Downsizing your STUFF
Vali Heist of the Clutter Crew shares insights on getting rid of all your nonessentials.
With the pandemic leaving everybody stuck at home for so much for the past year, it’s been hard to avoid taking stock of our surroundings.
For some, it’s been eye-opening discovering how much stuff they’ve accumulated and stashed away in their homes. All that stuff can make it feel like the walls are closing in, and when that feeling gets overwhelming, it signals a call to action.
You can call it decluttering or you can call it downsizing, but no matter what you call it, Vali Heist of the Mohnton-based Clutter Crew is there to offer advice or to roll up her sleeves and dig in.
Heist is in the business of helping people get rid of their unwanted or no longer needed stuff, or what she calls CRAP (Clutter that Robs Anyone of Pleasure). She has even written a book about it, called “Organize This! Practical
Tips, Green Ideas, and Ruminations about your CRAP,” which is based on monthly columns she wrote for the Reading Eagle.
“Business is booming,” she said. “This is my 15th year in business, which I’m surprised at because it’s gone so fast.”
An extra jolt
The pandemic, she said, has given an extra jolt to her business.
“I think the pandemic has shown a lot of folks, ‘I don’t use all this stuff. I don’t need it around me and I want to be less cluttered, less encumbered. I want to streamline. I want it to be more simple,’” she said.
Also adding to the demand for her services is the rising real estate market, which has prompted people who were considering downsizing into a smaller home, or — for the elderly — moving to assisted living, to act now, so they can cash in on the higher home-sale prices. Of course, moving to smaller quarters means weeding out non-essential stuff.
Heist said once somebody commits to downsizing, she encourages them to treat it like a part-time job.
“Downsizing is such a sticky thing,” she said. “It’s not easy, it can be exhausting, but the end result is so rewarding. Some of my clients, they said to me, ‘This is our part-time job. This is what we do.’ Because it took how many years to accumulate the stuff? It’s not going to just take overnight to get rid of it.”
“I’m always wanting to move the process along because time is money and I want them to get the most out of our time together, but I’ve come to realize over the years that part of the process with elderly clients is allowing them the time to quote-unquote ‘mourn’ the items that they’re letting go. There are stories connected with a lot of things.”
– Vali Heist
Work in chunks
Heist said breaking the job down into chunks is best: Go through one room at a time or one small area at a time, or else the task could seem overwhelming.
“Take the room that is going to be the easiest, that you have all this stuff in that you don’t use anymore,” she said.
Check with family
Early on, she said, you should tell your family members what you are doing, so that if anybody wants anything, they can claim it.
But don’t have great expectations that your adult children will want your stuff, or even theirs. In recent years, more and more young people have begun embracing “less is more” or minimalist philosophies, they are often saying no thanks.
They are choosing smaller homes and gathering less stuff.
“So many of our kids don’t want our stuff, and my clients are finding that out every day,” Heist said. “They don’t want their stuff because they have their own stuff. “And no means no.”
The same holds true even if it is actually stuff that the parents have saved for their children.
“I like the fact that they’re stingy about what they bring into their homes,” Heist said. “That’s a big trend. Every time my clients call their kids and say, ‘I have all this stuff that’s from your childhood, come and get it,’ they’re like, ‘I don’t want it, throw it out.’”
Decision-making time
So that means it’s decisionmaking time. You have to decide
what to throw away, what to try to sell and what to donate.
Donations typically make up the largest chunk.
Heist said only about a quarter of her clients sell things on eBay. It depends on whether their stuff is what she calls “eBay worthy.”
“What sold 15 years ago may not sell now,” she said.
China is a good example. It used to be a hot commodity, but not anymore. Nowadays, people are more inclined to buy inexpensive dishware and just replace it when they get tired of it or they see something else they like.
“These days, everything’s so cheap,” Heist said. “If somebody gets bored with their plates, they donate them and go get a new set at Target. So it’s not like it used to be.”
Once family options have been eliminated, it’s time to start making the hard decisions about what stays and what goes.
Leave the past behind
Heist said if an item is not something that’s going to be part of your future, then it’s probably something you should let go.
She cited, as an example, someone who used to do a lot of crossstitch and still has supplies, but interest in the hobby has waned.
“A lot of women do it for years and years and then they stop, but they never get rid of the stuff,” she said. “So (it comes down to) looking at that and saying, ‘I feel bad that I can’t do this anymore, but a lot of people could use this stuff.’”
She said the ReUzit thrift store in Ephrata is a great place to donate unwanted sewing supplies of any type. (Her website, thecluttercrew.com, offers a long list of places to donate, sell or recycle your stuff.)
Sentimental value
Some things may have sentimental value that exceeds their actual value or usefulness, and those are particularly tricky.
“It’s about letting go; it’s about not looking at it as an emotional attachment anymore,” Heist said. “It’s harder for some people.’
She said everyone’s emotional attachments are different. Her husband, for example, tends to form attachments to handeddown family items, whereas she does not, so she has learned from him to be very respectful of her clients’ stuff.
“You don’t have to feel bad if you and your spouse are not on the same page about letting go, because it is very unusual to be on the same page,” she said. “I tell them (clients) we’re going to go down memory lane when we look at your stuff and decide where it goes, but we’re not going to go down ‘memory blame’ and say, ‘Why did you keep this? Why do you still have this around?’ None of that. It is what it is. So let it go and we’re going to work together and get it done.”
In fact, she said it is rare that spouses view their stuff the same way.
“I call those clients (who are on the same page) my unicorns, because I tell you, they hardly ever exist,” she said, laughing.
Listen up
She has learned that it’s important to listen to clients — particularly elderly ones — who want to reminisce about their stuff.
“I’m always wanting to move the process along because time is money and I want them to get the most out of our time together,” she said, “but I’ve come to realize over the years that part of the process with elderly clients is allowing them the time to quoteunquote ‘mourn’ the items that they’re letting go. There are stories connected with a lot of things.”
She’ll often encourage them to share their stories while she continues to going about her business of sorting through their stuff.
“Sometimes the story helps us decide whether to let it go or not,” she said. “That is really part of the process. Give them the time to reminisce. Sometimes it’s a really sad thing. Sometimes I’m touching the clothing of a spouse who passed away and no one’s ever cleaned out his closet. So you really have to be respectful of their stuff. You’re really getting into things that could be very sad for them, and you have to just give them time, give them space.”
Happily unburdened
While her clients’ level of attachment to certain items may vary, Heist has found one thing holds true across the board: Once they start the process of downsizing, they are glad they did.
“I can’t tell you one who has ever regretted it,” she said. “One thing I do hear a lot from them is, ‘I wish I would have started this sooner.’ I constantly hear that . ... They are just so happy to be unburdened.”