BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A Downtown Brooklyn
husband-and-husband couple
has made it their business to
clean out some of the city’s
worst hoarder homes.
Julian Bannister and Yannick
Jules-Bannister, cofounders
of the company New
Beginning Cleaners, say they
have come to see how people’s
quarters are both a safe haven
and an expression of their
mental woes.
“Once you go home, you
take your work home, you take
your family argument home,”
said Julian Bannister. “It becomes
a thing of how bad are
your thoughts and how taken
over are you from them.”
The entrepreneurs
launched their company some
four years ago — initially as a
maid service — but their very
fi rst job proved to be more
challenging than a mere surface
scrub.
“Our fi rst case, I remember
well, was fl oor-to-ceiling
garbage, there was no way to
walk, the woman was sleeping
on magazines and books and
you couldn’t even see a coach
nor a bed — we just could not
leave her in that situation,”
Bannister recalled.
The two men and another
co-worker cleared out the
woman’s Bronx apartment in
four days, carrying out hundreds
SAME SERVICE
AVAILABLE
ANTIQUES AND ESTATE BUYERS
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
SEE OUR AD IN THE SUNDAY POST
516-974-6528
ASK FOR CHRISTOPHER
WILL TRAVEL. WE MAKE HOUSE CALLS.
COURIER L 22 IFE, MARCH 20-26, 2020
bags of trash via the
building’s elevator for 12-13
hours each day.
“Yannick was standing in
the elevator behind the bags
— 20 bags — squished in, I
would go in the next elevator,
squished in,” Bannister said.
“We were taking out 300 bags
of garbage from a one-bedroom
apartment.”
In the following years, they
cleared out many more homes,
wading through piles of rubbish,
such as utility bills from
the 1960s and several dead
pets, but what surprised them
most was the clean appearance
of some hoarders when
leaving their chaotic abodes.
“They are some of the most
well-dressed people,” he said.
One of several memorable
cases the cleaners encountered
was a man who dressed
in clean suits and sneakers,
but once the scrubbers entered
his apartment, they found he
was storing hundreds of bottles
of his own urine, due to issues
with his bowels.
“You’re talking about 450
bottles of pee we counted,”
Bannister said. “It was the
most toxic place we ever had.”
The man suffered from
arthritis that made it hard
for him to do some ordinary
tasks, leading him to spiral
into depression and his girl-
A hoarder’s bedroom in East New
York.
Husbands Yannick Jules-Bannister and Julian Bannister clean some of
the city’s messiest hoarder homes. Photos by New Beginning Cleaners
Letting go of the past
Cleaners offer new beginning for city’s worst hoarders
friend leaving him. The Bannisters
grew concerned when
they heard from a neighbor
that the man once had two
dogs but that, eventually, they
had stopped barking.
One of their workers soon
stumbled upon a grizzly fi nd
when they discovered a perfectly
severed head of a Rottweiler
beneath piles of trash,
but not the rest of the hound or
the second pooch.
“He’s always stated to this
day that he doesn’t know how
the dog’s head got decapitated
perfectly,” Bannister said. “We
never found the other one.”
Check out Brooklyn Paper Radio
online wherever you get your podcasts
for an extended conversation with
Julian Bannister and Yannick Jules-
Bannister about their work cleaning
up hoarder homes in Brooklyn!
ANTIQUE & ESTATE BUYERS
We buy anything old. One piece or house full.
WILL TRAVEL. HOUSE CALLS. WILL TRAVEL
ENTIRE
TRI-STATE!
TOP $ PAID
FOR JUDAICA
COLLECTIBLES
HOUSE
CALLS
SAME DAY
SERVICE
AVAILABLE
WILL TRAVEL. WE HOUSE CALLS.
1029 WEST JERICHO 37W 47TH TURNPIKE,ST, NYC
SMITHTOWN, L.I.
HOUSE
CALLS
SERVING
BROOKLYN
AND THE ENTIRE
TRI-STATE AREA
WE PAY $ CASH $ FOR
ALL GOLD, GOLD & STERLING SILVER
COSTUME JEWELRY, ALL COINS, PAPER
MONEY & STAMP COLLECTIONS
ALL GOLD...BROKEN OR NOT
PRE- 1960 FURNITURE, CLOCKS WATCHES (WORKING OR NOT)
TIFFANY, BACCARAT, LALIQUE
FREE
Estimate
��������������������������������������������The List is Endless
YERS
MILITARY
Collections Wanted
Swords, Knives,
Helmets, etc.
www.AntiqueAndEstateBuyers.com
����������������������
for Antique
������������������
W
Q
&
����������������������
����������������������������
����������������������������
WITH COUPON ONLY. EXPIRES APRIL 30, 2020.
/www.AntiqueAndEstateBuyers.com
/www.AntiqueAndEstateBuyers.com
