Home Improvement: Spring Cleaning
Our home improvement guru gears up for Spring Cleaning with these helpful tips for decluttering. So, if your car trunk currently doubles as a closet and your oven doubles as a storage unit, keep on reading!

Spring cleaning should entail more than just removing the wintery build-up of dust and grime along with cleaning your carpets and windows. It is also an opportunity to do away with the clutter that has accumulated and develop systems to prevent it from re-occurring. The areas that are the biggest culprits for gathering clutter are the garage, home office and basement or attic. What do these three areas have in common? They are not your regular daily living spaces so clutter can be more easily ignored until you can no longer find what you need or get into the area. So how do you tackle the clutter but most importantly keep it from coming back.

First of all you will have to go through the clutter item by item. The important point is what you do with each item as you handle it. Try to follow the old rule of touch it once. Be clear going in on the guidelines you will follow to dispose of the clutter like do you need duplicates of any items. When was the last time you used an item? Make sure you have a process for disposing of unwanted items like sufficient recycle containers, garbage cans (maybe a dumpster in extreme cases) or boxes for items to be donated. Moving things around in piles will only be more work and lead to frustration resulting in possibly giving in.

Once you have decided what to get rid of, you need to determine where you will store it. Maybe you don’t need a physical location to store some items you could not part with. The category that is usually hardest to deal with and can easily be rationalized into keeping from an emotional perspective are your children’s crafts, creations, awards, etc. Just handling the items bring back memories that make the task more difficult. Unless your home is a shrine of all of your children’s accomplishments, these items are best dealt with in a different way. Strongly consider a good digital camera and create a photographic memory of the collection. It will take up little to no space, is easily transported from house to house and a copy can be provided to the child if they want one.

The other very important point about dealing with the clutter is to avoid the trap of going to the container store to buy containers. All you have accomplished is created the need for a storage locker or moved everything to the attic, basement or garage. De-cluttering your home is about discipline. Making decisions, following a process and probably most critical is following a schedule. You must stick with it or plan on starting the process over on some frequency. Okay now that you have gotten rid of the current clutter, what are some things you should do to keep it gone. Here are a few to consider:
• Don’t collect freebies. If you don’t have a clear need for the cooler cups, hats, t-shirts, bag clips, magazines, catalogs … don’t take them/sign-up for them.
• If you are replacing something, have a plan to dispose of the old one.
• Have a place for things and put them in the place right away. It usually doesn’t get put away because it is difficult or inconvenient to do. Make it simple. Having baskets or boxes for the things you have identified to keep is good because it keeps things contained. Rack systems or storage cabinets in the basement or garage will make the area much more pleasing. Hopefully when you open the doors to the cabinet’s things don’t start falling down on you because you have done the job correctly.

Now that you have sorted and stored everything, the last point to consider is proper disposal of the leftovers. Remember paints, pesticides, chemicals, batteries, many electronics all require special disposal. You typically cannot just put them out at the curb. Check with your municipality for the proper locations to dispose of these items.

If you are overwhelmed by the task there are services available to help you. They can’t do it all. You have to make the decisions. Once the decisions are made there are also hauling companies that will come in and take it away sorting out what is to be donated to good causes, recycled or taken to the landfill. These services are well worth the cost if you have a large amount of things to dispose of. HomeServicesLink can assist you with arranging such services if needed. Contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or (513)271-1888.