Even if you’ve never heard the term staging, you know that if you’re going to make your house look attractive to potential buyers, it needs to be clean. You do know that; don’t you?

It seems like common sense: clean house = pretty house, but having stopped in at a few open houses recently, I’m shocked at the mess and clutter sellers leave around. In fact, at one house, the sellers were part of the clutter.

“Um, excuse me,” I said I as awkwardly passed between the dad on the couch and the TV on which his eyes were glued in order to make my way to the bedrooms. It’s hard to develop even a smidgen of a vision of such a place becoming my home, when it clearly belongs to some other family.

Family members, including pets, aside, there’s a lot of stuff to deal with when getting your house ready to show, and I mean stuff. Clutter. Knick knacks. Doodads. The detritus of a full and busy life.

Having spent weeks in a process I affectionately refer to as de-crapifying, I have a few tips to share.

One mom’s trash is another mom’s treasure. You may be able to turn your castoffs into cash with the help of Craig, your new best friend. We made a few dollars off of unneeded furniture and dusty exercise equipment via Craig’s List. We also hosted a garage sale that I feared would be a waste of time, but was actually fairly lucrative. Once again, Craig showed his value; our free garage sale listing on the site brought in more traffic than the paid ad in the local newspaper. Many real estate agencies offer free garage sale signs to help you attract buyers.

Find a nearby charity resale drop-off point. If the unwanted items don’t sell or aren’t worth your time trying to wheel and deal over, get them to a donation point ASAP. Don’t wait for the monthly pick-up from this group or that one.

Freecycle is another option for keeping your things out of a landfill. In Skokie, we have an even simpler system, we merely leave things in our alley and they disappear overnight.

Oh, and the other Kim who blogs at Roost, held this craptastic giveaway on her blog (in which I landed an apron and a few flash drives, so much for decluttering).

Decluttering is the first step to clean. If you have any tips to help this crucial and often painstakingly difficult part of the selling process, please share them in the comment section.