To ask you how a professional declutterer works?

[Merryoldgoat]

Help me. I’ve had a really hard term and I’m overwhelmed and not coping with house and work and kids and life.

DH pulls his weight completely - it’s just there isn’t enough time.

I think the first starting point is a big declutter and I’m thinking of hiring help. But how does this work? Do they go round with you asking questions then do the work? Do they categorise then ask you to sort through?

Would appreciate anyone who has used a service to give some guidance.

I can see why it's hard for you OP.
Is it really decluttering that's needed or better/smarter storage solutions?

Posts like this are so unhelpful.

If it were "so easy" for everyone, then no-one would need to start a thread asking for help. There would be no hoarders. There would be no decluttering services.

Clearly, if we all found it "so easy" we wouldn't be here asking for help.
The lack of empathy is stunning.

@DevianincIt’s really good you were able to declutter your house, it is a case of understanding it’s not that easy for everyone.In my case, l’m a hoarder, find it so hard parting with possessions, that l’ve kept for many years, it’s just not a case of getting rid of things.Getting outside help isn’t a waste of money, it is a big step, whichever route someone goes, is equally freeing.

This is the bit I struggle with.

I have to do room by room or even a drawer at a time. Not many people can do Marie Kondo with the entire category of things at a time. Four people's clothes? Fuck off. I'd be overwhelmed before I got all the clothes out.

I bet you think that losing weight is just a matter of eating less and exercising more and can’t understand why anyone is fat.

I hired a Marie Kondo consultant about 5 years ago, when we were moving to a boat from a house. Best money I have ever spent. Can't remember the exact amount but it was in the region of £400. To have empty cupboards, drawers, even rooms was so freeing. And having an empty loft... It's THE BEST feeling!!

The professional declutter will still take time, I guess. They will need you there and won’t be throwing things away without you. Do you have time for that?

I am not a professional at all. But I do help my family declutter, especially my brother and parents who can be hoarders. I am a bit of a nightmare. I march through each room like a sergeant major, not allowing any breaks or rest and fire questions at them and hurl things into bags for throwing or charity.

I make them do it very quickly with very little time for reflection. I go through the house like a whirlwind and it probably takes them several days to recover.😂

They appreciate it though and are grateful. I go to the tip and charity shop for them too. I work full time but love a good declutter session.

I can't speak for all declutterers, but I think most would be pro avoiding landfill where possible and help a client find others methods. I also have 'how realistic is this' conversations with clients re the 'I'm going to sell this' pile.
I think it worth checking individual declutters websites to see if they offer additional help services as some may well.
My objective with a client is not leave them with these piles becoming a long term problem. I'll help them make a plan as to how and when these things will leave their home.
I have taken things to a charity shop but usually not until I have developed a relationship with a client over several sessions, as there is a risk of regret from a client and I absolutely don't want them to feel they had been under any pressure. Everyone is so different and that's why it is worth looking up a few declutterers to find the right fit for you.
I have helped clients find suitable collection services that they can persue. I never get involved in selling things though, there is risk involved in a client not getting what they believed something was worth. It's also quite time consuming. A quick google shows there are some small businesses that will sell things on your behalf but I have no experince of them.

I think that would be my ideal job, lol.

yup. whenever i feel overwhelmed by life admin or my to do list, I think to myself "but my loft is empty" Its almost a year now and I haven't put a thing back up there.

I can understand getting someone to organise your cupboards and stick labels etc but I don't think I'd ever pay for someone to declutter. You'll still have to be there to decide what to throw or keep. A decluttering person wouldn't be able to do it whilst you're out the house.

Those saying they get a decluttering person to come yearly....surely that's so wasteful? The point is to declutter and stop buying crap afterwards.

I also like Dana c white and het YouTube videos

making sure everything that is the sane thing is all together is stage one. Then you can declutter it when it’s all together. And reduce it so it fits into that space and no more (container concept)

THIS. All of this!

Do one drawer, one shelf or one storage box at a time. 10-15 minutes a day.

I need a good declutter and my problem used to be that I was skint and I felt everything had a value. Now I’m not skint but I still have boxes and boxes of stuff to get rid of, I would just rather it went to someone who actually wants it instead of the sorting room void that is most charity shops.

There was a house fire locally last year and they needed replacement clothes for the whole family, and in winter a plea went out for coats and hats for the homeless. I was delighted to get rid of loads of bits to those causes. Why I can’t just bag up everything else and charity shop it, I don’t know. Something’s stopping me.

@Redglitter But surely if you need them to come back every year it's because you've accumulated a whole new batch of crap in that time! Why on earth? Just stop buying things you don't need!

I have sold stuff and might again but to me its a bit of sunk cost fallacy. You think you shouldn't get rid of something because you won't get back what you paid for it or what you think its worth....but whatever you do with the object, the money is gone.My line is that the effort of selling is not repaid by the return unless the thing actually has enough value to make a real difference to my income. Massively little of what I have decluttered has actually gone to rubbish and what has gone would have been of no use to anybody which is no reason for keeping it. I do freecycle and am on a couple of local giveaway groups on facebook. The advantage of the giveaway groups is that the members will collect from me which makes it much easier. I also use local sally ann textile bins and local chazzas. The other thing that helped me is that I cling on to the fact that i don't have to change. To see my house you'd know I am a pack rat and I like being a pack rat, never going to be anything else....people can declutter what they don't want or need and still keep the stuff that they value even though its more than someone else would keep. The one thing Marie Kondo and I do agree on is "Keep what sparks joy IN YOU"

local facebook giveaway pages or freecycle.

