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Clutter Cutter Wendy is There for ‘When You Need it Done’
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019
 

STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

When Wendy Trunick Minervini took on the task of helping move a woman who was experiencing dementia from her home to an apartment, she did the usual things you’d expect an organizer to do. She helped the woman decide what to take and she packed and moved those cherished items.

But she went one step further, making a detailed blueprint about how things were laid out in the woman’s home. Then she set up the woman’s new living space in similar fashion, even labeling cabinets and drawers so the woman would know where things were.

“My label maker is my favorite thing ever!” she said with an exuberant smile.

Minervini is a clutter cutter, a home organizer, a wiz at helping people pack up and move. She’s the woman you want to call when spring cleaning time rolls around.

“As Americans, we’re good at accumulating,” she said. “My clients value their time—they have better things to do than organize. I come in and reorganize their things. And I’ll even design organizational closets and pantries and have handymen install them.”

Minervini took her first steps as a clutter cutter as a high school student when she and her best friend Amy Klee began reorganizing neighbors’ garages and pantries to save for college. They did so well that they got a business license, a phone number and company shirts, stashing their mops and brooms into a 1971 Honda Civic that they bought for $750.

Armed with a degree in psychology and sociology from Portland University, Minervini worked as a  development director for companies like Nike. She was creating business development plans for start-ups when she and Klee decided they wanted to go back to working for themselves.

They named their new business “Task,” meaning they’re up to just about any task a homeowner might throw at them. And now Minervini is expanding from Portland into Sun Valley where she and her husband find themselves spending more and more time fueled by their love of skiing and hiking and the other outdoor things that Sun Valley offers.

“I’ve learned a lot more patience and I have a deeper understanding or empathy for what the homeowner’s going through now,” she said. “We’re more methodical now. More personal. When I was 17 or 18, I straightened shelves out, gave the homeowner a small pile of stuff to sort through and pitched what they didn’t want. We’re more attentive to their personal needs now.”

For instance, when Minervini went through the 4,000-square-foot house of woman who’d lost husband, she laid out everything on a table. Then she poured a glass of wine for herself and the woman and together they methodically decided what to keep, what to put in storage, what to recycle and what to pitch.

“We recognize that sometimes it can be sad to part with things. So, we try to bring fun and energy to it,” she said. “We’ll bring in lunch with champagne. We’ll take breaks with the client and walk around the lock. We try to allow the client to be as hands on as they want to be.”

Some of Minervini’s assignments have involved making a home more livable for people with mobility issues like Parkinson’s Disease. She’s helped those with shoulder issues, who need things arranged on lower shelves because they can’t raise their arms.

And, in one case, a mother living in Washington, D.C., called about her son who had been institutionalized temporarily due to a mental illness. His girlfriend had moved all his belongings, which  filled every inch of a 2,000-square-foot basement, into a storage facility for which the mother paid $284 a month for five years.

She was about to move her son to D.C. and wanted to know whether there was anything she could cull to pare moving expenses of $8,000.

“Basically, she wanted to know if there was anything her son would miss if she didn’t move it,” Minervini said.

Minervini went through the storage facility and found bicycles and every ball the woman’s son had had since he was a child. There was a rock collection, bags of rubber bands that were 10 years old, food that was five years old and crab pots, which Minervini figured the man wouldn’t need in D.C. And she found an enormous collection of sex toys and pornography.

“We didn’t end up tossing all of that because we thought he might get mad if he looked for it and didn’t find it. But I didn’t send all of it back to D.C.,” Minervini said.

Klee owned an antique gallery so she and Minervini have developed an eye for spotting valuable items. When they’re not sure, they have a long list of consignment store owners they can send pictures to in order to determine if something is worth anything.

“We show our clients an item and ask them if they want that something. If not, would their kids? If not, we ask them what they want to do with it. We end up supporting a lot of our favorite charities by donating items to places like The Advocates’ Attic.”

Does Minervini ever call Task on herself?

“I have a one-in one-out philosophy because I only have so many hangers,” she said.

And if someone wants to keep ahead of clutter?

“Even if you sort through things once a year, it can mean taking a day out of your life and it can be so daunting. We suggest at least doing a quarterly check. Are there things that have expired? Is there a coat you didn’t wear all winter? If so, maybe it’s time to take it to The Attic.”

Minervini says she recognizes many people have hobbies, “and with hobbies you accumulate things. But I tell people: When you know you won’t use something again, wouldn’t it be better to give it to someone who will use it and get great enjoyment out of it?”

One of the saddest things, Minervini said, is helping people who still have boxes they haven’t unpacked from their last move 20 years ago. And typically, she added, they can’t live without whatever’s in those boxes.

“If you have 40 years of accumulation and are moving to a new house for which you’ve brought all new furniture, why would you pay to move something you don’t want? Packing furniture is not easy. You’ve got to take the legs off, wrap the furniture, buy gas to move it. The idea of renting storage facilities makes me crazy. Most people who do that don’t even know what they have.”

Shedding things often brings a lightness, an energizing lift, a dopamine release to those who have done the shedding, said Minervini. Not to mention that it allows people to find things quicker.

“And once you’ve gone through everything top to bottom you feel so good.”

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Give Wendy Minervini of Task a call at 503-704-9836. Or, go online at www.tasknw.com or email wendy@tasknw.com

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