This week, we’re getting into one of the most common reasons storage rooms stay stuck: when the space belongs to more than one person. Whether it’s a spouse with a different attachment to things, kids whose childhood memories live in those boxes, a roommate who just has a lot of stuff, or an aging parent whose belongings have taken up residence in your home, shared storage rooms require something beyond a good organizing system. They require compassionate negotiation. This episode is about how to move forward with intention, your intention and theirs, without overriding the people you love or the relationships you value.
In This Episode We Talk About:
- Why shared ownership is often the hidden reason storage rooms stay stuck
- How to approach decluttering conversations with the people who share your space, without pressure, ultimatums, or resentment
- Practical ways to make meaningful progress in a shared storage room, even when everyone isn’t on the same timeline
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Review Transcript:
Let's talk about the others. The other people, the other people that live where you live, the other people you have to share space with, you want to share space with. But at the end of the day, they are the others. So it's probably the spouse who hasn't touched a box in years, but would absolutely notice if it was gone, or the adult kid whose college stuff is still in that three, you know, giant plastic bins, or in their room because they will come and get it at some point.
They just don't want you to throw anything away. Maybe, um, it's the parent whose furniture is in your basement because they downsized, and you said yes, and now you're not sure how to have that next conversation. All of these have been examples of people who I've worked with directly. Um, also roommates who said they'd deal with their corner and just haven't.
So if your storage room feels impossible to tackle, I want to gently offer you this, that it might not be the stuff that's stopping you. It could be the people connected to the stuff. And it could actually also be you, but because you have to share and you have to work as a team, it might be just a really, really hard subject to tackle.
So we are going to talk about that today, and I'm going to offer you a couple of tips, specifically with the storage rooms. Because we have, we actually have two other episodes in the past all about how to deal with relationship issues when it comes to decluttering. We have one with Dr. Jackie, um, who talks about, you know, relationships and how to have those really hard conversations with your significant other and/or whoever you live with, and/or we have also had conversations about how to work as a team in your everyday spaces.
But today we're talking specifically about the storage rooms. Okay? So here we go.
Welcome to the Organize and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. I am your host, Stephanie, your compassionate and efficient professional organizer. Whether you are part of the sandwich generation, helping a loved one declutter, or just trying to simplify life, this is the place for you. Together, we will tackle those overwhelming piles of stuff, uncover purpose in what we keep, and let go with dignity and care.
Because it's not just about throwing everything away. It's about respecting memories and simplifying life. Sound like a plan? Let's jump in and get organized. So let's start by naming the dynamic, because I think it helps to see it clearly, right? When a space belongs to only you, there's a certain freedom in the decision-making.
You can decide some- when something goes, what you want to keep. You can rearrange, donate, toss. Question all of that, right? Without having to consult anyone. Even if the emotional weight is heavy, at least the logistics belong to you. But when it comes to shared spaces, those are different. And storage rooms are especially interesting because they tend to absorb the belongings of everyone in the household, right?
Often without really any conversations about it. Things get put in the storage because there's no other place for them. Maybe it's because someone's not ready to deal with them, but other parts or other people in the family are. But if just one person is not, it's going to go down in the storage area.
Maybe it's because they belong to someone who isn't living there anymore, but their stuff still is. And then you're standing in the middle of it all, wanting to make progress, and then you start to realize that you can't really do this alone because the stuff does not belong to you. It's just hard to make decisions for other people, especially if you're an empath or if you're just be- trying to be responsible, right?
I mean, I know many of you will just not take that into consideration, but that person is probably not listening to this podcast. They've already made decisions. Maybe this has happened to you, where you have a little bit of trauma from when someone did that to you, maybe in your youth. Um, that comes up a lot in our conversations, like my parents used to do this all the time, and so now that I have my stuff, my stuff and my, and my family's stuff, I want to ask and be respec- respectful because it happened to you and you don't want it to be passed on.
That's kind of a, a hard decision to make because it's not your stuff. And I do wanna be clear about something as well that because, you know, we talk about it in every episode, but I think it's worth mentioning. Uh, we don't really believe at The Organized Flamingo that getting rid of other people's stuff without their permission is the best idea.
