By Chavie Lieber
May 23, 2023
Since losing her mother in 2021, Barbara Mohs has been sorting through family photos, Christmas ornaments, Danish china plates and vintage magazines, deciding what to keep. A new TV show has helped her see the value of relinquishing objects.
The Peacock show stars three “Death Cleaners”—an organizer, a psychologist and a decorator—who work with clients who have too much stuff. PHOTO: PEACOCK
“At one point in the show, they say, letting go of these things does not diminish your love in any way, and that really resonated,” Mohs, a retired elementary school teacher in San Antonio, said of “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.” Since watching the reality show on NBC’s Peacock, she has given away many of her mother’s possessions and has also begun to sort through her own.
“My kids don’t want to carry around this china or silver,” Mohs, 59, said.
Popularized by a self-help book from 2017, Swedish Death Cleaning follows a simple philosophy: Who wants to burden family members with clutter left behind? Swedish artist Margareta Magnusson, the book’s author, wrote a how-to guide for döstädning—the practice of getting rid of material possessions at the end of your life. The English translation, published in 2018, became a bestseller in the United States. After the April premiere of the Peacock show, weekly sales for “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” more than quadrupled in the U.S., according to Scribner, its American publisher.
In an email, Magnusson, 89, said the practice should not be viewed as somber.
“Sad and morbid is a good description of what it is like to amass a bunch of stuff, and not really appreciating it,” she said. “[It’s sad] to leave all this cleaning to others. Keep the things you really, really love, things that you look at and enjoy regularly. Get rid of the rest of your stuff.”
In the Peacock show, which is narrated by Amy Poehler, three “Death Cleaners”—an organizer, a psychologist and a decorator—work with clients including empty-nesters, a retired singer and a woman with terminal cancer. The inevitability of death is a guiding force in their process.
“Obviously it’s not fun to think about your own death, but I could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” said Jina Anne, a 39-year-old user-interface designer living in the Bay Area. “And so I’m thinking about my brother and all the stuff he’d have to go through.” Anne said binge-watching the show inspired her to part with furniture, broken devices, art supplies and old beauty products.
Casey Clowes, a 31-year-old attorney in Tempe, Ariz., said the show empowered her to get rid of an unwanted kitchen accessory that was a gift from an aunt, as well as some dance memorabilia she held on to since she was a child.
“Sometimes you keep things out of obligation,” she said. “I’ve been asking myself, ‘Will anyone, including myself, be happy if I keep this?’”
The Swedish Death Cleaning trend shares some tenets with organizing consultant Marie Kondo’s keep-it-if-it-sparks-joy approach, laid out in her 2010 bestseller “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” Her book was also adapted for TV—in a 2019 Netflix series—but Swedish Death Cleaners say the Kondo method is quite different.
“That’s more of a project, whereas Swedish Death Cleaning is a mind-set,” said Ebony Mikle, a 42-year-old educational diagnostician in Dallas. “Now, with anything, I ask, ‘Do I need this, do I use this? Is this what I want people to find in my home?’” Mikle has also decided which family members will inherit her items.
Swedish Death Cleaners are advised to take their time going through items and to give things away as gifts when possible. Anything else may be donated or thrown away.
“I set stuff aside, and then if I don’t need it for two weeks, I’m like, OK girl, let it go,” said Mikle.
Ella Engström, an organizational coach who stars in the Peacock show, said she was surprised by how much stuff Americans accumulate. She attributed the excess to a shopping culture.
“We have this Swedish word, lagom, which means just the right amount, and it’s deeply rooted in our culture,” said Engström. “But Americans, you love your stuff, and you have something for every season! Someone has made you think you need those things.”
She believes it’s never too early to practice Death Cleaning, and that life transitions like moving, a divorce, or a family death are good opportunities to start following the method.
“Putting stuff in new plastic bins is not a solution,” she said.
Carol Lewis, 68, moderates a Facebook group for Swedish Death Cleaners. The process can be hard for people like her who were “raised by parents who knew war, rationing hardship,” said Lewis, who lives in British Columbia’s Sayward Valley and described herself as a full-time volunteer. Getting rid of stuff can often “cause immense feelings [of] guilt,” and embracing the method is a “psychological evolution,” she said.
Photos should be saved for last, since a trip down memory lane can be painful and paralyzing. Heirlooms can also be hard to part with, although Jodi Ferris, a 63-year-old private estate sale operator in St. Augustine, Fla., who read Magnusson’s book a few years ago, believes many hold on to family items because they feel forced to.
“I had a 93-year-old client with an entire curio of Hummel figurines from her mother and I said, ‘Ma’am, you’re in your 90s and you are still keeping these?” said Ferris. “If something is important to you, it should not be shoved in an attic, or crammed in a curio.”
Michael Sobiech, a 57-year-old English professor at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tenn., is currently packing up his place for a move later this month. Watching “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” moved him to donate many of his books, toss old greeting cards and part with a pair of gloves that belonged to his father.
“I don’t wear the gloves, but they can’t just go to Goodwill,” he said. “Now, I’ve said, ‘OK, the gloves aren’t my dad, and my dad isn’t the gloves.’” He is going to give the gloves to his brother, he said.
Mohs has listed much of her mother’s jewelry on eBay, but she decided to keep her mother’s wedding band.
“Her clothes can go,” she said. “But I wear the wedding band every day, and every day I think, ‘This is the only thing of hers I need to keep.’”
Write to Chavie Lieber at Chavie.Lieber@WSJ.com
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