How Much is Too Much Stuff?

Edit, Organize and Downsize Your Primary Home's Contents

I'm continually inspired to write about real life situations and the topic of this post is especially hard hitting because it is about a personal story in our Northern community. Without going into a lot of detail, our long term rental property became the victim of a hoarding situation and the condo was condemned by the city as too unsanitary for humans and a biohazard. It made the local news for all of the wrong reasons and the facts are still unfolding.

Human and animal feces, bodily fluids, filth, damage, trash and debris plus an overload of personal property and possessions from multiple individuals created a perfect storm of violations. It was completely unexpected and we are still sorting out the mess of legalities as well as the steps to clean it up so it can become inhabitable again. The tenants descended a slippery slope of accumulating clutter that ultimately crossed the line from content-heavy to condemned. There's many reasons of how this happens and most people with a healthy mental outlook thankfully never get to this point. However, hindsight is 20/20.

By addressing the question of how much is too much stuff before it gets out of control feels better than cleaning up your own or someone else's mess. Embrace the concept of less is more and that's half the battle. Anyone who splits their time between two homes and two communities can feel better about departing for the season and stress less about leaving a festering disaster behind.

The time is now to get going. Most snowbirds depart for their warm weather community in the fourth quarter of the year and for me it's peace of mind to depart with an organized home and return to an organized home in the Spring.

My objective is not to advise on specific methods of organizing and decluttering other than to encourage you to research and chose something that you believe will help. The primary goal is to decide how much is too much stuff, then determine if the excess should be donated or discarded. I'm a firm believer that someone somewhere would love to have your duplicates. Don't wait until it's out of style or worn out to donate, do it now. Take the tax write off and feel good about helping another person or family who may be just starting out, divorcing and starting over or perhaps they endured trauma such as a fire or catastrophe and need a boost.

Don't overlook donating items for kids and pets. Animal shelters can always use items such as stained or worn towels and sheets in addition to other household contents. You don't need endless duplicates of sheet sets or dozens of bath towels. Keep only the best of the best and save a spare set or two such as cozy flannel sheets for winter and fresh cool sheets for summer. If your own kids and grands are getting older and you've been storing items of theirs that they no longer want, give their clothes and toys to an organization devoted to families and kids. There's no point in hanging on to items that are no longer age appropriate for your own loved ones. More than likely when the grands are old enough to be on their own or have their own families, they won't want "used" items, they will opt to buy new in the colors and styles they prefer. Why wait years for that scenario of "do you want this?" to even come up?   

Where to begin decluttering? Start with a surface area, a drawer, a closet, a single room. The main thing is to simply start. When I spend time working on our vacation rental, I want the entire place to look as enticing and appealing as possible. No one wants to get away to what they left behind to escape: namely, clutter. A huge emphasis is placed by me on organization, cleanliness, spaciousness. Our entire beach condo is less than 800 square feet. The point is to make every inch feel like it has breathing room and no more than what is needed. I translate that same feeling to my primary residence, although I admit it is a continual work in progress.

What I did in our vacation rental is scrutinize each item for functionality as well as beauty. Once you have categorized by room of the house or some other criteria, put all of the chipped, damaged or broken items into a pile. If they are not going to be repaired, get rid of them.

Do the same for items that no longer have meaning or as much importance as they once did. Maybe you received gifts that aren't wanted or used. It's ok to donate them. Repeat the process for your clothes and closets, garage, office, kitchen, basement, storage room/s, attic and so forth.

Then work your way through duplicate items. An example is how many coffee cups are truly needed? Yet every time anyone visits a housewares store there's more coffee cups just waiting to be purchased. I'm guessing most homes have one or two dozen coffee cups when only 6 are 8 are all that's needed for one or two people. Flower vases, games, yard equipment, gardening items, crafts and furniture are other examples of categories to pare down. I'm amazed at the tendency to bring in more and more furniture over the years and never ever remove any. 

How many collections of anything are that important? Or seasonal decorations? Or equipment for hobbies that you never started or no longer embrace. My husband recently decided to rehome his inherited antique gadgets and tools that have been occupying far too much mental and physical space in our garage. He doesn't use them and no one in the next generation will be using them. Time to go. There's many online groups devoted to enthusiasts for almost anything and that's a great place to start.

As you head to your warm weather community for the upcoming season, feel good about everything you sorted and donated. Chances are you made someone's day!