Physical side-effects of clutter

So far, we have concerned ourselves mostly with practical implications of clutter and looked at how to limit intake, manage the contents of your home, and how to get rid of things in a positive and empowering way. There are other considerations to clutter, though, and some of them can be pretty grim.

Safety hazard

For one thing, clutter can form a safety hazard in any household: a corridor with books, papers, boxes and the like piled high against one or both walls will create serious limits to mobility and is prone to collapse at some point, especially if items are being removed from the lower part of the piles. People have been found dead under collapsed piles of clutter more often than you would want to imagine! Just having clutter sitting in often used passages forms a tripping hazard! Imagine someone already has limited mobility trying to navigate around objects that are sitting in the way every single time they pass by. You probably agree that it’s only a matter of time that that person will trip, get hurt or even break something in the process.

In extreme cases, these piles of stuff create the kind of weight that can even have effects on the structural integrity of the building, cracking floorboards or shifting the weight balance of the house to a point of instability. Again, once things start to shift there is no telling what could happen.

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Health hazard

Quite apart from physical safety, clutter can become a health hazard very quickly if it prevents you from cleaning your home properly. Admittedly, this may sound a little dramatic, but think again: I’m sure there are spaces in your house that you rarely clean (garage, attic, that storage cupboard with all the stuff in it that you never touch,…) and when you start cleaning you are surprised each time by the sheer amount of dust and miscellaneous things that come to light. Of course, those are small fry, but once things get dirty – and that is especially true in places near the kitchen and food storage – every little bit might attract bugs and rodents, and those not only are a serious health hazard, but they can be very difficult – and expensive – to eradicate.

Lack of cleaning also leads to accumulation of dust, mould and animal droppings (including from your own pets), and those in term are very bad for conditions like allergies, asthma and other breathing problems.

As you may now understand, eliminating clutter is most certainly a good thing, generally making your home a safer and healthier place to be in. This is also an interesting lesson for those who regard clutter as a problem with lack of space that can be solved by getting more organised. In fact, clutter is an issue of the mind and it requires a change of habits to be successfully eliminated.

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Fire hazard

There is a third kind of problem resulting from clutter: it can be a fire hazard! Imagine a space that is littered with boxes and piles of stuff, blocking exits and making it difficult to navigate, add heat and smoke from a fire, plus a pinch of panic and you have the perfect trap for somebody in the middle of a blazing fire. On top of the sheer mass of stuff, most things that constitute clutter in a household or office are highly flammable: paper, fabrics, plastic. A small fire can turn into a large, uncontrollable one very quickly. Because of the relative density of the materials, the fire will become exceedingly hot and more likely to affect nearby flats or properties as well, making it even more difficult to control.

Kitchens are notorious for being the starting point of fires in households, not only because they often have gas cookers, but because of oil catching fire, or towels or paper towels coming into contact with open fire and starting things off very quickly. Kitchen tend to be small spaces in modern flats, so a lot of things are usually propped onto the surfaces, creating more opportunities for fires to get started or propagate. A cramped kitchen also contains a fair amount of tripping hazards, leading to accidents that – in term – can cause fires.

Having a fire extinguisher around is no reason to feel safe, either: not only do you need to learn how to use it and which type of extinguisher to use in specific cases, they are often past their expiry date, or simply too weak to make a dent in the flaming inferno that is caused by the sheer amount of flammable materials and the extensive heat created by a fire. Never feel overconfident, and have them checked regularly! Have someone properly explain how they work. And most important of all: avoid having flammable stuff in large quantities lying around your home.

And lastly: clutter also makes it very difficult for emergency services, fire brigade or health personnel to get access and render assistance in a timely manner: corridors stuffed full of (burning) materials and/or collapsed boxes that block doorways and windows make it all but impossible to properly help those trapped inside.

If you have enjoyed reading this, you may find these other articles interesting:

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• We are collectors