As a professional organizer, Vanessa Hogan specializes in hoarders. And hoarders, she said, typically have trouble letting go of stuff, whether it’s their grandmother’s Hummel figurines or paper clips. She works with hoarders to help them take control of the chaos and reduce clutter. Hogan, proprietor of A Second Pair of Hands LLC in Boston, spoke with Globe correspondent Cindy Atoji Keene.

“Some people go into professional organizing because they think it’s an easy way to make money. But anyone can sort green or blue clothes by color and put them on pretty hangers. Not a lot of organizers do what I do — the dirty work.

“I got into this line of work because I was a shopaholic, which is a similar thought process to hoarding. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of buying and returning and always had bags and bags of crap. I went through a recovery program and one day started helping my then-office manager clean out her house. I got more jobs until one day I started my own business.

“Telling my own story often helps gain the confidence of a client. They are not going to let you dig through their things until they trust in you. They might be holding onto their grandmother’s solid cherry hutch that’s 100 years old, waiting to pass it onto their kids. But young people would rather go to IKEA and get cheap modern furniture. Or a wedding dress — I can guarantee that your daughter probably doesn’t want that big old puffy dress.

“One of my craziest assignments was working for a woman living in a five-bedroom house in Arlington, which had to be cleared and sold within 14 days, or the state would take it over.

“I encourage donations to charities and try to leave every time with bags filled with greeting cards, shoes, office supplies, canned goods, mail, newspapers, bottles, or even twisty ties from bread. Often there are tears of thanks and appreciation. There’s freedom because all that stuff is no longer weighing you down.’’

Cindy Atoji Keene can be reached at cindy@cindyatoji.com.