De-Cluttering Tips for A Hoarder Clean-out

Hoarder Clean-Out and Cleaning Strategies

If you or a loved one tends to hoard or is simply overly cluttered, there are ways to tackle your messes and overcome this setback. A cluttered home often loses its functionality and comfort.  Instead of being a relaxing place to return to, the environment induces stress. Taking control of a big mess is challenging, but it’s possible. Luckily, Junk Pros NY has seen it all. Our team understands junk!  We have some tips to help you conquer the challenge of a hoarder clean-out! It’s okay to start slow. You may lose motivation if you try to tackle your messes all at once. Instead, use this guide to accomplish your goals.

Your goal of organizing your home will be most successful if you implement small strategies that enable you to think logically about getting rid of your stuff. There are many low-stress techniques you can use to start minimizing your piles of clutter.

Tips for Tackling Your Clutter

  • Only handle an item once.  When sorting through items of household junk, it’s easy to pick up an item and set it aside for later.  This just creates new piles of items to sort through all over again.  Your goal should be to deal with an item once.  Either put it away where it belongs or toss it. Don’t go from pile to pile.
  • Digitize your memories: A lot of messes could be prevented if you went digital.  Think about all of the CDs, family photo albums, and magazines that took up room in your home.  You can upload a lot of these items online.  This is a great way to free up a lot of space in your house and even be able to access your items more easily.  Everything will all be in one place!  Start by switching all of your newspaper and magazine subscriptions to digital and scanning your pictures onto a computer.  While tedious, it’ll amaze you how much space this could create!  Here are some tips to help you get your digitization process started.
  • Store like items together: As you find homes for items that you want to keep, keep similar items together.  This saves you a lot of time looking for things in the future.  Not only does this save you time looking for items, but it puts your belongings into perspective.  You’ll be able to see what items you have too many of, diminishing any urge to keep shopping for that item.
  • The 6-month rule: If you truly can’t decide whether to keep or get rid of an item, put it in a box for six months.  Seal it up and put it away.  If you don’t touch that box after six months, then toss the items inside.  You don’t need them.
  • Don’t need it? Don’t keep it:  A lot of the items in your house are things you don’t need or ever even use.  Be honest with yourself about items that fit into your life.  If you never paint, why do you have so many painting supplies?  Why do you have an entire shelf with cookbooks that you’ve never opened?  Recognize when you don’t have a purpose for an item and part with it.
  • Broken or unusable items:  If an item no longer works the way it was supposed to, there is probably no reason you should hold on to it.  Similarly, if an item is outdated to the point it is no longer relevant, such as a cord to your old electronics, let it all go.  The items you choose to keep are taking up valuable space in your home, so you want those items to serve a purpose in your life.

Tips For Maintaining A Clean Environment After A Hoarder Clean-out

You’ve finally minimized some or all of the clutter in your home. It’s important to continually commit to keeping it that way!  It’s so easy to fall back into bad habits and end up right where you started.  To keep your home free from clutter, remember:

  • No impulsive shopping:  Just don’t do it.  Before you go on a shopping trip, write a list of the items that you need and stick to the list!  If you see something you really want that isn’t on the list, wait.  Give yourself a week or however much time you find appropriate to think about it.  If at the end of this time you regret not buying it and still want it, now you can make your purchase.  Chances are, however, that you won’t miss it and will be glad you didn’t bring it home.
  • Put it back: After you use an item at home, don’t set it on the counter “for later.”  We both know later won’t happen!  Return items to their home as soon as you’re done using them.  This is so important to maintain all the hard work you’ve put into your home.  Otherwise, things will start to pile up again.  Putting it away to start with is less overwhelming later on.
  • Set aside time for your home: A good way to make sure your home stays organized is by setting aside 10-30 minutes each week to straighten up.  Catch the messes before they begin to accumulate.  A half-hour, or even less, is plenty of time to get things back in order if you tried to maintain your home throughout the week.  If you use this strategy, messes should never become overwhelming again.

Getting Rid of Your Unwanted Stuff the Easy Way

Most likely, you’ll have piles and piles of stuff to get rid of once you go through these steps.  You have already worked so hard to sort and clean your home.  You deserve a break now, which is why you should consider hiring a professional junk removal team like Junk Pros NY to come in and get rid of it all for you.  Our team will show up with a truck large enough to haul your stuff away in no time.  Just point out what needs to go and we’ll make it disappear for you.  This is a great option if you don’t want to take trip after trip to a donation center or dump.  Let our team do all of the heavy lifting for you so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor and enjoy your newly cleaned home!