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The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
EP. 1177 DECLUTTER ASSISTANCE... DOES IT MAKE MONEY? 🧹📦
Have you ever gazed around your home and felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff you've accumulated? Our latest guest Dianna, a declutter expert, joins us to unpack the emotional weight rooms full of memories can carry. She's not just about tidying up; Dianna dives into the psyche behind the clutter, revealing how personal tragedies, life changes, or simply the sprint of daily living can leave our spaces in disarray. Through her stories, we understand that the clutter in our homes often mirrors the clutter in our minds, and her mission is to clear both.
During our conversation, Dianna illuminates the transformative power of decluttering. Whether it's a house prepping for sale or a family craving a fresh start, she approaches each case with an empathy that borders on social work. Trust plays a central role as she enters the personal domains and histories of clients, guiding them through a journey that's as much about healing as it is about organization. Tune in to learn how Dianna's expert touch not only brightens homes but also rejuvenates spirits, proving that the art of decluttering can indeed reshape lives.
Dianna, the declutter expert, is with us this morning and we are talking about decluttering of homes, how it happens, why it happens, what you can do about it. Stay tuned, we'll talk about it right now. Clutter the verb cover or fill something with an untidy collection of things. The room was cluttered with brick-a-brack. Noun of clutter a collection of things lying about in an untidy state. Boy, do you have a hard job?
Speaker 2:Yes, well, it is a very physically intensive job in a lot of the jobs because people can have a lot of clutter. And that's what we do. We just help people when they're ready. They have to be ready for it to make a change to their home.
Speaker 1:Dianna, you're like an angel with wings for these families. So when we're talking off here, you're saying that it's not it's physical work but there's also emotional work, because I guess for people to get into this state it's more emotional than physical of how they actually got cluttered in their homes.
Speaker 2:Tell me more. Yeah, so that's true like cut up. A number of people often have a lot of experiences in their life that have led to that. So they might have had an accident or they might have had a lot of emotional trauma in their life, or just a divorce and followed by a few things, and then they just find they get a bit overwhelmed and they let go of trying to keep them in order and then suddenly they find they're very comfortable.
Speaker 1:What do you think?
Speaker 3:Billy. Open the space, clear the mind. It's a big change for a lot of families. I've got to ask do you work with families that just want to change out, of feeling better, or is it always just for a sale? Do you get clients that reach out just because now's the time to make good start to the year?
Speaker 2:Definitely, absolutely. They reach out when they're ready and they've had enough and they just look around them and they think I don't have the health to do this, but they really want to change and they want to get on top of it. So that's when they call us and we love it. It's very people-based business. We really genuinely bring people, some people. If they're wanting to sell their home, obviously that's the time when they need the home to be decluttered, because they'll get a better price for the home, because it'll look better. When there's a lot of clutter, it makes the home smaller and it makes it darker. When you declutter a home, if you sale, it actually makes it look like a bigger space. Right, it's either feature or home better.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you a really sexist question. Is it boys more or girls more?
Speaker 2:You mean that to do the work?
Speaker 1:No, the ones that get the clutter up their homes.
Speaker 2:That's a good question. It's boys probably. I get more women calling, actually to be fair, but I know we definitely do probably more women. But, yes, men, and of all ages. I do rooms of teenagers 20-year-olds will call me in a lot older people as well, or families where they're really busy and they don't have time. It actually can be anyone who calls. I think that's what's really interesting about this business is you get to go into people's home and everybody is so different and they have different lives and you really walk into that life and they let you in and it's a very personal business and it requires them really trusting me, of which they do, because they trust me. It's very personal. They should become part of their family for that time that.
Speaker 1:I'm there. Do you ever get altercations?
Speaker 2:Well, I do. I'm very good at communication. So no, and often people, if it's sometimes people, if they might have a mental health issue, which is why they have not been guided. So I must say I am good at not having any equipment. I don't argue with people, so I just understand them and receive their communication and I don't respond. I just help them. So I always don't even understand them.
Speaker 1:I never actually I never thought about it till this morning that there's a social work element to your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot based on communication and caring about people and if you're, we're very genuine open up.
Speaker 3:Don, I've got a question how long does the average declutter take if you're doing just a room, a really a really cluttered room?
Speaker 2:yeah, A really would probably take two people a day, because I think it could be like a box with hundreds of little things in it and the client likes to thought through them with us and pick what they want to get off. That can take a while or could take a day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, and are you doing everything from going through?
Speaker 1:it. Do you chuck stuff? Do you chuck it out of your store? Yeah, that's how it's hard, billy, do you chuck it out of your store.
