You may have seen the TV shows of peoples’ houses filled with stuff, and then you see the dump trucks one by one, removing most of the person’s belongings in a whirlwind manner, scooping them off to the dump, with pressure, stress, drama and judgement during the entire process. All with cameras rolling and neighbors watching.
This is not an experience that I will ever inflict upon you. As your organizer, I will treat your belongings with respect and discretion. I also realize that there is not a one-size-fits all solution. You may want to keep most of your stuff, organizing the bulk of it into one room of the house so that the rest of the house is freed up. Or you may want to get a lot of it or some of it ready to sell, or dispose of much of it. What you want to do with your belongings is your business.
Now, having said that, if you can’t part with used paper plates / plastic forks / plastic cups, and soiled / moldy dolls, then I am not the right fit for you.
What is a hoarding situation vs a clutter situation?
A hoarding situation is one in which the entire house is full of stuff such that its very difficult to move through the house; you have to step over things or carefully struggle to move around items/objects in order to get from one room to the next. Sometimes air vents will be blocked off by stuff that is stacked up. A hoarding situation can pose several dangers such as mold growth and fire hazards.
A clutter situation is one in which it’s easy to move from room to room but there’s just a lot of stuff, sometimes stacked from floor to ceiling–or several rooms of the home are full of stuff. A clutter situation is one where there is no danger of mold growth or fire hazards, but there’s just a lot of stuff–a lot more stuff than you’d find in an average house–and that stuff is impeding your enjoyment of your possessions and your home.
How long is it going to take?
If you are in a hoarding or cluttering situation described above, it would take weeks or months for me, by myself, to go through each individual item in your home, evaluating, sorting, organizing, and figuring out where and how to store or place each individual item. This would be quite cost prohibitive. I could also hire a team and we could go through it much quicker, but it would still be cost prohibitive due to you having to pay a whole team of people to go through each individual item.
Therefore, remediating a cluttering or hoarding situation requires that we approach it via one of two ways, according to your choice:
- If you feel that it is important for you to go through each individual item carefully, then I can get you started, showing you what to do, and then you can take over, and I can maybe check-in to see your progress and help here or there as needed. In this scenario I can come out for half a day, a full day, or several full days if needed. It will take you weeks or months, and possibly longer, depending on your situation. Or,
- You do not feel like it’s important to go through each individual item carefully and you feel that you want to dispose of a lot of items. This will make the process go much faster, saving you a lot of time and money. In this scenario, I would only need to come out for one day to several days.
How does it work?
I will consult with you at no charge about what your objectives and needs are. I will ask you questions such as, “How do you want or need to use the spaces in your home or office, and what is getting in the way of that or what obstacles are you facing? What are the items that you need to keep in order to use the space the way you want or need to? What do you want the end result to be?” If you don’t know, please text me some pictures or a walk-through video of the rooms in your home that you want to declutter, and I can give you feedback and an estimate.
Next, we will decide whether you, I, or both of us will do the following:
- Empty an area in the home or office to provide a space for sorting and organizing items.
- Sort items into 3 groups: keep, sell, donate, according to your preferences.
- Organize the keep items into basic categories, such as “kitchen,” “bath,” “closet” etc
- Determine the amount of space that the “keep” items are going to need.
- Determine the arrangement/placement of the “keep” items.
- Explore storage and organization systems that keep spaces neat and make the items ordered and accessible to you.
- Clean the space(s) and assemble the items into their final placement / arrangements.
