7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Married a Fellow Pack Rat

We’d Quickly Fill Up Whatever Space We Had

Our first place together was a very roomy (at least for New York City) two-bedroom apartment—and without a lot of money to splurge on stuff, you’d think that’d be plenty of space for two of us. But we had our collections: books and vinyl, DVDs, and lots of tchotchkes. But it was our wedding, where we were treated to a full set of china and crystal and plenty of other goodies, that really did us in. (Especially as we were using our dining room for both dining and book storage!) It was only six months later that we started looking to buy a house—and I imagined that once we had more than double the space, we’d take ages to fill in every nook and cranny.

Fun fact: It took a few years, but having two kids, two cats, and two dogs has definitely made for a very crowded house now (a situation I’ve been desperately trying to fix with some major decluttering). And I shudder at the thought of what we’d accumulate if we moved to a larger house.

Moving Would Be a Huge Ordeal

We only did it once (so far), but we (or, ahem….one of us) vastly underestimated how long it would take to pack up all the stuff we had for the move. So while one of us spent the weeks leading up to the move packing a few boxes every night, the other procrastinated—and they ended up staying awake for nearly 48 hours to get most of the job done. I’m already trying to declutter now to make a future move far less stressful. (The move-out method has become my go-to!)

We’d Always Have Everything We Need—Even If We Had to Search to Find It

An old cord for an ancient iPhone? An assortment of random screws? Multiple sets of swim goggles and caps? If you need it, we have you covered. We just need to find where we put it. (And sometimes, we need to buy a new one in order for the old one to suddenly reappear in our lives. Hence, three hammers!)

Keeping Our House Clean Would Be a Bigger Challenge Than Expected

This probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did.

After all, a house with even one pack rat in it can be hard to clean, as you’ll accumulate doom piles of papers, drifts of to-be-put-away stuff in the corners, and lots of stuff left out on the bathroom and kitchen counters. But when you have two pack rats, the mess just multiplies, as there’s no one really trying to curb the clutter. That has led to marathon deep cleans most weekends—and plenty of attempts at trying new systems and schedules to help us find more time to relax on the weekends, rather than decluttering and deep cleaning.

Decluttering Would Be More Emotional Than We Thought

You can’t work at Real Simple and not have a lot of thoughts about what holds people back from decluttering and getting rid of things in their lives. For us, it boils down to two things: emotions and concerns about wastefulness or need.

We both have a hard time getting rid of items associated with memories. Tattered concert t-shirts bring us back to good times, and that faded, crafted Mother’s Day gift reminds me of the adorable preschooler that now has a driver’s license. The idea of relegating that to the trash just feels like a spike to the heart.

I’m also big into trying to reduce and reuse, so if it’s something I think I could find a use for someday, I like to keep it around just in case. (I’ve been making strides on this by offering a lot of goodies to my local Buy Nothing group.)

We’d Still Argue About Chores and Clutter

I know many neat freak and clutter magnet couples, and there seems to be eternal arguments around chores—and plenty of beef about people walking past mess and ignoring it. But even with both of us on a similar wavelength about clutter levels, we still find ourselves occasionally bickering about who needs to be dealing with the laundry pile this time.

We’d Need Professional Help

Yeah, we probably need more than one kind of professional help, but turning to experts at cleaning and decluttering has helped us get better at keeping our house maintenance at a manageable level. Work, kids, and pets take up a lot of time, which means less time available to deal with everything else coming into and out of our home—and the messes that get made along the way. There’s no shame in calling in experts for something that’s not your strength, and it has helped me develop some new systems that may turn us into reformed pack rats yet. (Though I’m not holding my breath.)