There are whole subs on carpet beetles and similar pests and the general advice to get rid of them is to clean and vacuum thoroughly and often.

Deep cleaning might be a feasible solution for some, but I’m not there yet - which is why I’m asking in this sub specifically.

I have been unfucking my habitat for months. I have made lots of progress but my apartment is still far from being in a state where cleaning hidden corners would be a sensible next step.

So does anyone have advice how I could at least somewhat limit their spread until my apartment reaches “deep cleanable state”?

I’d prefer to use methods that don’t slowly kill me if possible ;)

Today's task is easy. Vacuum or dust the head board. This thing lives 6 inches from our noses 8 hours a day and its one place I forget needs cleaning. And it's super easy and super fast to deal with.

No headboard. Dust the wall behind the bed instead.

You probably have seen my posts here.

For the past few months, I've been decluttering my home like crazy. Donating things, throwing away papers, letting go of stuff I kept for years without really knowing why. And something is finally clicking.

I started spending less about two years ago, but lately I've been looking at clutter differently. It's not just about having too many things. It's about how much energy it takes to manage everything we accumulate.

And then I started thinking about my job. I got laid off by the way a week ago.

For years, I accumulated emails, tasks, responsibilities, follow-ups, meetings, and things I needed to remember. I kept adding things to my plate, and somewhere along the way, I lost the ability to see everything clearly. I struggled to organize myself, to prioritize, to know where to start.

Things piled up, just like the stuff in my house.
I kept thinking I needed to become better at managing it all. A better system, better organization, more discipline. But maybe I also needed to recognize how much I was trying to manage in the first place.

I lost my job after more than 10 years. It has been painful, and I'm still processing it. But in the middle of all those feelings, I'm also noticing something unexpected: I feel a little lighter.

I'm not saying I'm glad it happened, or that I have everything figured out. I don't. But I wonder if this is an opportunity to learn something I hadn't been able to see while I was busy carrying everything.
Maybe the lesson from decluttering my home is something I can bring into my next job: don't automatically take on every task, don't let every email become an open loop in my head, don't confuse being responsible with having to carry everything myself. Learn to prioritize, delegate, and recognize when enough is enough.
I want my next chapter to look different. I want to build better systems, yes, but I also want a clearer mind and a more manageable life. I want to contribute, do meaningful work, and still have energy left for the people and things I love. Am I asking for too much?

TLDR: For those of you who have struggled with clutter in your home and overwhelm at work, have you noticed a connection between the two? And if you've started a new job or a new chapter after realizing you were carrying too much, what did you do differently the second time around?

Please don't judge me too harshly, the last few months after my breakup completely drained every ounce of life out of me. I know this sounds pathetic to normal functional adults, but I really need to tell someone who gets it.

For five weeks, my bed hasn't been a bed. It was just a dumping ground for clean laundry I couldn't bring myself to fold, Amazon boxes, work papers, and random clutter. It got so bad that every night I was literally wedging my body onto teh far left six inches of mattress just to sleep, curled into a ball like a bracket. Last week I gave up and just slept on my lumpy couch.

today I woke up, felt the usual wave of disgust, but remembered the 20/10 rule someone posted here. I set a timer for twenty minutes.

I didnt even fold the clothes. I just sorted them into two laundry baskets, dragged the empty boxes to the hallway, and washed my actual sheets for the first time since February. It took fifteen minutes. That was it. Fifteen minutes to undo five weeks of misery that had been making me feel like a subhuman failure every single night.

My room still has a long way to go, but tonight I get to stretch my legs out in a clean bed. It feels like breathing for the first time in forever.