living cats and taking them to a local sanctuary, Tamara and Jeremy adopted one of the survivors, Simon.
Tamara and Jeremy from Columbus, Ohio, set up their cleaning business, Help for Hoarders, 17 years ago after discovering one of their family members was a secret hoarder.
Since then, the couple have tackled thousands of homes up and down the country, full to bursting with possessions that their owners find difficult to let go.
Now their teenage daughter Callie works in their business too.
Tamara said: "A relative had a hoarding issue, and no one knew about it until she got sick.
"We looked around for estimates to get help clearing out the house but there was no one.
"She felt judged, so we just did it ourselves and it turned into a business."
In another extreme case of hoarding, the couple had to cut open the roof of a hoarder's motor home because they couldn't fit inside to empty it.
Tamara said the most frequent motive for hoarding is to avoid wasting things that could have value and often people who hoard believe an object could still be usable or might be of interest to someone else.
She said the worst homes can take up to two weeks, with a team of 10 crew members and 10 skips to clear out the property.
Tamara said: "In the beginning it may have had a legitimate underlying motive of waste not want not but as time goes on it becomes an obsessive compulsive behaviour and a person becomes obsessed with not throwing anything away.
"Some hoarders have trouble letting go, some are afraid to ask for help and need the motivation to get rid of things.
"I haven't met a hoarder who wanted to live like that. It affects their mental health.
"Most of the time there's a trauma or tragedy in their life that has caused them depression.
"Sometimes, hoarding runs in the family. We've done grandparents and gone back years later to do the relatives so it can definitely be passed down, usually from father to son or mother to daughter.
"Compulsive hoarding is not due to laziness or weakness of character, nor is it due simply to disorganisation.
"Hoarding is a disease that many people suffer from.
"Some people don't even realise it is a problem until it's too late, usually by that time they are far too embarrassed to openly ask for help."
