MEET the man tackling homes piled with mountains of clothes and bags of rubbish stacked to the ceiling.

Rob Nash from Christchurch opened his clearance business in 2017. Seven years on, he says he has now "seen it all."

Originally a waste management company, the Dorset and Hampshire-based business Coastal Clearance has since expanded into larger projects, including clearing hoarders' homes.

However, what Rob calls "day-to-day jobs" are still common and usually involve straightforward furniture clearance and garage clearouts.

Rob said: "I've always been interested in rummaging through garages and going to car boot sales; you never know what you're going to find.

"I cleared one place and found seven people's ashes stacked in a wardrobe; at another place, I found gold.

"Every job is different, and you just never know what you might discover."

People often contact Rob through his Facebook, but with extreme hoarding cases, they can get referred to him through the council.

"I love helping people find things that they have lost. Sometimes I find family heirlooms or photo albums that have been buried for a number of years," he added.

The time it takes to clean out a home varies depending on its size and the amount of stuff that needs to be cleared.

Rob said he is due to start his "biggest job in seven years" in a couple of weeks.

He said: "It's the worst job I have ever seen, and I think it is going to take three weeks with five of us."

The age of the people that Rob helps varies. He said he has seen hoarders in their 20s, but "9/10, it is older people living alone."

He said: "Hoarding is 100 per cent a mental health issue. One thing I have never seen is someone getting help after I leave, and then we end up having to go back in a couple of months' time.

"I was recently cleaning a home and, in the bath, there was a bag of shopping in the bath because there was no where else to put it."

Rob said he has done several jobs for free because he wanted to help the person and understands  how "difficult it can be to sort out when you are surrounded by things."