Here’s the thing nobody says out loud in October: the scariest stuff in your house isn’t on the front porch. It’s in the kitchen and the garage.
I’m talking about the fridge leftovers pushed to the back at the end of your busy summer activities so you don’t have to look at them.
And that drawer – every house has one – full of dead phones, tangled chargers, remote controls for TVs you got rid of years ago, and batteries of unknown origin. I’ve walked through a lot of homes, and I promise you, that drawer is haunting somebody in every single one of them.
So this month, before the candy and the cousins arrive, let’s bust two ghosts: the Drawer of Dead Phones and the Haunted Fridge.
The Drawer of Dead Phones (International E-Waste Day – October 14)
October 14 was International E-Waste Day, which is a real thing, and honestly one of my favorite excuses to clean out a house. Old electronics are the number one thing people don’t know what to do with, so they stay in the drawer, the closet, and (let’s be honest) the garage for years.
Here’s the deal: electronics really shouldn’t just go out with the trash – they’ve got stuff inside that doesn’t need to end up in a landfill, and plenty of what’s in there can be recycled and reused. Rules vary by town, so check what your local waste hauler accepts, or let one of these folks take it off your hands.
Heads up: O’Fallon’s next electronics recycling event is Saturday, December 12, from 8am to noon at the CarShield Field parking lot – and you don’t have to live in O’Fallon to use it. Most stuff is free; TVs and monitors carry a small fee. All the details are here. If you miss it, they run it every other month.
What I do with e-waste in the St. Louis area:
- EPC USA takes electronics for recycling – computers, TVs, and all those cables – at drop-off sites in St. Charles and Wright City. TVs and monitors run about $20; smaller stuff is easy. Check out EPC USA’s recycling services.
- O’Fallon residents (and honestly, everybody – the events are open to all), the city runs electronics and appliance recycling events every other month – worth bookmarking that page so you’re not googling it in a panic later.
- Wentzville folks, the city has its own electronics recycling program.
What counts as e-waste (more than you’d think):
- Dead phones, tablets, and laptops
- That flat-screen in the garage that’s been “temporarily” sitting there since 2019
- Remote controls, chargers, and cable spaghetti
- Old printers (the all-in-one that never once scanned anything successfully)
- Rechargeable batteries – the ones in phones, laptops, and power tools can actually start fires in the trash, so tape over the terminals before they leave the house. (Regular AA-style alkaline batteries usually go out with your normal trash – check your town’s rules.)
One thing before anything leaves the house: wipe your data. Factory-reset old phones, tablets, and laptops (it’s usually in Settings under “Reset”), and sign out of accounts first. Takes five minutes.
EPC even runs a certified data-wipe on everything they receive, but do your five minutes anyway – then you can hand that old phone over without a second thought.
And if the thought of hauling all of it somewhere makes you want to lie down: that’s literally part of my job. When we do a decluttering project, I can sort out the e-waste, set up the pickups, and haul off the donations so you don’t have to.
The Haunted Fridge (Haunted Refrigerator Night – October 30)
Yes, this is a real holiday. October 30 is Haunted Refrigerator Night – the night before Halloween – and I assume it was invented by somebody who opened their mom’s fridge the week before Thanksgiving and got scared.
Here’s why the timing is perfect: it’s just under four weeks before Thanksgiving (November 26 this year). If you clean the fridge out now, you’re not doing it on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving with a turkey sitting on the counter judging you.
The 20-Minute Fridge Clean-Out (one shelf at a time):
The whole thing takes about 20 minutes total, not per shelf. Do a shelf tonight and another tomorrow if that’s what fits – we’re not doing a 4-hour fridge archaeology project on a weeknight.
- Pull everything out of one shelf at a time. Not the whole fridge. One shelf.
- Toss anything expired. Check the dates – and know your dates: condiments are more forgiving than they look, but cooked leftovers are generally done after about 3-4 days. And if something in there has grown its own civilization, you don’t owe it a second chance. Let it go. No judgment – it happens in every kitchen I’ve ever seen, including mine.
- Wipe the shelf before it goes back. A warm damp cloth and a tiny bit of dish soap. Two minutes, and the whole fridge feels different.
- Group like with like as you restock. Drinks together, snacks together, leftovers front and center where you can actually see them. If you can’t see it, you won’t eat it, and it becomes next year’s haunted fridge.
- Leftovers get an “eat me first” spot. One shelf or one bin, front row. It’s a little thing, but it’ll save you money and wasted food every single week.
Twenty minutes total, one shelf at a time, and by Halloween night your fridge is ready for the real avalanche: holiday groceries.
The Real Point
Neither of these projects takes a whole day, and both of them make your home work better the second you’re done. That’s the whole philosophy behind what I do: you don’t need a bunker, a label maker, or a personality transplant to live in a space that feels good. You just need your stuff organized enough that it works for you instead of spooking you.
Need the drawers, the garage, or the whole house handled before the holidays?
Call me at (314) 805-4859 for a free consult. I’ll come and look at everything and give you a really good estimate of time, costs, and the things we’re gonna need. And yes – I’ll deal with the dead phones.
Organization Transformation | St. Louis & St. Charles area | (314) 805-4859