When people with different tolerances for clutter live together, things can get tense. Experts offer ways to find peace amid the piles.
Last year, Tracy McCubbin — who has been a professional declutterer for two decades and lives by the motto “don’t put it down, put it away” — married a man she described as “very messy.”
Both acknowledged the “cosmic joke” of their unlikely pairing. Ms. McCubbin put blue painter’s tape on every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen when the pair first moved in together, offering a map to what goes where. But she has also learned to practice what she preaches to her clients, staying cool and calm about messes that don’t affect her day-to-day functioning. Like his night stand, which is buried under books, charging cables and remotes to TVs she is fairly certain they no longer own.
Or the jumble of tools her husband, an avid gardener, tends to leave in the yard. “It’s all over the place,” Ms. McCubbin sighed. “But you know what? We have a beautiful garden. Our fruit trees are fruiting. It’s really been about understanding: This part doesn’t matter.”
Ms. McCubbin, and other experts in organizing as well as psychology, said there were a few practical strategies that could help pack rats and neatniks cohabitate in relative harmony.
Improve your organization systems.
“Oftentimes when one person is more cluttered, the underlying thesis is that they’re wrong, that they’re doing it the wrong way, that they’re bad,” Ms. McCubbin said. But in many cases, household clutter is simply an indication you don’t have solid systems in place.
Some of the solutions she offers to clients are almost too obvious, she said. For instance, she has worked with frustrated parents whose children toss backpacks and coats in what she calls the “landing strip” just inside the front door. Hanging a few hooks that they can easily reach helps.