Stager ... De-clutterer

A house down the road from us sold the other day. It was an older home and housed a couple who are moving to Ottawa. The house sold in a day or two after being advertised with a large sign on the front lawn. It is customary for houses to be sold within a day or two if they are priced correctly. The sold sign appeared almost the next day.

Within a few days articles appeared on the sidewalk marked free. Every few hours more and more things were placed outside clearly marked for free. As we are having a yard sale soon to help build a school in Africa, Theresa and I began to pick up treasure after treasure. Our garage began to fill up right after I gave it a spring cleaning. As Theresa and I drove to the grocery store we saw a huge pile of treasures by the side of the road. There was a youngish man there and we stopped to check out the goods.

We talked to the man and he told us he was de-cluttering the house and everything he took out would be given free. This was his task and he was paid much the same as a stager. He also said that under normal circumstances he took the de-cluttered treasures to a charitable organization for resale. This is recycling in the finest tradition. From his work we gleaned quite a few items for our fundraiser for Africa.

People are more and more into this type of behaviour. We find that our generation were collectors and we filled out homes with things that - after a while - become clutter. I am a self -proclaimed collector but in my defence, I also recycle. I pick up furniture and objects and refinish them and give them away. I have never resold a found treasure except once. My habit has helped friends and family and I have this compulsion about waste. Therefore I have to de-clutter several times a year. I might even have to get learned up and become a stagger, or a de-clutterer. In any case I think it would be a good practise to de-clutter at least once a year. I would have to be away when this occurred as all my clutter is viewed as treasures to me.

I might change but don't hold your breath.