What kind of junk do you have lurking around your home, just outside your front (or back, or side) door? What things are you storing in your garage, the shed, the barn, the kids' playhouse, under the porch, on the patio, or stacked along the open edge of the carport?
Exterior storage can be both a blessing and a curse: exterior storage keeps big, bulky, and potentially greasy things (think lawn mower and weed-eater) away from your interior living spaces, but these spaces quickly become holding grounds for things you have no better place to store or haven't figured out yet if you should keep.
In my experience, the typical exterior storage space contains yard and landscaping tools and supplies, athletic and sports gear (rarely or never used anymore), boxes of holiday decorations, household chemicals (cleaning solutions, paint, pest sprays, fertilizer, empty plant pots, assorted tools, baby gear (strollers, rockers, cribs, tubs, you name it), and countless other objects in varying states of decay: leaking air mattress, luggage with broken locks or handles, studded snow tires that fit the car you traded in three years ago, bikes and bike parts, wooden chairs you think you want to refinish, pool toys, pet supplies, and countless Rubbermaid storage bins holding mounds of who knows what in their color-coordinated, water-resistant plasticity.
You don't need to carry this burden around any longer. It's time to sort through this junk and lighten your load.
Every item in your possession--whether inside or outside of your home--consumes brain space (nice phrase, eh?) in remembering you have the thing, inspires guilt because you don't use the object or it's dirty or broken, makes you feel obligated because you think you need to fix it up and use it, or obligates you because someone you love gave it to you or used it at one time.
Really, you can free your brain for higher thoughts than how to get the ancient grime-covered rototiller to start, in order to justify owning it.
How can you free yourself from it all?
GET RID OF THIS JUNK.
"How?!" you cry. "There's too much of it, it's too bulky, I can't lift it myself, where do I start?"
Here are several quick and easy options for disposal:
Most municipal trash pick-up services offer free pick up of large and bulky items like sofas and water heaters (you would be surprised how many of these two things are hanging around your neighbor's garages); simply call your trash service and schedule a time. Ask a muscle-y neighbor or friend to help drag it to the curb.
Also, many cities offer unlimited trash pick up during certain times of the year, such as fall leaf pick up, Christmas tree recycling, and spring cleaning. My city has two weeks of spring cleaning coming up, and you better believe I'll take advantage of that (my junk is mostly yard waste; I have a good-size corner lot that previous owners over-planted in a huge way).
List bigger, still useful items on craigslist and make a few dollars off your junk. A neighbor listed his broken bicycle on craigslist this week and made $20 on its still useful parts. He prevented all that metal and rubber from going to a landfill, and provided a bike enthusiast with a good frame and spare parts for cheap.
You can also list items for free on freecycle.org or also on craigslist.org. I prefer craigslist because you don't have to sign up for annoying emails. You can list almost anything useful, such as older but working electronic equipment (computers, VHS players and tapes, kitchen appliances), yard tools that look old but still work, boxes of holiday decorations you don't want to sort, remodeling left-overs (wood, sheet rock, carpet remnants, etc.),and--get this--clean, empty cardboard boxes for moving. I recently listed on craigslist a "free to a good home" box filled with packing peanuts, and someone came by and hauled it away within 30 minutes. I listed my address but no phone number in the short description, set the box in my driveway, and taped a small "free" sign on it. I've done the same with an old antenna, garden stepping stones, and a dated computer monitor. These bulky and heavy items are difficult to donate to charity, but a "free to the first one here" ad on craigslist is the easiest way in my neighborhood to share and recycle bulky things I no longer need.
I hope you are now inspired to begin releasing the exterior junk around your home, and let in the clean fresh breezes of spring!
