It’s already several months into the year – or maybe even later on in the year – and you’ve made a commitment to clean up your home, but it hasn’t happened yet. You aren’t alone. Do you feel that you own way too much stuff and you’re feeling overwhelmed about cleaning up your space? You’ve come to the right place. In this article, I’ll go over a step-by-step guide to creating a hoarder cleaning checklist and decluttering your home.
As a former messy person, I’ve not only enjoyed a cleaner living space but have also saved money.
Read on to learn about creating a hoarder cleaning checklist.
What is Hoarding?
Hoarding is when someone struggles to part with items in their home, no matter the value of them. Hoarders may struggle to part with anything from clothing tags to empty perfume bottles. Those who hoard may have a disorder ranging from mild to severe and may struggle with hoarding due to existing psychological conditions or the way they were raised.
Why Create a Hoarder Cleaning Checklist?
Even if you aren’t a hoarder, you may struggle with hoarding tendencies. Think about your relationship with stuff. Do you struggle to get rid of empty glass bottles and other unnecessary items clogging up your counters? Even if you don’t struggle with a hoarding disorder, being messy and acquiring clutter can negatively impact your health, finances and relationships.
Top Reasons for Decluttering
Reducing Stress and Health Risks
Why should you invest precious time to make a hoarder cleaning checklist and clean up your space? The most obvious benefit is to become happier. Research shows that clutter can also impact memory and concentration and increase your risk for allergic reactions and injuries.
After I started organizing my home and keeping a clean space, my concentration increased drastically. Tasks that took me 2 hours to complete suddenly took 1. How? When I was working from home, my eyes weren’t constantly drifting toward the pile of dishes in my sink or the pile of papers on my living room table.
Saving Money
Quitting the hoarding lifestyle and decluttering will save you money in several ways. When I began decluttering my apartment regularly, I started finding stuff I needed without resorting to buying a replacement item. For example, when my closet was messy, I couldn’t find a specific pair of shoes that I needed for a party. In haste, I went out and purchased a pair of shoes as the event I needed to attend was that night. Two days later, I found the original pair of shoes. My clutter cost me over $100!
Maintaining Relationships
Think about the current state of your home and how messy it is. Let’s just say that if you invited someone over for dinner tonight, would you feel comfortable hosting them in your dining and living room? If your immediate thought is “no” and you feel very uncomfortable, why is this the case? If your home is messy, you won’t feel comfortable hosting people. Even if you do host guests in an unreasonably messy and cluttered home, how do you think they’ll feel about your home? When you commit to a clean and clutter-free lifestyle, you’ll not only feel comfortable hosting guests, but your guests will enjoy a relaxed space.
Hoarding can cause relationships to suffer. Your family members will become stressed due to clutter and constantly fighting ith the hoarder about cleaning up the home. In addition to a clutter-free space being good for relationships, it’ll reduce your risk of relationships becoming tense.
Hoarding Cleanup Checklist and Decluttering Steps
Preparing for Your Hoarding Cleanup
Understand Why You Hoard and Why You’re Decluttering Now
Before you set off on your hoarding clean-up journey, you need to understand why you hoard in the first place. When you have an understanding of why you do the things you do, you’ll be motivated to work towards creating better habits. Take some time to sit down and journal about your thoughts. Write down the following questions and answer them:
- How much money did my parents have growing up?
- Was there enough money and resources in my family?
- Did my parents teach me how to budget? If so, how well did they do this?
Consider enlisting the help of a mental health professional to help you walk through your thoughts.
Evaluate the Situation & Create a Plan
Once you have an understanding of why you hoard and the benefits of decluttering, it’s time to create a plan!
Find an Accountability Partner
No list of decluttering tips for hoarders is complete without suggesting you find someone to go on this journey with. Committing to creating and maintaining goals is a lot easier when you do it with someone you love and trust. When I began my journey from moving from a messy person to a clean and organized one, I enlisted the help of some friends.
My roommate in college was incredibly clean and organized. She helped me understand the importance of why it’s a good idea to keep your space organized. Additionally, she introduced me to the concept of cleaning as you go. Every time you cook a meal or take something out of your closet, immediately put it back. Don’t wait until the end of the week to clean your bedroom, kitchen or more. At the end of a long week, the last thing you’ll want to do is spend an hour or more organizing your space. Over time, a week or two with a messy room can cause your space to become even more disorganized. In my experience, if I don’t tackle the mess right away, it tends to pile up, leaving me less motivated to tackle it later down the line.
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Hoarder Cleaning Checklist: Steps to a Decluttered Life
Make Sure You Have the Right Supplies
Ok – you understand the importance of creating a hoarder cleaning checklist, know why you have a tendency to be messy and create a plan. Before you start cleaning, make sure you have the right supplies. Your cleaning supply checklist should include:
- A mop and bucket
- Soap and sponges
- A broom and dustpan
- Rags
- Garbage pails and bags
- Boxes for organizing and donating items
- Storage solutions for organization
Section Off Your Home and Choose an Area to Start With
Once you’ve gathered the required cleaning supplies, divide your home into manageable sections you can clean room by room. In my experience, I find the best way to divide the cleaning job is:
- Bedroom
- Bathroom
- Kitchen
- Hallway closets
- Basement and garage (if applicable to you)
I like starting with decluttering my bedroom. The bedroom is the place where one tends to acquire clutter the most. Why? When you have a messy bedroom, you can just close the door.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by cleaning an entire room, break it down even further. Start with a section of your room – for example, under the bed or in the closet.
