Swedish Death Cleaning

There is a Swedish word döstädning which breaks down to two parts dö, which means die/death, and städning, meaning cleaning. In 2017, Margareta Magnusson published the book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. Since then, the concept of Swedish Death Cleaning has made its way around the world uplifting people.

When we are 20, 30, 40 years old we are in the accumulation phase of life. Get a degree, get married, get a car, get a house, get another phone or TV. Buy now, buy more. Compete against the Jones’. According to Worldmetics.org, “There are approximately 60,000 self-storage facilities in the United States and over 10% of American households rent a self-storage unit. The self-storage industry generated $39.5 billion in revenue in 2020.” And, how many more Americans have sheds or giant shops on their property for the stuff that does not fit into their house?

My mother had hundreds of boxes of precious items she could not bear to live without, yet she only looked at those items when it was time to move them into the moving van (every 20 years). My sister and I had to account and disburse all that stuff when she died.

Me, I chose a different pathway as I was looking at my 50’s. I began decluttering, even before my mom passed away. It started small with a drawer or two, then a closet. My original motivation was my daughter’s graduation from high school, but then the motivation erupted. When I moved into a smaller house after my daughter graduated high school, I decided to take a gigantic break from the stuff that was weighing me down in life. With the new motivation of not burdening my only daughter with my estate, I began rehoming anything that was not being used regularly or displayed. My new home looks new, fresh, and clean. Those anchors are no longer weighing me down and I did not miss them at all. I cleansed the space and cleansed my soul.

When Greg and I joined lives and combined households, we did another round of Swedish death cleaning. Will you try it?