Sometimes I understand that it has to happen, especially if it … you're under a time crunch, if it's the best for your health, your mental health, your physical health. I understand. That's an episode for another day. That's conversations that we have outside of just regular organizing and decluttering, okay?
Those are extremes. Those are also, uh, mental health discussions that I would want to have separately. So this is more about your everyday stuff with everyday people, um, that is still very hard. It does not take the hard away. We just don't get rid of stuff for other people without their permission because we believe that it makes things a lot worse.
It actually will, um, you, you both will burn bridges, or all the people that are involved will start to, um, not have trust, and we don't want to ever lose that, um, when it comes to our ind- just like what we do in, in our industry when it comes to organizing. So all right. That being said, so the respect doesn't mean that you need to be paralyzed either, though.
You have to make movement, and you're trying to encourage your loved ones to make it as well. So that's where a lot of people get stuck. They don't want to overstep, so they just don't step at all. And the storage room stays exactly as it is, and the frustration quietly builds. So the question I want to explore today is how do you hold both things at once?
So how do you respect other people's attachments and timelines while still making real progress in a space that affects your daily life? And maybe not in a, an everyday life like your living room or, um, your bedroom or your bathroom, but in a storage room, as we've talked about so much, you still think about it and you know if it's full and overflowing and messy and disorganized and cluttered.
And we want to h-have you have a bit of peace of mind in that daily thought. So one of the things is understanding the different flavors of shared ownerships, if you will, because they're not all the same. There's going to be the, the kind of partner/spouse dynamic, right? Um, where both people have stake in that space, but different relationships to what is in it.
So one person might be ready to let go of things, and the other is not. And because it's a shared home, both people are… both people's feelings do matter. So there's the partner/spouse dynamic. Then there's the adult/children dynamic, where your kids have grown and moved out, um, but a significant portion of your storage room is still holding their childhood and their yearbooks, their sports equipment, their sentimental things.
And you're not sure it's your place to move it. But you also can't keep waiting forever. So then there, there's that child or you were the caretaker, um, caregiver of that person and their stuff is still there and they've moved on. There's the aging parent dynamic. If you're in the sandwich generation, you know, which can be particularly tender and hard.
There might be a parent that's downsized, and you took on some of their furniture or boxes. And maybe a parent passed away, and there are items in your storage that no one has been ready to go through. So these spaces often carry the most emotional weight, and they deserve the most gentleness and, and fair to do so.
Um, but there's that dynamic. And then there's the roommate or housemate dynamic, which is often less emotional, but still logistically complicated. Um, it could be, you know, uh, emotional in a different way because you don't know that person as well. Um, you might not be as comfortable the way that you are with your spouse or your loved ones or your children.
Um, so actually this could also be h- just as hard, just in a different way. Um, but you probably are not as attached to the stuff. So when you don't have the same stake in the space, conversations about shared organization can feel awkward to initiate with a roommate or housemate type of dynamic. Um, so those are the most popular.
I know those are the ones that I've worked with, and each of these situations is a little different. They all share that one thing in common, which is that progress requires more than just One person's plan. It's going to require a lot of communication and teamwork, and meeting somewhere in the middle, which is sometimes really hard.
Okay, so a couple of tips that I have for you on how to have the conversation. So if there's one thing that I've learned over the years in this work, it's that the conversation you avoid having almost always costs more than the one you actually will have. Um, you kind of, um, build it up in your head. It just…
I mean, think we all do that anyway, just in our everyday lives. But when it comes to your stuff, I think you start thinking about the worst case scenario, like they'll get offended. Um, you're almost putting feelings to the items for them without even knowing how they really feel. So the storage room conversation starts to happen when people put it off, when they're afraid of the reaction, and they don't want to seem pushy or uncaring, or like they're trying to erase someone's history.
And since it's a storage room, you're like, “Well, you know, I'll, I'll just close the door and we can have it another time. Um, I'll just keep paying the $100 a month for this, you know, 10 by 10, 6 by 6, 8 by 8 U-Haul storage room, and I'd rather pay that than have this really hard conversation.” And those fears are real, I get that.
But they will then start to accumulate, uh, like a burden in your heart, a burden on your shoulders. So we're gonna try to avoid that. And so we want to talk about it and, and have some kind of compromise. So here is a couple tips when it comes to your physical… To having a conversation about your phys- the physical stuff that you both share.