Deep Clean
Gather Boxes
Next, it’s time to start your decluttering and hoarding-free lifestyle! I included boxes on the supplies list for a reason. You’ll not only need them for donating items, but you’ll need them for this first step of cleaning. While it may seem counter-intuitive to dump everything into a box, bear with me here.
Place All Items In a Box
Pull every single item out of your closet, off your counters and off the floors and dump them into a box. This way, you’ll have everything in one place so you can take each item out one by one and decide on its destination. If you feel like you’re going to shove the box in a corner instead of organizing the items, throw all the items onto your bed. You’ll be forced to organize your stuff before you go to bed that night (unless you like sleeping on the floor or couch!).
Sort Items by Destination
Once you have all your items in a box or on your bed, decide on their final destination. Generally, your items should be either:
- Be put back in a specific place in your home
- Donated
- Thrown away
- Recycled
- Be put in a box or on a pile to be mended – for example, a dress with a tear on the seam
Wipe Down Surfaces
Before you put all items back in their rightful place, dust the shelves and sweep all debris onto the floor.
Put Items Back
Next, slowly put each item back one by one. Each time you pick up a book, shoe or paper, ask yourself the questions:
“Where does this belong?” and, “Do I really need this item?”
Clean All Surfaces
After you’ve put all items back, sweep and mop the floors.
Donate Items
After you’ve completed the decluttering process, it’s time to decide what to do with all the stuff you don’t need! Aside from recycling or throwing away unusable items, you have two main options: give items to family and friends or donate them. Ask your loved ones if they’re in need of any clothing, shoes or houseware items. Alternatively, arrange a clothing or items swap where you all bring your gently-used items to someone’s home and exchange them. If you don’t have the time or desire to do this, donating items is the best way to help those in need who cannot afford to pay full price for goods.
Taking Your Anti-Hoarding Lifestyle to the Next Level
If you’ve got a handle on the hoarder cleaning process, here are two other main ways to take your decluttering to the next level.
Digital Hoarder Cleaning Checklist
When you hear the term ‘hoarding,’ you most likely think of collecting physical possessions. You should also consider your digital assets like photographs and files. Do you take an unnecessary amount of photos? Some signs you may struggle with digital hoarding include:
- Having difficulty locating files on your computer or cloud storage
- Struggling with deleting photos – even those duplicate ones
- Feeling a strong emotional attachment to each file
- Saving files on different devices for no specific reason
Spend some time committing to a digital declutter by creating a digital file storage organization strategy, committing to storing files on only one device and deleting any duplicate files. If you struggle with the desire to take excessive amounts of photos while traveling or at family events, set a limit for how many photos you’re allowed to take. I personally set a limit of 100 photos per trip per week. For me, that’s plenty. Choose a system and limit that works for you.
Decluttering Your Relationships
While a controversial topic for many, taking a hard look at who you’re friends with is a crucial aspect of maintaining a clutter-free lifestyle. Are your friends and family helping or harming your commitment to a simpler, clutter-free lifestyle? While it may not be possible or ideal to cut a specific family member or friend out of your life, consider if spending a lot of time around them is healthy. If you’re not sure how to tackle relationship issues, contact a therapist for help.
In addition to friends impacting your clutter-free lifestyle, they also have a huge impact on other habits. I personally keep and maintain friendships with those who are ambitious, driven and supportive of my goals and those who I can support as well. Friendships are two-sided and should be beneficial to both parties.
A Final Word on Creating a Hoarder Cleaning Checklist
There are many reasons why you should create a hoarder cleaning checklist and commit to a clutter-free lifestyle. While cleaning and maintaining good habits takes a lot of effort, it’s well worth it. Your mental health, physical health and relationships will all flourish!
Additional Resources for Creating a Hoarder Cleaning Checklist and Decluttering
- Decluttering Your Home Checklist article by Frugal Fun Finance
- Decluttering a Room in 30 Minutes article by Frugal Fun Finance
- Decluttering Your Home article by Becoming Minimalist
- How to Delcutter Your Home article by House & Garden
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Janita is a frugal living expert and owner of Frugal Fun Finance. With over five years of personal experience finding and trying out the best ways to make and save more money, she's eager to share her knowledge. Janita's strategies have helped her save thousands of dollars for funding investments and traveling to over 20 countries.
Janita completed training in personal finance at The University of Western Ontario and McGill University, two prestigious Canadian universities. Her expertise has been shared on GoBankingRates, Yahoo Finance, and NASDAQ.com.
