Are you another victim of the "national clutter epidemic?"
Is your home already packed to the rafters, and yet you continue to accumulate? Then these six suggestions could help:
• Recognize that many buyers resist purchasing a jam-packed home.
Crowded rooms seem smaller than they are. Home buyers rarely determine the size of rooms with a measuring tape. Most do it mentally.
If your possessions dwarf your space, you can expect lower offers from bidders, says Martha Webb, author of "Dress Your House for Success," (1997, Three Rivers Press).
• Halt the accumulation process prior to your home sale.
Unbridled shopping remains the primary cause of excessive accumulation, says Steve Skidmore, owner of Transforamtions Organization Services (www.organizepro.com).
He recommends several strategies for home sellers who want to diminish their stashes: using a "must buy" list, taking a friend to hold your wallet, and shopping without a cart.
• Search the universe for someone who values your unwanted items.
As Webb notes, many have come to discover the thrill of selling their surplus possessions via online newspapers or Internet auction sites (such as www.ebay.com).
"We're starting to pass our stuff around through a global garage sale," Webb says.
• Keep your "matchetes" handy.
In the rain forest, the machete is a primary tool for cutting back on encroaching vegetation around a home. In the industrialized world, where the encroachment is of a different sort, the trash bag and the recycling bin are the equivalent of the machete.
Even if you constrain your shopping, clutter will still flow into your home. Skidmore suggests you cull through unwanted advertising circulars, catalogs, and other junk mail soon after they arrive.
• Discover new ways of gift-giving within your household.
Gift-giving doesn't necessarily require shopping. An alternative urged by Webb is "a gift of time." Why not treat members of your family to a weekend getaway, a health club membership or, for the kids, a day at a theme park?
• Recast your thinking on matters materialistic.
By decluttering your home, you'll not only help obtain a better price for the property, you'll also prepare for a smoother move.
Reducing stress is another major advantage.
"Clutter is at war with the essence of home," says Webb. "Home is for comfort, for solace. Having too much stuff creates a subtle chaos. If you can't get away from chaos at home, where can you get away from it?"
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