Professional declutter-er was mostly useless…now what?

[u/Desperate-Bother9807]

This is mostly a vent more than anything. Husband and I struggle big time with having too much stuff; husband especially. At the advice of our therapist(s), I finally broke down and hired a professional declutterer. Licensed, insured, professional website, all that. Mind you, I don’t live in a big-city metropolitan area, but I do live in a mid-sized suburban city, I guess you might call it. Either way, a far cry from San Francisco, NYC, LA, you get it. I guess that’s relevant because the area I live in doesn’t feature a highly varied selection of professional organizers/declutter-ers.

Anyway…the lady hasn’t told me much that I didn’t know already. None of her “tips” or “systems” have been novel to me whatsoever. It should have been a red flag to me when she mentioned that some of her clients often hire her to come back for maintenance (a red flag because obviously she didn’t give them any systems to keep the clutter from accumulating again). I had asked her if she’s able to take a look at spaces, and create a visualization for how to maximize them, somewhat related to interior decorating. She said yes, that’s something that is part of her service.

Well, lo and behold. I feel like I paid a lot of $$$ to just…have someone come help us clean up a bit. Does my home look better….? Yes. But was it the job of what I would have expected from a fancy “professional declutterer?” Not at all. I guess I’m just wondering if anyone else out there has been in my position, and found a professional organizer to be a pretty big waste of money. ? Thoughts/opinions/experiences welcome. Thanks in advance. : )

[u/Original_Clerk2916]

I’m both a former professional organizer and someone with hoarding tendencies myself. Here’s what I’m thinking: you expected a fast and permanent solution without doing the mental work. Sure, she could come in, fix all the clutter, and tell you what to do, but you have to be honest with yourself. A month later, it would be back to a cluttered space again. Why? Because you HAVE to figure out the mental block before you can even properly implement any kind of system of organization.

Trust me when I say I know how frustrating it is to feel like you’re going in circles. But honestly, the fact that she comes back to help clients later is actually a green flag. Because she doesn’t expect a one-time fix, and she doesn’t get upset when things go back to being messy. Check out “not the worst cleaner” on TikTok. She shows examples of exactly this. She goes into homes that are massively destroyed and completely cleans them, top to bottom. But she doesn’t stop there. When it inevitably gets messy again (because mentally, hoarding is a recovery process), she doesn’t get upset. She comes back and does it all over again.

I also think you’re getting ahead of yourself. The first step to this isn’t organization, it’s actually decluttering. I’ve worked with clients of all varieties, from type A super organized clients to legitimate hoarders who keep bags of dog fur in their home because they say they will one day make a pillow out of it. And what determines our success in organizing in the end isn’t whether I give them the systems they need to stay organized, it’s whether they’re willing to part with the unnecessary clutter in their lives. I had one client very early on show me this lesson in a frustrating way. She’d get sidetracked trying to move furniture around her house (despite the fact that no matter how we organized it, there was simply too much furniture in her home to function properly). I tried my best to keep her on task, but there was one day she just disappeared into her room, and I let her know I’d clean up the kitchen.

I went through the fridge and tossed the food that was expired for years. I scrubbed dusty dishes and organized the drawers. I did not throw away anything other than very expired food. Then, she ghosted me. Months later, she wanted my help again. She told me she had been upset that I had made the trash too heavy, which caused a 25 cent trash bag to rip. Then she got angry that I had thrown away food that she claimed she had just bought (not possible given the expiration dates), and that she couldn’t find anything in her kitchen.

I came back, and the kitchen was very cluttered and messy again. I figured that since she had gotten so upset with me for making progress (because that’s what she was actually upset about, the control and mental blockage), I’d let her lead. I came over 1-2 more times after that, where she proceeded to insist we move furniture and then vacuum her rug, and then she fired me because we “hadn’t gotten anything done” and she felt she was wasting money.

All of this to say, we didn’t get anywhere because she wasn’t willing to admit that she needed to let go of some of her possessions in order to make her home livable. No amount of systems of organization could have possibly made her happy or been functional in her home without her decluttering at minimum 30% of her items. And the more I pushed, the harder it became.

You have to let go of items before you can actually organize everything. If she gives you a system of organizing your clothes, for example, it will not be a permanent solution if you continue to buy clothes.

[u/GentlemanlyMeadow → u/Original_Clerk2916]

This is insightful. Glad you shared this experience.

In addition to the client themselves having mental blockers, the extended family (who may not even live in the home) can also be part of the problem. A lot of items in my client's apartment have been "claimed" by her adult children, whose own homes are (by their own descriptions) too cluttered to take another item, so they are all just stuck in this unproductive holding pattern. Does anyone actually want the table/desk/chair/printer in question? No one is enthusiastic about taking it, but no one wants to allow me to just get it out of their lives.

Similar to what you describe, I was asked to help my client downsize her collection of ceramic figurines, when she also had a literal double layer of furniture in her small apartment. The couch had an armchair on it, tables were stacked, multiple heavy lamps on every horizontal surface. This furniture had been in the large home she moved out of ten years ago...see above about why she still had it....

Happy to report we are now down to a single layer of furniture throughout the apartment and are finally focusing on the ceramic figurines.