Captain de Clutter

It’s easy to hunker down during winter and let piles of unwanted things pile up, or ignore little maintenance jobs. Take a look outside – there are daffodils everywhere and the air has that ‘spring smell’ – it’s time for a spring clean!

We know from the experiences you have shared that this is a task best tackled as a social family day – but with military-like discipline! Organise the troops and arm them with fluffy feather dusters, top secret cleaning agents, buckets of elbow grease, rubbish bags, boxes, and most of all, a positive attitude as they march towards victory. Write down the Mission Impossible task for each trooper, and have them report back to HQ at regular intervals. Reward them with lots of praise and batches of home-made scones or pikelets if their efforts have taken the house to frontiers where no man or child has gone before.

Break the tasks down into small and simple steps – a formal inspection of the guard and regimented marching to the sound of military music is always a good way to begin. The battle plan should be to fight, one room at a time. Work in pairs if need be and keep the communications short, sharp, and snappy – something like; Question: “What about this?” Answer: “Rubbish”. Reply: “Ten-four roger.” Assign one or more person to the rank of Captain de Clutter with the special force’s assignment of de-cluttering the house.

Start by rummaging through forgotten places. There may be lots of trash that you can turn into cash. Golf clubs (the old ones, not the new ones!), unwanted household appliances (old TVs before 52’ flat-screens became the minimum standard for sport loving dads), furniture, books (the ones where pages turn rather than swipe)… they can all be sold online, at a garage sale or swapped or given away to create space.

In the bathroom check the medicines for their use by date. Destroy anything that’s a bit dubious; it’s dangerous having them lying around, especially if there are littlies in the in the household. Get the torch out and have a good look at the back of the bathroom cabinet. Be as snooping as a secret service agent – and apply the rule: if you haven’t used it, you probably don’t need it.

The kitchen is one of the bigger tasks. Start by removing everything out of the cupboards, pantry and fridge. Toss out things that have been forgotten and are past their use-by-date.

Check the deep recesses of your cupboards and toss empty boxes and containers that have been kept because “they may come in handy one day”. Make sure everything in the pantry is visible and easy to access. Have the stuff you have to use in the near future at the front so you can adapt your menus to suit.

While you are at it put on your snow goggles and use your ice picks to check out the depths of the deep freeze for fossilised foodstuffs. Make room for bargain buys and baked goodies for school lunches.

In the wardrobe, if you haven’t worn it for years, you are not likely to need it (unless you plan to go to a retro theme fancy dress party!). Sort everything into one of three piles:

· Stuff that you wear,

· Good stuff that you would wear – if you could fit into it (!) – and

· Stuff that should be thrown out or used as rags.

Give away the good stuff that you don’t wear, drop it into one of the charitable thrift shops, or sell it at a garage sale. When putting the clothing back to wear again, try sorting by items (all the shirts together for example) or by use (for example, best, casual, work and so on). The better organised your stuff is the more efficiently you will use it.

Cancel subscriptions to magazines that are no longer read or enjoyed. Sort though the old stacks of magazines that will invariably be cluttering up closets and mounting up in ever taller piles on coffee tables. Take them to a second hand book shop and turn them into cash. Likewise, have a rummage through the CD collection.

A spring clean can mean lots of dollars in your pocket. There are loads of avenues available to sell those unwanted goodies; everything from classified ads in your local community newspaper, garage sale, car boot sales, to a proliferation of online trading sites.

Good luck – and once the mission is completed, don’t forget the victory parade for the battle worn troopers!

Please send us your tips and queries to share with the oily rag community by visiting the oily rag website or by writing to Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei.

By Frank and Muriel Newman