My husband and I moved into our home in 2015 with a 2-month-old baby, and then one thing led to…read moreanother and seven years later we still hadn't really put everything where we wanted it to be, we'd had another kid, and were 2.5 years into a pandemic trying to keep our family safe while working full time. Needless to say, our house was overwhelming: no energy or time to address anything beyond doing the bare minimum to keep our heads above squalor, way too much stuff, etc. Beyond having small children who destroy everything they touch, we are a neurodivergent household (ADHD and Autism), which is an added layer on top of just not knowing how to de-shittify the house.
Ashley has two little kids herself, so understands that particular quality of chaos. She came recommended to me by another neurodivergent parent of little kids, and in our initial interviews (done over Zoom and in-person), she assured me that she could get our 3 Bed/3Bath 1,700sq condo into working order in four days. I decided to take off time from my job to work with her, because I wanted to see what she did so that I could keep it up after she was done.
I so appreciated working with Ashley! She came in with a plan in her head, gave me stuff to do, got to work herself, and checked in on me every 15-20 mins like clockwork throughout the day. This was not the kind of job where we were decanting things into matching plastic containers or rolling towels in hotel folds: we were performing a major decluttering in order to free up space, and then assigning a home to all of our crap in a "good enough!" kind of way. As we strategized, we were thinking "can a 3yo do this? Can this room get cleaned up in 5 minutes?" so this was not a precious operation in the least. From seeing pictures of Ashley's other jobs, I knew she was *capable* of decanting things into matching containers, but when I told her that I was not into decanting she understood exactly what I meant and then made it happen in the cleaning process.
As I write this review, it's been a month out from The Big Purge and amazingly, we've been able to keep our house clean, and it's *easier* to keep it clean. The kids are happier because they can keep their rooms neat on their own and they take pride in caring for their belongings, and now that my husband and I aren't in survival mode we are much more relaxed as well. I had a suspicion that life would be more harmonious when our crap was organized and we had far less of it, but it's been a daily gift to actually see the change in practice.
Ashley is honest, non-judgmental, responsive, and busted her ass for us. She's also been wonderful about following up-- we had a list of things to take care of after she left, and she continues to keep me accountable. We're all so grateful, truly.