Can decluttering your home help you find love?

Suzanne Roynon thinks the feng shui of our homes affects love. But how can we make it work and what do we need to remove to find ‘the one’? Andy Martin found out

Finding love may be a matter of decluttering, not swiping right (Getty)

So you want a new relationship? What are you going to do about it? The conventional, contemporary approach would be to go online, click on a dating website – or, better, several – and start swiping. But what if this is all wrong? What if we start with your house, your bed, your wardrobe, the pictures on your wall?

I’ve recently been re-reading Suzanne Roynon’sWelcome Home: How Stuff Makes or Breaks Your Relationship. I picked it up pre-pandemic, but for the last brief eternity the basic rule of society has been, AVOID RELATIONSHIPS, you might live a little longer that way. Now, in the wake of a return to normal, it feels like time to get back to living with other people again. But which people in particular? And how do I make it happen?

Roynon has the answer – or answers. And tech comes right down at the bottom of the list of priorities. Right at the top, under the heading of “Interiors Therapy”, is a major spring clean of your entire house. The key to getting in the new is stripping out the old. Some of this is going to seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many of us hanker after what is dead and gone. I know I do it myself all the time. It’s the instant nostalgia of the Proustian moment: you dip your petite madeleine in the cup of the tea and you unleash a flood of memories from way back when.