PEOPLE HAVE begun to declutter in a serious way, not because they are embracing a more Zen lifestyle, but to free up space to rent a room, it seems. People who live alone in two-bed houses or apartments are increasingly renting out the extra rooms, says storage firm Need More Space. They saw a 400 per cent increase in the number of one and two-bed homeowners looking for storage in the first half of 2009, compared with the first half of 2008.

Customers have been turning up with sofas, lamps, fish tanks and surfboards, says Colm Hefferon (right) of Need More Space. When staff got talking to clients it “became clear that many of them are decluttering in order to make space for prospective tenants”. The company says the figures add up because a 5ft by 5ft storage unit that costs €50 a month would take the contents of a standard double bedroom while renting out a double bedroom in Dublin could net you around €500 a month. But you’d want to find the tenant before you started paying out for storage which means hiding a pile of furniture in your own bedroom – or the kitchen or bathroom – and steering prospective tenants away from those areas when they come to view. Or you could always dump (we mean store) it all on an accommodating relative.