I just had the declutterers in. It’s sheer extravagance, but when you’ve still got the debris from your father’s estate to weed out, ten years after his death, probably justified.
Maybe in 2008 I believed I might still keep him – deny death - by holding on to every fibre of the stuff he left the day he died.
Declutterers are professionals and, by God, they work fast. They’re a reincarnation of the shoemaker’s elves, who tidied for him overnight – come morning, the house is totally transformed.
It’s good to start with a list, because these self-identified neat freaks do love a list. It also keeps them under control; watch them closely or they go feral. Their little fingers itch to organise and classify: they’ll arrange your fiction alphabetically before you can say Kazuo Ishiguro.
Crates of “stuff” – mainly paperwork – get tipped out on to the dining table and rigorously classified by the declutterers. I’m then offered handfuls of categorised items with suggestions - mainly that I chuck them in the bin. Five rusty hole punches are probably not essentials in the modern home, and these young women have a gift for identifying bits of gadgetry which I’ve only held onto because I haven’t a clue what they’re for.
When they find an unusual storage solution they particularly like, they snicker with delight. I have a neat pull-out ironing board disguised as a cutlery drawer in my fancy B&Q kitchen. Searching for places to reorganise, they pulled, they found, they snickered. And they recorded a little video of it.
Releasing elfin strangers into your home is an unnerving business. They got through my list in a morning and I had to come up with new tasks for the afternoon. What to do, what to do?
I was forced to resort to more scary, personal crates of stuff from my childhood and from boxed-off segments of my life. I was paying these expensive declutterers, and I ought to try to get my money’s worth. I knew there were items in there that I had been hiding from my own consciousness, but I took the plunge.
It was a shock. All kinds of things showed up: press clippings about ailments, letters from a consultant to my GP, love notes, weird cuttings from even weirder alternative medicine magazines. Photos of my tiny baby son, crying and far too scrawny, the shocking sign of a bad mother. I went into freeze frame. The declutterers’ magic little fingers made piles of “health”, “personal”, “receipts”, “photos”.
Seven receipts from Waterstones: bin? Eleven from Sainsbury’s, 2016: bin? But I was preoccupied with all the letters. Letters from my grandma. Letters from my mum. Three diaries I apparently kept as a student in the late 1970s. I never knew any of this stuff existed. I thought that crate, stored for years in my father’s loft, held my old school exercise books and some school magazines - not a carrier bag full of other papers, unseen by me since the day I flew home from studying in Paris.
We had to stop, and have a cup of tea.
In the next crate, something else unexpected: a CD-Rom. I had been looking for it; on occasion I woke at night in a cold sweat thinking it must have been thrown away by accident. It contains my father’s entire known family tree, first researched by my great-aunt and then checked and verified by a genealogist. I was told the CD-Rom meant I could “drop” the whole tree into Ancestry.com.
This is the prospect facing me now. What will happen if I do drop it in? Will I be deluged by contact from other Duvals, Finets, Bacheliers? What if I don’t have time to respond to them courteously? Who are they, and what will they want from me?
Brave, brave, brave, and so exhilarating at the same time to know you’ve found such special memories and decluttered all the other stuff. (I’ve just cleared the garage – a wonderful feeling).
I love the 2 photos you’ve added; there’s so much to say about them…..and, when you’re brave enough to take a look at the CD, let us know what you find!
I will!
I am incredibly impressed Jo. Did they manage to separate you from all those things that I for one cling to…against all logic. eg Christmas cards, books from my student days (on subjects I cannot believe I will ever study again…eg geology) old photos…and what was your list like?
Would they do things like photograph stuff for sale? …I have things in boxes that need to go to auction or ebay but just dont get it together…cannot give them to the charity shops as they are half owned by my sister.
And were they there for just a day???
Just a day, but they work very quickly. There are different set-ups doing different things, so I should think you could find an outfit which is prepared to photograph things for sale. They are very good at persuading you to part with stuff, because they give good reasons. I reckon your geology books would go, if nothing else!
Good point about photographing things for sale. It is what holds me up from finally despatching stuff…the whole photo process takes too long…especially with thinks like trainsets that my Dad so wonderfully collected for my children who preferred lego sadly.
A lot of declutterers seem to be one-woman outfits, so I imagine you can ask them to do whatever you like. I agree so much that the faff of ebaying stuff is a major deterrent. And then of course the money raised can be disappointing…
Oh Jo, you are so brave. Where do I start with an answer? I am in a similar position but wouldn’t dare let anyone in to go through my stuff. I could do with a student archivist, however, my house is full of biographical archive. I let the furniture and ornaments go, but kept all the papers and books. I thought I had taken everything when I left home, but I hadn’t. One thing I found was a teenage diary (only written in January of course) about my dad letting in the New Year and then going off as he had five more to let in – vital biographical detail. I’m glad your elves were sensitive, it could indeed be a very upsetting experience to come across unexpected aspects of your own or your parents’ past. And I hope you were as vigilant as you suggest, remembering (if my memory is any good) that you started off your story with details your dad had written on cornflake packets. Thank goodness they hadn’t gone in the bin. Love the photos! Salutations to you!
I’m hoping other people might have had the same toys and ornaments! It’s lovely to have these things from childhood.
It was a massive emotional shock to see the stuff from Paris – I had no idea that Dad had kept it all, and I’d forgotten that I ever wrote diaries myself. A most peculiar feeling. Yes, you’re right – I’ve still got scraps of cornflake packet with my dad’s scrawled memories on them.
Jo, You may inspire me to follow. I have been transporting bixes of papers, mementoes, photo albums from NSW to Oregon to Alabama to New York to Massachussetts to Canterbury, and from office to home for 50 + years. Some boxes have not been opened for 45 years or more! What is there? I have pasts which I would rather be discovered by the elves than my family after I move off the planet, and pasts I have almost forgotten.
Wow, that sounds really interesting, Lyn. I think women’s lives in particular are so multi-faceted; we often move through many, many personae. The elves are trained to be sensitive: they look after you if you come over all funny (as we would say in my family).
How incredibly brave, Jo, to let these people in to rummage around your life! I don’t think I’d dare.
Needs must, Diana!