Here in the Northeast we have those pesky little things known as garages. Garages get pesky when they become an open invitation to fill them with lots of stuff that’s rarely used, if at all. For many of us, the garage has ceased to be a place to park the car. It has been transformed into a warehouse of stuff.
My Divine Concierge specializes in cleaning, organization, and storage solutions. We would love to help you take back your garage by cleaning it up and clearing it out. This is a great time of year to attack the garage, by the way. With cooler temperatures and less time being spent on outdoor activities, it’s easier to find a weekend to tackle the garage.
Here are the top three reasons to clean out a garage full of junk:
1. Your Car Deserves a Home
There is a commonly quoted statistic out there that says 82% of U.S. homes have two-car garages but only 15% of those garages are actually used to store cars. We cannot verify that statistic is true. However, a 2015 survey conducted by Gladiator GarageWorks revealed that 25% of homeowners with garages can’t use them to park their cars because they are too cluttered.
Here’s the thing: your garage isn’t a warehouse. It was designed to house your car. Why does that matter? Because garaged cars are safer cars. Garaged cars are less likely to being burglarized, they are out of the weather, and they are harder to steal.
There is an added benefit here in the Northeast. You’ll notice it during the winter. Using your garage for its intended purpose means you will never go out in the morning and have to scrape ice off your windshield before going to work. Just start the car, put it in drive, and go.
2. Your Car Deserves a Clean Home
Maybe you are one of those homeowners who uses the garage as a parking spot for the car, but it barely fits because there’s so much other stuff to deal with. Let’s clean out the garage so that your car has a clean home to live in.
A garage so jam-packed with stuff that you can barely open the car door is an open invitation to damaging your car. Something could fall from the rafters and break the windshield. You could put a nice, long scratch in the paint trying to squeeze your bicycle out with barely enough room between the wall and your car. The point is that a cluttered garage is an unsafe garage.
3. Avoiding the Out of Sight, Out of Mind Trap
If housing your car in the garage isn’t a priority for you, is there another reason to clean out the garage? Absolutely. Using the garage as a warehouse for stuff tends to encourage the out of sight, out of mind trap. This trap is one of mindlessly accumulating things and then forgetting about them once they’ve been put in the garage.
In our experiences of helping people clean out their garages, we have come across some very interesting things that our customers never knew they owned. We have found everything from old bicycles to magazine collections and antique sporting goods that would fetch a fairly good price at auction.
You should really clean out your garage even if you have no intention of parking your car inside. Don’t let the space become nothing more than extra storage for things you’ll never use. Clean it up, clear it out, and take back the space. You can always convert it to an office or workshop.