If your house has ever got seriously out of order … and you have managed to get it back under control …

[Scatteredthoughts522]

Can you please help and advise? This question is for people whose houses have got really bad in certain areas - not hoarder level but I can imagine it getting that way if I don’t intervene now - but who have managed to rein it back in… .

I am facing a situation where I need to get back on top of my large six bedroom house. The ground floor is just about ok. I can invite people in. Apart from the utility and garage which are in a bit of a state.

The upper floors, apart from the bathrooms, are a disaster though and getting worse. And I hate this feeling of not being on top of it!

My physical fitness is limited atm following an accident, a bout of depression, and another health condition, so I can’t physically do a lot in one go. I am not young either!

What is required is a major all hands to the deck clear out of stuff before I can deep clean but realistically atm I don’t have the capacity for either.

So my question is … has anyone honestly managed to get back on top of things by doing two hours focused decluttering and organising a day?

Is it possible? Or am I whistling in the wind? The reason I ask is that I have a cleaner for two hours a week but can’t afford any more help atm. I work for four hours a day so thought of doing one hour before work and one hour after work until it gets done.

Thanks for any thoughts. I am at my wit’s end with it all and desperately need to be back in control.

Honestly get the most brutal person you know you come over and help you. Offer them some money to help you go through everything. For me that was my dad, he was helpful but also very firm.

You might like to look at my thread about hiring a declutterer also:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/AMA/4812348-we-just-hired-a-declutterer-ama

thank you! have bookmarked that one

I have a very energetic friend and she kindly came and helped me sort out my Aunt's house when she died. You have never seen soooo many bags of wool in anything but a warehouse before?! 😱

Alone it would've been too overwhelming but she made it if not fun then far easier than doing it alone would've been and her energy was infectious and so I was able to keep going longer than would've when alone. Have you got a friend or 2 like this? Although I'd probably offer to do this for someone who has presented to housing / local facebook group or the like who I didn't know just to give them a hand.

I don’t live there so did it every couple
of weeks which is why it took a year. Plus my mum is a bit of a hoarder so she found it stressful so spacing it out was gentler for her.

but yes it takes longer than you think depending how much stuff you have. My mum had whole
rooms crammed with stuff

Oh god No!
Just get rid at the time or you will be sorting it out twice

I won’t be making much progress until I get a few more hospital visits. I’m working on it because I’m better than I was, but pacing is critical.

I decluttered once before but it snuck back so I'm trying again. This time I'm examining the why's of over- accumulation and not allowing myself to put stuff in the loft as a type of deferred decision. I think they were 2 things that I bypassed last time because I underestimated their importance.
I did the loft first this time and didn't allow any of my personal stuff to go back up.
I find it helpful to imagine how much my future self will thank me if I move house, or become less able or ill.
I think categorising things helps. Then if all your clothes don't fit into a sensible amount of storage in your bedroom, you need to reduce. And once you have finished a room, or the house, go round again - so things don't just fit in drawers etc, but fit easily.

Haven't rtft so apologies if I'm repeating what others have said, but I recommend documenting what you do as well. One you start making progress I quite quickly forget how bad it was when you started, then it can just start to seem neverending when there is still a lot to do. I find it much easier to stay motivated when I can see what I've actually achieved - I like regular before and after photos (of both whole rooms and individual drawers/cupboards/ piles of junk) as well as a log of boxes/bags of stuff I've got out of the house.

This is a really great idea; thank you!

Thanks for these tips.

I like Dana K White’s containment principle. So in future, when the books fill the bookcase, or the clothes fill the wardrobe, both with a bit to spare, then it’s time to start operating one in, one out.

My dh had a health scare recently that fortunately turned out to be nothing serious in the end but yes, being able to respond or move quickly in a crisis is definitely one of my motivations for getting this done.

In that case wishing you all the very best with your health and paced recovery Ponderingwindow 💐💐💐

Even more impressive that you did it from a distance although maybe in some ways that helps you to be more objective too? Still a very impressive achievement, This is the sort of unsung work that women (usually is women) rarely get credit for doing 💐💐💐

Your friend sounds amazing AdarajamesAgain

Bravo to both of you for getting the job done!

I much prefer to work alone for the sorting and decluttering but I will be calling in cleaners at every stage once I have finished a room.

Thank you!

Thank you so much PortSalutPlease

Thank you very much MargoChanellingBarbara

(great nn 😃)

I had a look one or two of D K W’s You Tube videos yesterday and I didn’t find them as helpful as the videos from the Clutterbug lady but I know the method as described in DKW’s book will help me! The book should be arrriving tomorrow!

i can really understand that HopeP a please and thank you never does any harm does it?

Can also understand godmum56´s approach about just wanting to get rid!

Thank you both!

Thank you! I started doing this yesterday! I am downloading episodes at night for the following day. So far have lined up:

Fi and Jane on Times Radio
The rest is history
The rest is politics
The rest is entertainment

Maybe we can share recommendations on here?

YY! This thread is amazingly supportive! I am so very grateful for it! Knowing that others, who are facing far worse challenges than me have succeeded, has really given me confidence that I can do it too. And hopefully it will also help others in the same position!

Thank you, that’s a very important point I think about digging down to the root causes and agreeing strategies about how we are going to change.

Wow 1.3 k is impressive and rather motivating! 😬

Noted about the robot hoover! Good idea! 👍

Thank you again because just reading through this and many other posts really helped to get me started again this morning!

Thank you so much for posting godmum56
and for your good wishes! 😊🌸

I have quite a lot of half finished craft projects (such as cliché but true 😬) and also want the space to be able to continue to be creative but in a much more realistic and focused way.

That free cycle story about your late husband’s motorbike boots is an absolute gem! ❤️. Thank you so much for sharing!

Also, I have heard before that decluttering can be like peeling the layers off an onion; once you start it doesn’t really stop but it evolves. So will bear that in mind as I go! I want to finish each room as definitively as I can but it’s clear this will need to be an ongoing process.

So glad your creative space makes you happy godmum56 💐and thanks so much for sharing the positive side of letting things go to others!

🌸 🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸 🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸

Thank you again everyone for your contributions to this thread! I can’t thank you enough for all of the links, recommendations and great advice! I really appreciate it!

It’s become evident reading all of the posts that so many of you have declutterred, or are decluttering, after the loss of a husband, a divorce, adult children leaving home, or for down-sizing purposes, and each of those events in themselves are intensely stressful, never mind decluttering on top!

And some of you are decluttering in much tougher circumstances than myself.

So I just wanted to acknowledge the army of women out there who have plodded on resiliently to get this done. I’ve found it quite an emotional read and you are all very inspiring!

🌸 🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸

Youve got this op, just think how liberated you are going to feel at the end!!!

Yes! Thank you! I have to keep the end result in mind and not get distracted or demotivated.

For total disclosure; I have found that by setting aside two hours a day for this, I am in reality only doing one hour or so of full decluttering, forty mins to an hour of packing things up dropping them off and about twenty to thirty minutes of cleaning or hoovering.

I have only done six hours in total so far and embarrassingly it does feel very slow and quite hard going. Especially starting!

That’s on top of keeping on top of daily kitchen and bathroom cleaning, food shopping and and laundry though. And four hours work a day x 4 a week. Plus an hour’s dog walk.

I have yet to decide what happens at weekends. Should I give myself a day off or keep going?