Who is Abel Dominguez?
Abel owns Temecula Valley Junk Pick Up, a junk removal company in Riverside County. He has run it for seven years. Junk removal puts you inside a lot of homes, and some of them are hoarded.
A hoarded home can belong to anyone. It might be an older parent who has been living alone. It might be a house that sat empty after someone passed away. It might be your own home, and you're ready for a change but don't know where to turn.
Those jobs are different from a regular cleanout. They take longer. They mean more to the family. And how the crew behaves in the home matters as much as how fast the truck gets filled.
Why build a national network?
Families often live far from the home that needs help. A son in one state may be trying to sort out his mom's house in another. It's hard to know who to trust in a town you don't live in, and harder still when the job is this personal.
Hoarding cleanup isn't something you can run well from a call center. Someone has to stand in the home, talk with the person who lives there, and make careful calls about what gets saved. So instead of trying to send one crew around the country, Abel built a network of people who already do this work in their own areas and share the same way of doing it.
Between Abel and the project managers, the team has worked in hundreds of hoarded homes.
What does "project manager" mean here?
At a lot of companies, a "project manager" is someone in an office who books the trucks. That's not what we mean.
Your project manager is the person who:
- comes to the home, or reviews your photos, and gives you the free estimate
- talks with the person who lives there and with the family
- builds the plan, including what stays, what gets looked through, and which rooms go first
- leads the crew on site and keeps an eye on what's being sorted
- calls you when something important turns up, like a box of letters or an envelope of cash
- walks the finished home with you at the end
It's one person, from the first visit to the last walk-through. If you have a question on day three, you call the same person you met on day one.
How we try to do this work
There are a few things Abel asks of everyone in the network.
Respect the person who lives there. A home full of belongings is still someone's home. We don't make jokes about it, and we don't talk down to anyone. The person who lives there gets a say in what stays, and they set the pace when they can.
Save before you haul. The crew looks through things before they go in a bag. Old mail gets checked. Photos and papers get boxed and labeled. Our page on sorting and saving belongings explains how that works.
Be honest about cost. Hoarding cleanup is often expensive, and we won't pretend otherwise. We don't publish prices because every home is different, but your project manager will explain what's driving your estimate. Financing is available.
Keep it private. We keep it low-key and private. We don't share your address or your family's story, and the crew doesn't discuss the job with neighbors.
Don't judge. Homes with pet or human waste, rodent droppings and heavy odor are normal work for us. Nobody on the crew is going to be shocked or make you feel ashamed.
What we do, and what we don't
We handle hoarding cleanup and full house cleanouts, sorting and saving belongings, deep cleaning and odor removal, estate and probate cleanouts, and cleanouts for landlords and property managers.
We don't take in or rehome live animals, and we don't do repairs. If the home needs either, your project manager can connect you with trusted local professionals.
Where we work
Abel's home market is Southern California, in Riverside County and the Temecula Valley. The network also covers parts of Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota, Texas, Tennessee, Colorado and Wisconsin. See the full list on our service areas page. We only add an area once there's a local project manager there to do the work.
If you're not sure where to start, our page on how it works walks through each step. If you're helping a parent or sibling, read helping a family member.
Common questions
How is Fresh Start set up?
Fresh Start is a national network of local project managers who share the same way of working. You call one number, and the project manager who covers your area handles your job from the estimate to the final walk-through.
Will I talk to Abel or to someone local?
Your job will be run by your local project manager, and that's the person you'll work with day to day. Abel founded the company and sets the standards everyone in the network works by.
Do you only do hoarding cleanup?
Hoarding cleanup and hoarded home cleanouts are our focus, along with the sorting, hauling and deep cleaning that go with them. We also handle estate and probate cleanouts and cleanouts for landlords and property managers.