Im going through the process of a massive downsize and have come to agree with @godmum56 about feeling you need to get your money back for things.

I would rather somebody bought something for £5 and made use of it rather than keeping it and holding out for £50 because it’s what it is ‘worth’. Things are only worth what someone is prepared to pay for them.

@Merryoldgoat - I also have two SEN kids (although ours are lower need - mainstream school with 1 to 1, rather than special school) and can completely empathise with you. Ignore anybody telling you to just do it yourself, they don’t understand. There’s no way you can do serious tidying with the kids at home so if you’re working while they’re in school you have no chance!

Over the years we have hired professional organisers three times, and they all worked slightly differently:

1. Was more of an organiser/tidier - she tended to take everything out of a cupboard then ask me to take out whatever we didn’t want anymore while she put little organising boxes in the cupboard and then sorted and labelled everything. I didn’t find it that helpful.
2. She’d take everything out, sort into categories, help me go through them, then bag up the items to donate, and sort and tidy the cupboard.
3. By far the best! She talked to me about how to best use the storage space we have, how to prioritise the categories of things we use a lot vs things that should be tucked away but rarely used. Then she would organise things into categories, help me go through them, suggest which needs to go (eg she’d learn what sizes the kids are in, and pile up the stuff they’d outgrown separately). But then - most importantly - she actually got the stuff out of my house. So some of it went straight in my bins/recycling, she would take stuff to give to the charity shops and some local charities she had links to. There were some things I wanted to sell so she cleaned them up for me, took photos and wrote the description for the ad, I just had to post it and then arrange the collection/posting.

It’s worth asking to speak to them before booking in to find out if you can work well with them/how much of the process they’ll handle for you.

For each of them I paid around £40 per hour but we are in an affluent area , plus she worked easily 3 times faster than I would have so it worked out cheaper than paying a babysitter to mind the kids so that I could do it (even if I could have found a babysitter who could cope with Sen kids which is a whole other challenge).

Hope that’s helpful and good luck,

No its just because in my situation after a year or so I admit things are just not as tidy as they were. Its more the tidying side rather than decluttering. I think last time there was something like 2 bin bags for dumping and a box or so for charity.

I look on the refresh as an annual deep clean. They come in for half a day and rearrange cupboard stuff, drawers etc and reset everything back to having a place again.

Im not buying crap thanks nor am I accumulating stuff again. I look on it as an annual reset

And for health reasons its not something I can undertake myself

It's money well spent in my opinion and I know they have a lot of clients who get a refresh just to keep on top of things

@Alltheoldpaintings

that is super helpful - thank you ❤️

We’re away for the weekend and being somewhere so clear is amazingly calming.

I spoke to my husband about trying to make some changes he’s and get the house in order and he agrees we need some help so we’ll look around.

We’re not rolling in money but we earn above average so we can afford some input for sure.

Hi,
I hope you don't mind me asking as this is my dream job! Would you say for some, it's not really decluterring but therapy they need. Some of the TV shows are horrifying, but I'm sure there are some people out there who just don't have time. Is it easy to tell straight away?

I've found booking an Anglo doorstep collection has helped me. I know it's partly going to a good cause then I've got a fixed day I know they're coming and I just put out as much as I can

That's a really interesting question, always happy to answer any.
Yes I would say as some one with over a decade of experience, it is fairly easy to tell within a first session, though I would never see it as just needing therapy without the decluttering alongside as well. Clients tend to contact me at various stages of their journey. Some are so ready to let go, for others, this is this their first step and its a much more tentative and slower journey at that point. Some clients benefit from therapy (from a separate therapist) along side the decluttering work. Others though, build a relationship with me over time that meets that need.

When I watch some of the decluttering programmes, there are definitely some clients I think, that will struggle to maintain the newly created order, that their issues run a little deeper and it will take therapy to help them further and stop the house filling up again. Because if you carry on with the same purchasing habits, and what ever psychological need that drives them, you are going to face the same issues again in time. Letting things go is rarely a one off thing. If we have developed strong attachment to 'things' through loss or stress or whatever reason, that in general takes work to dismantle as a habit/or psychological need.

I have some theraputic/counselling qualifications that help but I think actual therapy needs to be a separate thing to delve deeper when a client is really struggling to let go of anything.
Clients with significant hoarding issues though, do not tend to ask for help so I don't experience the more extreme end of hoarding behaviours. It's more relatives that will ask but professionally, we only will go in to someone home on their own personal invite.
What I have come to realise is that a some of my clients are likely to have undiagnised ADHD or or ND. (Dyslexia can also affect an individuals ability to organise and be methodical).I am not qualified to 'diagnose', so it's just observation. I am very tentative in raising this with them and never in a first session. But when I do, I am never the first person to have suggested this to them. And I raise it as an offer of something for them to explore if it resonates with them, with the goal of removing the shame they feel for not being able to keep their home tidy or more organised. It helps reinforce they are not 'lazy', they are just wired a bit differently. One techniqhe I have found helpful for clients with these potential issues, is labelling as much as possible, shelves, cupboards etc. but again, each client is different and we explore together ideas that may help them.