Start with the why. I, I often don't like to have the deadline conversation unless that is… That just has to be done. Like, sometimes you have no other choice. Like at this point, you have to have the deadline conversation. But if you don't, if you're not pressured just yet, start with the why. Um, so there's a big difference between saying, “We need to clean out the storage room,” and saying something like, “I've been feeling really overwhelmed by our storage room, and I'd love to work on it together.
Can we figure out maybe a time?” It's more of an invitation. It creates a bit of, let's work on this together. And when you lead with your, your own experience, what you're feeling, what you're hoping for, you're not putting anyone on the defensive. So you're just being honest about what the space is doing to you.
Hi, Cherish friends. Life can get overwhelming, especially when you're juggling caregiving, clutter, and everything in between. That's why I created the Organize & Cherish weekly email that goes out every Wednesday straight to your inbox. To help you keep the momentum, inspiration going with tips and reminders of our upcoming events.
All you have to do is head on over to organizeandcherish.com and sign up for the email newsletter. It's free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you'd like. It's my way of helping you simplify your life and respecting memories along the way. Now back to our show. So I've seen that work really well, giving people kind of agency over their own stuff.
So if you're organizing a storage room that contains items belonging to your adult kids, for instance, or maybe your partner or your parents or whoever, um, one of the most respectful things you can do is to create a clear boundary between my stuff and their stuff before any decisions get made. So this will often mean that physically you have to go in and identify what belongs to who.
Uh, that's worked really well because now you have a line. Like this is my stuff, this is your stuff. I can make decision about my stuff. And what they start to see is that you are taking action and putting, um, decisions into place and decluttering or organizing, and then they'll probably start to either mimic you because you are inspiring them and they understand the urgency.
Even if it's, you know, a small shelf at a time, that will start to give them the permission. Maybe that's what they've been looking for too, the permission to do it as well. But just dividing the stuff like this is your shelf, this is my shelf, and once people can see what's theirs, they're in a much better position to make decisions about it, and you're in a better position to work with what's yours without stepping on anyone's toes, especially if you're not under a time crunch.
Like this, this is your forever home. You don't have to be out of there at any particular time, right? Like this is a, this is a good one for th- those scenarios. Always ask and don't assume. So I've seen really well-intentioned people get into real trouble by making assumptions about what someone else cares about.
They'll assume that their partner won't miss the old golf clubs, or their kid won't care about the box of, you know, like let's say high school mementos, or their parent wouldn't want the extra dishes or whatever. And sometimes they're right, but when they're wrong, it can do real emotional damage, and then that trust is gone.
So a question like this could help, um, which is like, “Hey, I was sorting through the storage room and came across this. Do you want to keep it, or would you, would it be okay if I let it go?” Um, it takes just a couple seconds to ask. Send them a text message and see what their reaction is. They may be like, “Oh my gosh, I totally forgot they were there.”
Absolutely. And/or you might start to feel that it's a really heavy topic, and you might need to either bring in a mediator, have another family member be a person that can help you through this transition. Um, but it'll give you an idea without having to assume and make a whole story about it up. Okay?
Respecting different timelines is a big one, is another tip that I have for you without letting it stop everything. So I wanna be honest about it. You know, it's, it can get really nuanced. Sometimes the people in your life just aren't ready to let go. They're not ready to go through their parents' belongings.
They're not ready to decide what to do with the baby clothes, or they're not ready to admit that the equipment from the hobby they gave up is never coming out of the box, you know? And that's, that's just the way it goes. That's life. Grief doesn't have a schedule. Emotional readiness isn't something you can put on a calendar.
You can't dictate that for other people, and the more you push, the more they will get resistant, the more they will put a wall up. So here's what I wanna offer: that their timeline doesn't have to stop your progress entirely. There is almost always something you can do in a shared storage room without touching anyone else's things.
So you can organize your section, which we already talked about. You can clear the paths. You can make the space more functional, even if it's not fully transformed yet. You can put it in different bins so it's visually more appealing, maybe clear bins instead of those cardboard boxes that are really hard to tell what's inside.
Um, that progress is something that they can see, and it might help. You know, uh, you can decide whether you would be allowed to. If they're being very particular about you even opening their boxes, then I would follow the other, the, the tip that we talked about where you put their stuff in one corner, and when they're ready to tackle it, they can tackle it.
