Smart Moves
Ellen James Martin
04/19/2006
POINTERS FOR WOULD-BE HOME SELLERS WITH
CLUTTER PROBLEMS
She's an elementary school teacher in her mid-60s with a
spacious four-bedroom house in a prestigious neighborhood.
Yet ever since her divorce 10 years ago, she's yearned to
sell her place and move to a cozy, sun-filled condo with few
upkeep demands.
So why hasn't the teacher moved? Because
until recently, she'd been unable to confront the enormous
task of sorting through the household belongings she's
acquired during her 30 years in the house. Now, at the
suggestion of her two grown children, she's finally tackling
the project with the help of a professional organizer, Diana
Thomas.
"Until this point, she's felt swallowed up
by her things. Her house has been so crowded she couldn't
really live there, only exist," says Thomas, who's
affiliated with the National Association of Professional
Organizers (www.napo.net).
Even with a de-cluttering coach, the
process is painstaking and difficult for the teacher.
"Letting go of your things is highly emotional. It can be
really rough for many people to get through," Thomas says.
Here are several pointers for would-be home
sellers who must purge to move:
Identify your clutter profile. "Everybody who stacks
their house to the rafters has their own particular
reasons," says Vicki Norris, author of the book "Restoring
Order: Organizing Strategies to Reclaim Your Life."
Some cling to possessions that remind them
of happier times in the past, while others pack-rat due to a
lingering wish to make up for privations endured in
childhood.
Norris, a former real estate agent who
heads her own organizing company, tells of a wealthy client
who felt shortchanged as a child during holiday times. As a
result, she developed an irresistible urge to acquire
Christmas decor and gift wrap. Her stash grew so large that
it soon exceeded the space available in a spare bedroom.
After that, she acquired a storage unit for the overflow.
"A move presents you with a wonderful
opportunity for a fresh start. But this is not just about
tossing and purging. You've got to change your thinking to
change your behavior," she says.
Halt the inflow to hasten the de-cluttering process.
Shopping is a hobby for many who relish the thrill of
hunting through stores for bargains. People often resort to
shopping as a mood-lifter or as an antidote for loneliness.
"Some of our clients have more candles than
they could burn in a lifetime. Others have such collections
of clothing in their bedrooms that they must sleep on just a
small corner of their bed," Norris says.
"At the very least, you've got to stop
buying more of the things for which you have a weakness --
even if you find them at bargain prices," Thomas says.
Develop a timeline and a step-by-step plan for
de-cluttering. Thomas says homeowners who plan to sell their
property should allow the maximum available time for
de-cluttering.
"Because it's laden with decision-making,
going through your belongings can be exhausting -- even for
young people who need to move," she says.
Professional organizers estimate that 2
percent of all Americans are "chronically disorganized,"
meaning they have deep-seated psychological issues related
to the acquisition and handling of material items. "For
them, it's a much longer process to clear through their
things. They might need a full year before they can move out
of a house where they've lived a long time," Thomas says.
An increasing number of professional
organizers are trained to work with the chronically
disorganized. To learn more, and find out if you fall into
this category, contact the National Study Group on Chronic
Disorganization (www.nsgcd.org).
Approach de-cluttering systematically. Most prospective
home sellers can plow through their belongings without the
intervention of a professional organizer, though the help of
a nonjudgmental friend or family member is often useful.
For those tackling the process alone,
Thomas offers several tips. She recommends you work on just
one room at a time -- or a small part of that room if it's
crowded. Make sure you take an ample number of breaks to
avoid fatigue, and don't pass up nutritious meals that help
keep you going.
Do you find it hard to part with
memory-soaked items, like a collection of trophies acquired
in amateur sporting competitions? Thomas suggests you
assemble your treasures and, before letting them go, take a
photo of them to frame and hang on the wall of your new
place.
She says bibliophiles, who struggle to part
with an overflow of books, often do well to donate them to
an organization that will put them to use. Other collections
with intrinsic value, such as antique teacups, can be easily
sold through an Internet-based service such as
www.craigslist.org or
www.ebay.com.
Thomas also advocates using a reward as an
incentive to help spur your de-cluttering project. This
could be a brief vacation trip or a festive party at a
restaurant. But the best motivational tool for many people
is to begin visiting the kind of home where they'd next like
to live.
"Letting go of excessive possessions is a
lot easier when you're looking forward to the positives in
the next stage of your life rather than looking back at what
you must give up from the past," Thomas says.
COPYRIGHT 2006 ELLEN JAMES MARTIN
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