So you, like so many Americans, are considering cleaning out your home while you’re stuck spending almost every minute of your life in it.
Not a bad idea at all. You’ll feel absolutely great when you have much less stuff in your home that you no longer need.
It may be hard to let go of some things. But trust us, when you have that much more space in your home, less stuff that you don’t look at or use anyway, and a clean and organized look from top to bottom, you’ll feel like you haven’t in a long, long time.
To get all that stuff out of your home, you’ll need a method for disposal.
And if you have more stuff in your home than you can fit in your regular garbage container, then it’s time to innovate.
That’s where rental dumpsters begin to make a lot of sense. They’re useful because you can get rid of everything basically at once (versus many trips to a landfill or Goodwill or taking months to sell stuff online).
And honestly, you’ll most likely only need a single dumpster to get rid of everything.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the intricacies of this process.
How Do You Motivate Yourself to Clean Your Home When You Don’t Feel Like It?
The real problem won’t be the number of dumpsters you need to clean out your home.
Instead, it’s really about what’s going on in your mind.
For example, are you one of the many “shame-cleaners?”
A “shame-cleaner” is someone who puts off cleaning until company wants to come over. Then, to avoid the shame and embarrassment of what people will say if they see your home, you clean like a maniac. Much of the cleaning you do is literally last-second right before your guests arrive.
But it creates so much stress and anxiety!
Taking care of your home should be a fairly fun and relaxing process.
Much of the time, cleaning your home isn’t a matter of practical logistics. It’s more often the result of how you feel.
When you feel great, your home looks great. If you feel stressed, anxious, and chaotic, your house ends up looking like a twister tore through.
The main thing, according to columnist Briallen Hopper, admittedly a naturally messy person and last-minute shame cleaner, is that your home should nurture you and the people you love.
If you clean out of shame, it’s not going to motivate you over the long-term. Your house will look great for a while. But it’ll slowly drift right back into the state it was before you cleaned it out.
Now, this doesn’t mean you need to flip to the other extreme and become a Martha Stewart perfectionist neat freak either. So don’t worry about that!
Rather, you have to figure out what level of cleanliness really matters to you emotionally. You should feel happy, comfortable, and proud of the state of your home. And if that means things get a little dusty, well then that’s just fine.
You only have so much time and energy. So, you have to prioritize what matters most to you and invest yourself there.
This might even mean seeing a therapist. This is not a joke, by the way! The issue is not the state of your home. The issue lies in what’s preventing you from taking the actions to make a home you love.
And sometimes, those issues have their roots in deep pain and trauma you’ve never dealt with.
Briallen Hopper, the author mentioned just a few paragraphs ago, made therapy a part of restoring her home to a state that made her happy.
The point is you’re not alone if you have personal wounds that make it difficult to clean out your home. And it’s perfectly okay to seek out professional help if you feel you need it.
Now Let’s Talk Logistics: How Many Dumpsters Will It Take to Clean A 1500 Square Foot Home Out?
Unless you have stuff piled up from the floor to ceiling and just narrow aisles to walk through, it’ll only take you one 20-yard dumpster to remove all the stuff in your home.
That costs you no more than $500. And you’ll get all the unnecessary junk out of your home in one fell cleaning swoop that takes a few days or a week to get rid of.
To get yourself started, pick a small area in your home that bothers you a lot. Maybe even take a picture or video of it before you clean.
You don’t even need to work on an entire room. It can be just one small area of the room.
Then, have at it!
Every item in that area needs to be addressed. The item must be thrown away, donated, cleaned, and made a decoration, or neatly put away.
And no matter how tempted you feel to “figure it out later,” let go of that thought and address the issue right now.
Now, you can’t get all this done quickly. It’s going to take some time and dedication. And that’s okay because you get to keep your dumpster rental for 10 days without paying additional fees.
Once you have that small area complete, sit back for 15-20 minutes and let your mind process it.
Pay attention closely to your feelings. How do you feel? A little lighter and happier? Prouder and more confident in yourself and your home?
Maybe you feel a little loss and regret.
Did you really need to get rid of that stuff?
You were saving it for another time.
Your mind may do one, the other, or both. And if you start to feel negative and a sense of loss and regret, that’s normal too. Simply let those feelings go and keep on cleaning.
Your mind will always follow your body. Maybe not this minute. But it will eventually. And you will start to turn that corner and get to a place of joy and serenity.
Now, simply keep repeating the above process. Continue working on small areas of various rooms in your home. Watch the videos you take of the before-and-after. And celebrate each success!
More than likely, you’ll need just a single dumpster to take care of everything in your home. It’s really a mental (and not physical) war you’re waging.
So if you run into obstacles, ask yourself: why?
Confront the issues preventing progress. And remember that after all the work, you’ll feel so great you’ll wonder why you didn’t clean out your home sooner!