If you have a timeline, like a hard timeline, because you're moving out or you're doing some work in that storage room, or you can't afford it anymore, you don't want to pay for it anymore, then let them know ahead of time, “We have six months, and after that, you are responsible for your space.” Okay? That will make others more willing to engage because you're asking.
You're, you're giving options as opposed to giving ultimatums. So I want to talk about something, one other thing before we head out and we take action. So we're, again, we're not trying to get rid of everything, right? We're just having intentional conversations. If you need a little bit of help with what or how to, uh, have a conversation, send us a message.
We have the Compassionate Conversation Cards. They're available to anyone that emails us, and so I give you a couple examples to get you started. Um, and so if you're using AI or any of those agents or tools that are helping you curate some of these conversations, um, you can plug in the conversation cards that I've made for you with scenarios that, um, have been very real in my career and can help you.
You know, they're probably similar to yours, and so you can plug and play according to what your instances and, like, your own personal, uh, relationships are. So compassionate conversation cards when it comes to how to navigate physical stuff that you share or physical spaces that you share. If you need help with that, let me know, okay?
Just send us a message, and they're completely free, and I can send them over to you. So let's talk about your actions for the week or that I want you to, to think about when it comes to th- these shared spaces. Have the kickoff conversations before you touch anything. Uh, even if you're, you're not dealing with it right now but you know it…
that the, a time will come, I would start that conversation. The faster, the sooner you can have it, the better. Before you go into a shared space, a storage room with organizing on your mind, have that conversation. It doesn't need to be long or formal. You know, something along the lines of, “I want to work on this storage room.
Can we talk for a few minutes about what's in there and what we each feel good about doing?” This is one step. You know, just naming that you're planning to work on it and inviting the other person into the process prevents so much potential friction. Um, it'll also give that person an opportunity of respect, and it opens that door for going forward, okay?
Divide the space before you start sorting. So if you either already had the conversation or you can't seem to have that conversation with that person, that person just always is… There's just friction there, okay? This is a good one for you with… so you can still take action. So you're going to divide it with the stuff that's theirs and the stuff that's yours.
And then set a decision date. So if you do have a, a timeline, because that's when you can work on it, because that's… maybe you have time off. This really happens a lot with a lot of our educators, uh, who have, like, summers off or holidays off, and that's when they do their big projects. But then their spouse or loved one or whoever they live with, children, they don't have that time off, so they're on different rhythms and schedules.
If you have a schedule or decision date, let them know, and let them know you're working on your half, your stuff, and hope they can join you. But if they can't, you know, have them do it at their own pace, and be okay with that. You know, if they say they'll… You know, for instance, like, they'll come and get it.
Like, if, if you're holding stuff for other people Then let them know, okay, this is my timeline so that they can plan accordingly, especially if it's big stuff that they need movers or people to help them with. You want to give them some time, okay? And if you are, if you've decided to take on this project like today and you're messaging them with, come get your stuff today, that feels a little bit unfair unless, you know, it just feels like that friction will be there immediately.
That wall will be put up. So unless you have to be out of there this weekend, I would give them as much time as possible to start planning to get their stuff out or, you know, have them deal with it, but give them plenty of time. With that being said, those are our actions for the week. I want you to take some initiative in starting the conversation.
That's the biggest takeaway when it comes to shared spaces. Message the person, text them, call them, whatever the best means of communication is going to be. Let them know you're starting this project. You'd like to start decluttering and organizing your storage spaces that you all share. When would be a good time?
Let them know you're starting it. If their time is not a good time for you, let them know about your timeline. And if they're not able to do it, they don't agree, just divide, put their stuff in a safe corner and you work on yours. And hopefully that will give them permission and or momentum to do their part, but at least you can get started with yours.
Okay. All right. I hope this helped with your areas that you share with others, especially your storage rooms. If you have any questions, let us know. Always available at hello at theorganizedflamingo.com. Until next week, happy organizing. Thank you for listening to the Organized and Cherished podcast with the Organized Flamingo.
If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. It helps others discover our show. For full show notes, resources, and more organizing inspiration, visit www.theorganizedflamingo.com slash podcast. Until next time, happy organizing.