End-of-Season-Decluttering--Areas-to-Clean-Out

Emptying your home of unnecessary items and junk is the perfect preparation for a thorough spring cleaning. You don’t want to waste your valuable time cleaning and taking care of items that you don’t need and will eventually just pass on or get rid of anyway. Be proactive by confronting the challenge head-on and taking your time and space back. It’s good to establish a habit at the beginning of spring and end of fall to clear out the areas listed in this post. If you keep on top of things you won’t have to worry about a big cleanout headache.

You have several methods of disposal available for getting rid of your unwanted items, depending on what the items are, the condition they’re in, and your own personal goals. Your options include selling, donating, recycling, or disposing of them. If you feel your items may still have some resale value, it’s best to research if that is the case online before you jump to listing them. If your items are older, in less-than-optimal condition, or if you merely want everything done and taken care of quickly, you can focus on recycling and disposal. ABH Services Inc. can assist you with recycling and disposal of virtually all of your unwanted items.

Go through each of the areas below thoroughly and assess each item or group of items to determine whether you truly need or want to keep them.

Designated Storage Areas

  • Garages: Garages often become the storage dumping ground of all of your outdoor gear, from athletic equipment to holiday decorations and more, especially if you don’t have a shed or have insufficient basement or attic space. Make sure
  • Sheds: Sheds usually contain tools, gardening supplies, and other outdoor items that often get jammed precariously in the space. It’s best to take everything out and assess one by one whether these items are worth keeping.
  • Basements/Attics: Overloading the storage areas in your home is a bad idea not only because of the nature of clutter but also because it retains moisture which can cause damage to the items or even to your home’s structure over time. Clutter also attracts pests like mice and insects.

Storage in Living Spaces

  • Closets: Closets are a typical magnet for clutter, as it’s easier sometimes to throw items you’re not sure about in your closet instead of dealing with them right away. Over the years, it’s common to collect so many things that you don’t remember everything in your closets. Bedroom closets full of clothes you may have only worn once or twice years ago are a major culprit.
  • Drawers and Cupboards: Most people have a junk drawer or two (or more) in their homes, even if it’s not intentional. As the saying goes, “Out of sight, out of mind,” and we’re all guilty of tossing a few things in a drawer to get them out of our sight for a little while. This can often turn into a major source of clutter, however, and it should be one of the first places inside your home that you tackle.

Invisible Clutter

  • Kitchen: Many of the unnecessary items in your kitchen are hiding in plain sight. Clear your counter of any piles of mail and other junk. Identify hotspots where these items collect and try to figure out a solution to eliminate them. Remove any appliances you no longer use, and assess whether you have unneeded duplicates of your kitchen tools.
  • Bathroom: Bathrooms are a notorious source of clutter. Clear as much off of the countertops and open shelves as possible. Remove sample toiletries, expired cosmetics, and other unneeded items that may be lurking there.
  • Living Room/Family Room: Clutter in these rooms usually occurs the same way it does in the kitchen. Because families spend so much time in these living spaces, hotspots and piles of things like laundry and paperwork crop up. Identifying and finding containers for these items will keep them corralled.
  • Bedrooms: Lastly, clutter can hide in your bedroom underneath the bed, shoved in drawers, or even out in the open. Usually it is in the form of clothes, as discussed above, or knick-knacks. Take a look at your room with a critical eye and remove anything taking up space.

ABH Services Inc. can help you with any decluttering project you want to take on. Whether you have a heap of paper and electronics you want us to recycle, or a mound of trash you need help disposing of, we offer competitive rates and the best service in town. Call 781-941-2422 for more information or for a consultation. You can check out our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/abhservices for additional tips on cleaning out your home in preparation for the change of season.