Speaker 2:Either if it's rubbish, we chuck it. Some customers want to keep things, so we'll box it, in, store it and we try and encourage them to get rid of it if they're not going to keep it. Otherwise they're just waiting boxed clutter in a store room. But yeah, we organized to, you know, we'll organize to donate it. So we do a lot of donations and fill, we do recycle, we do chemical drop box, we do yeah, and we will donate to women shelters, to charity, to all sorts of things. So we try and we try and encourage them to let go of the future, because when they do that they feel a lot better than if they hang on to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got another question. If someone's calling you in, what's the ratio that you were able to declutter a house by what's? What's it? You know, if someone's identified that they've got a lot of stuff, what's the sort of? How much stuff can you cut back on for the average client?
Speaker 2:You know what? It depends on the person. So some people will just go let's let. They'll just go, let's sell it, so. So we work with the client, because they're the one that are in charge of deciding what's what they want to let go of. So we have to go with that. So someone might have made a decision just they're just going to really change and they're willing to let it go. That's a much faster job. That the person actually looks at every single item and goes no, I think I'll keep that. I think I'll keep that, I think I'll keep that like and keep a lot of things and not not that much. So so we have to go with that. But that's a very slow process so it can take a long time or a short time, but the quicker they let the job come.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been into declutter a property where you've been scared?
Speaker 2:No, but there are properties that are hoarder and supply I suppose there's specialized companies that do that where people have got themselves into bad situation and it's not hygienic. So we, I don't do that myself, that's a sort of a specialist cleaning company. But no, if I was scared, I no, not, really not not scared, no, but I could see, yeah, yeah, so it's very varied. I love this job because every person in every household is very different and we can help everybody.
Speaker 1:I think I'd love your job. It is good, actually Hard work and it's good, Are most houses?
Speaker 3:is it like a garage that you put a declutter or what's sort of a? I know there's obviously every client's different, but what does a normal client look like on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker 2:Well, I do a lot of senior downsizing so I'll go into it. When a person's moving into a turn age year and they've got a lifetime of things so they might have a five bedroom home, they're moving into a one bedroom place so it could be that so, and often they'll have things of their own plus their own parents, so they're big jobs where you're going through. That could be that it could be anything from just to like a one bedroom place. Yes, we do garages. Sure, we basically do everything that they want we do. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Amazing.
Speaker 1:So, deanna, how does the process work? So you get a call from, I guess, the person normally, or a family member, yeah, it can be.
Speaker 2:Either it could be a son or daughter or the person. It's better if it's from the person, because if someone else goes off the road, you go there that person doesn't Half the job's done. Well, they don't want it. You can only do it if the person wants to help, otherwise it's impossible. So yes, it could be from anyone.
Speaker 1:So they call you up and you go out there. Do you charge for that, for that req, req, for sure. So you go out, you meet with them, you go X, y, z.
Speaker 2:This is what it's going to cost you, yeah that's right, and I explain to them the process so they understand what we do, and then I get a feel from them what sort of job it's going to be, if it's going to be a faster job or a slower job, because I find out what's important to them, how much of the things they want to keep. We might we also sometimes people have a lot of antiques or collectibles, so we will, you know, I'll bring in buyers of those. So we have to take a lot of factors into account when we go into a job. But generally, yes, either just do a daily rate or we do a quote.
Speaker 2:But a job can be a day or can be a few weeks, and often it might be spread over a couple of months. If someone's putting their house on for sale, they'll get us to come in, or the real estate might call us. Someone real estate agent like yourself would call us and then we will go in and do what's called a visual declutter for the sale and then, after the property, the contact's been signed, we'll go in and help them start packing up and do a full declutter. That could be lots of things.
Speaker 1:I feel educated this morning. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we also, like I said, do we do a deceased estate. So again, often it's a deceased estate. It'll be a son or real estate agent that will call us to come in and do a property and get that generally, a deceased estate will be for sale.
Speaker 1:And you'll take the body as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take the body. Oh yeah, that's funny. No, I come in with that sort of no Really really help with that.
Speaker 1:That's a very, very helpful field. One thing I got out of today, guys, was and thank you for this was I didn't realise that emotional and that social element layer of what needs to be done with declutter. You don't just come in and start moving stuff. You've got to be really empathetic with the people out there. So thank you, billy. What do you got to say in conclusion?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is obviously a special person to do a special job. You can't just start pulling people's houses apart so and you've got to have time to do that so I can understand completely if it's a professional working a full-time job or a family member. I can completely understand why they get you into help with that process.
Speaker 2:And it's a good idea because it saves them a lot of time. A lot of people can't do it by themselves, but they can do it with someone yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, amazing. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Weapon, thank you. So the way people contact you is declutter assistance. Google that all your details will come up. Give you a call. You sit personally.
Speaker 2:Definitely I call them personally and I go and see them personally. Definitely this is, it's a people business and you're based on it. Yeah, northern Beaches. So I'm based in Buckeye. We service the whole of Sydney. We obviously like to do a lot of work on the Northern Beaches, but we go all over Sydney.
Speaker 1:So good. Thank you very, very much for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. It's been really great to chat with you.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thanks, billy, I'll take care.