The One Mistake Everyone Makes When Moving to New York City // How to Declutter Your Apartment

Two years ago when we were moving from our spacious-yet-spider -infested garage apartment in Florida to our mystery apartment in NYC, Chris and I slightly overestimated the amount of space we would actually have. To our surprise we had to leave some furniture on the sidewalk because there wasn’t enough space to even get it into our tiny basement paradise. We even had to put a lot of our boxes in our hallway (which is shared by only our neighbor and maintenance men).
Fast forward two years and those boxes haven't moved an inch, but they did get covered in dust and dead flies. Sorry, neighbor, for making you walk by that everyday. I'm sure any girl you bring home doesn’t think less of you because of us.

Its easy to judge this situation as laziness, and maybe we are a bit lazy, but those boxes just don’t fit and they are filled with wedding shit and sentimental memorabilia from our lives, things you don’t just casually toss out. At least I think they are. In hopes we would get a better and bigger apartment, we haven't even opened them since we moved.

Also, I am kind of terrified to be in that hallway very long. To be really honest it's disgusting.                    
It smells of death, is full of flies, and I kid you not I was walking to my apartment on Monday and a rat fell from one of the ceiling pipes. A fucking rat! If you're concerned about the rat, he lived and ran into the hole that I think leads to the boiler room. This is a really glamorous basement apartment with the only closet being in that hallway. Imagine the terror of finding a jacket or dress in that closet and having your back turned on this hallway. Not fun, but it is what we have.

For family reading this and worrying about us, we are safe. As of now we have never seen a rat or mouse in the apartment and have seen no signs (poop) that they have gotten in. I like to imagine our dogs would try and eat them like they do with any fly that gets in. 
But back to the point of this post, we are going to clean the hallway. With all hopes of moving out destroyed (rent shot up at least another $300 dollars in this area since we moved up plus we'd have to pay our own utilities again not to mention the down payments, extra months of rent, and pet deposits, we'll be here at least one more year) its time to get that hallway in order.

Aside from the disgusting hallway holding me back I am also a bit of a sentimental pack rat so my biggest cleaning mantra is to repeatedly tell myself that saving things will not keep the memories and the less I have the easier it is to manage.

I've done this before and doing it again hopefully shouldn't be so bad.
Some specifics I think about when I have a hard time getting rid of things are:

1. When was the last time I used this?
2. Do I really love this? Would I buy this again?
3. Does it suit my current life ?
4. Will I, or my life, be any less without it?
5. If there was an emergency and I needed to move tomorrow, would I care enough to bring it?

This will most likely get done today, we are finally getting the building to fumigate tomorrow so one of the managers or someone who talks to them might be down, and nothing makes cleaning easier then guests.

I cannot wait to get rid of everything.



-bea