Open letter to Marie Kondo

Dear Marie Kondo,

I was just wondering, you know that moment after you finish decluttering your life and you're just standing there admiring your perfectly folded clothes that are standing up on their own like jaunty little origamis? At that very smug moment, does your mother then burst through the door carrying 2 giant tupperwares and 3 ikea bags full of utter crap that you had stashed in her basement a year ago then forgotten about? Does the perfection just immediately unravel and revert into a hoarder's paradise with drawers whose bellies are greedily bursting beyond full? Or closets that make you flinch when you open them because they are wont to shooting out their pressurized contents at your skull? Do you then decide, fuckit, I'm just going to own who I am? No, maybe I am not Marie Kondo, but I am a fabulous vintage-furniture-and-clothes-that-are-too-small-for-me-or-my-children hoarder and I am always ready for a mid century apocalypse. One day, on the eve of destruction, if a thinner version of me and her tiny babies come a-knocking at my door begging me for some no longer fashionable clothes and 2 mismatched vintage diner chairs to somehow help them survive the end of days, I will be ready. Of course, I would have to first make sure the chairs made sense in her space with the look she was going for before I just handed them over. How about you, Marie Kondo? What will you decorate your dystopian bunker with? Perfectly folded onesies? I bet it would actually be really pretty. I didn’t mean to sound like a B.

For the record, I even got to the point of selling my most absurd acquisitions on facebook marketplace. I was going full Kondo. Can I give you some advice? Don't ever try to sell 2 adult zombie body suits online unless you want to deal with the type of people that would buy such a thing. Who needs a zombie body suit in January unless they plan to masturbate in the mirror while wearing it? The multiple inquiries I got were pretty much all from variations of the same coked up body builder d-bag with tribal tats. So yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and burn the costumes and forgo the $20 I might have earned. Then  I will neatly tidy the ashes, thank the ashes for their service in an adorable voice, and throw them in my neighbour’s back yard while he sleeps, for no particular reason.

We bought them for my 5 year old son, by the way. So we could be a zombie gang for Halloween. You may not find it as surprising as we did that it is hard to look appropriate in a body suit when you are ‘somewhat’ overweight and handing out Halloween candy to children. We had to put regular clothes on top of our body suits to hide our shameful camel toes. Perverts, Marie Kondo. We looked like fucking perverts.

All that to say, your Kondo magic didn't quite take over here. In repentance for my failure, let me offer you pictures of other people's more Kondo'd homes that are for sale in Montreal should you want to buy them all. I honestly think if I bought even just one of them, I might try a bit harder at the Kondo thing.

Your fan as always,

Lady Nest

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Here’s a little Marie Kondo real estate playlist to browse by.

1. Look at this shy little guy peeking out from behind the tree. Let’s go in, shall we?

This house is perfect in my opinion. If I moved here, I would keep everything exactly the same. Nobody would be allowed to touch a thing. I would force my family to sleep on top of the bedding, eat on the floor and urinate in jars that we then bury in the backyard.

2. This knucklehead looks a bit like a math nerd so I’m intrigued.

You can pretty much take any house and put an architectural stairwell encased in glass in the middle and everybody will be impressed with you. I would have to surgically remove my family members’ finger prints of course just so that we could live here properly.

3. Gezundheit little house! He looks like he's sneezing, am I right?

Behold, another architectural stairwell on the inside! See what I’m saying? But mostly I would buy this house simply because I like the painting above the dining room table. A roof top patio isn’t bad either. It nearly makes up for the Audrey Hepburn Ikea print in the bathroom.

4. At some point house-flippers figured out that if you paint everything black and white you can charge a few hundred thousand extra.

I wish they had gone a bit further and extended the couch into the kitchen and possibly even right through the back of the house. It’s disappointing really. That fireplace though.

5. Is it just me or does this house look like it's been caught spying on us from behind the bushes.

I think the seller is a film director or something. If I lived here, I would insist on acting a different role every day. But mostly probably just different versions of an overly dramatic starlet in her descent into madness. Like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. My husband would be so thrilled. Such fun.

6. When two cars love each other very much, a baby car is born.

I’m still stuck on the parking. Both figuratively and literally if I owned this place. I would probably get trapped on the platform or drive off of it by accident at least once a week. What if you forget your cell phone in the car? Do you take the time to move everything or do you just climb up the side like a bear? But the house is quite lovely. Yet another case for the architectural staircase.

7. Twinsies.

The key to having a wine cellar is that your hoarding has to outweigh your alcoholism. I’m lucky because I’m both.

8. I hope the interior matches the façade of this Montreal darling.

I am a fan of the exoskeleton on this one.

9. Another charming Montreal prince. Keep on charming little fella.

The red carpeted stairs should thank the stone walls for saving them from being gutted in the renos. A little stone wall somehow makes everything look ok. Also, if I close my eyes, I can totally picture myself serenading my husband with synthesizer compositions in the stairwell on a daily basis. Which led me to a few hour tangent on you tube looking up the best synthesizer songs from the eighties. Do yourself a favor and watch the Fade to Grey video here.

10. For the incognito gentrifier.

This house would also be great if you were in the witness detection program. It’s all crack shack on the outside and sweet darling on the inside. I don’t even care if the ceiling beams aren’t structural or that they’ve replaced the kitchen cupboards with a giant, useless hula hoop.

11. How cute is this little grey house and its contrasting red fire hydrant?

Excuse me please, I just have to go and rip out my ceiling in the kitchen with my bare hands. I’m too inspired to listen to reason so don’t even try to stop me.

12. Just look at this wide-eyed feller with his golden tooth. He looks trustworthy.

Architectural stairway. Check. Black kitchen. Check. Wooden ceiling beams. Check. Mic. Check. One two. One two.

13. Come closer. Little house has a secret to tell you.

The secret is open concept and black feature walls with panelling. A better secret is the kind that my children try to whisper in my ear but only they’re giggling too hard and it’s extremely loud and spittle drenched. Also, the secret is invariably about caca.

14. This one's for you, Marie Kondo.

There’s a part of me that wants to believe that these home owners really live with Kondo magic in their hearts. But just like Santa Claus and witches, I suspect it isn’t so. The house is simply gigantic and staged.