BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:Purging stress pile by pile

They’re familiar sights in a number of houses: the stacks of paper that accumulate over years on the desk, the boxes full of yellowed magazines, the dusty old clothes packed at the back of the closet.

Sometimes, they can be hard to throw out. And that’s where Lauren Stabler-Johnson comes in.

Stabler-Johnson, who lives in Costa Mesa, launched a part-time business called Simplify and Organize last December to help people get rid of clutter. Half a dozen times a month, she visits homes, offices and even art studios with an objective eye for what can stay and what needs to go. On a good day, it’s an easy enough task, but as Stabler-Johnson has learned in the last few months, sentimentality can get in the way.

“I’m almost like an organizational therapist,” said the Newport Beach native, who operates Simplify and Organize on the side while working part-time at Nils Skiwear.

When a client contacts Stabler-Johnson, she begins by visiting their home or workplace and giving a one-hour consultation — free if the client lives in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa or Irvine. She then gets to work helping them pare down their belongings.

Stabler-Johnson charges $45 to $65 per hour for her services with a two-hour minimum, but some jobs go much longer than that. Many of her clients, she said, are baby boomers whose parents are moving into retirement homes and who have decades’ worth of items to sort through. The first house she cleaned had belonged to a recently deceased couple whose closet was packed with expensive jewelry.

Other times, her clients are younger people who simply need an outside voice to help them make up their minds.

“I’m encouraging people to purge items that aren’t necessary and probably cause stress in their lives because of the stacks of clutter around them,” she said.

Stabler-Johnson can be contacted at (949) 554-5840 or at [email protected].

They’re familiar sights in a number of houses: the stacks of paper that accumulate over years on the desk, the boxes full of yellowed magazines, the dusty old clothes packed at the back of the closet.

Sometimes, they can be hard to throw out. And that’s where Lauren Stabler-Johnson comes in.

Stabler Johnson, who lives in Costa Mesa, launched a part-time business called Simplify and Organize last December to help people get rid of clutter. Half a dozen times a month, she visits homes, offices and even art studios with an objective eye for what can stay and what needs to go. On a good day, it’s an easy enough task, but as Stabler Johnson has learned in the last few months, sentimentality can get in the way.

“I’m almost like an organizational therapist,” said the Newport Beach native, who operates Simplify and Organize on the side while working part-time at Nils Skiwear.

When a client contacts Stabler Johnson, she begins by visiting their home or workplace and giving a one-hour consultation — free if the client lives in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa or Irvine. She then gets to work helping them pare down their belongings, throwing some out and donating others to the Salvation Army, the Goodwill and other charities.

Stabler Johnson charges $45 to $65 per hour for her services with a two-hour minimum, but some jobs go much longer than that. Many of her clients, she said, are baby boomers whose parents are moving into retirement homes and who have decades’ worth of items to sort through. The first house she cleaned had belonged to a recently deceased couple whose closet was packed with expensive purses, diamonds and other jewelry.

Other times, her clients are younger people who simply need an outside voice to help them make up their minds.

“I’m encouraging people to purge items that aren’t necessary and probably cause stress in their lives because of the stacks of clutter around them,” she said.

Stabler Johnson can be contacted at (949) 554-5840 or at [email protected].