CASEY Council will try to rehabilitate hard-core hoarders at a series of dirty and derelict properties that have been costing ratepayers thousands of dollars in clean-up bills.

Officers have devised a strategy to deal with hoarders in the wake of a fruitless three-year battle to clean-up a Narre Warren property allegedly being used as an unofficial trash and treasure market.

media_camera A hoarder house in Hallam South. Picture: David Crosling

Instead of taking a purely punitive approach with clean-up notices, fines and court action, the new Casey Hoarding and Squalor Protocol will refer problem hoarders to welfare, mental health and child services agencies.

Cr Wayne Smith said there was a longstanding problem house in Hampton Park, which was so bad that when another house on the street was up for sale, real estate agents would take prospective buyers in through another entrance so they wouldn’t see it.

That house was featured on A Current Affair in 2010 when the council forcibly cleaned it up under a court order.

media_camera A house that is allegedly being run as a trash and treasure market in Narre Warren. Picture: Stuart Milligan

So far the council has cleaned it up five times at a cost of $95,000.

“The property in my ward has been subject to numerous prosecutions and clean ups,” Cr Smith said.

“It’s in a key gateway to the area and you cannot help notice it. There have been so many attempts to try and clean it up — over 20 years it has been cleaned up four or five times.

“Neighbours are saying to me it’s such an eyesore.”

Casey manager community safety Caroline Bell said the local laws department had dealt with five properties over the past 12 months, with two court orders resulting in hoarders being ordered to clean up their property.

media_camera Rubbish scattered around the outside of a home in Cranbourne. Picture: Valeriu Campan

“However, these figures are only in relation to unsightly properties where the hoarding behaviour results in the collection of goods or waste that is visible in the front or rear of the property,” Ms Bell said.

“It does not relate to issues where hoarding is confined within the building itself, or animal hoarding that impacts neighbouring properties due to noise, odour and vermin.”