Some people like to decorate their house with stripes. Others like to adorn every surface with a very nineteen-seventies green, with tiny flecks of gold and silver thrown in the balance to give it an extra zing.

Others like to document their lives in photos. A world of pictures. A montage of seconds, cast in celluloid for ever, plastered across the walls, shelves and surfaces of the house. This approach I quite like. Especially if the pictures are tasteful. (Well, it also has a lot to do with the space and lighting, but that´s another thing altogether…)

Alternatively: Carpets or wooden floors? Both have their advantages. You can be so at home hoofing along some spongy red carpets, but equally gliding along those elegant varnished planks of yellow wood is so fun and aesthetic and modern.

Another thing to do is to dangle a chain of cards full of sweet messages from loved ones across the room, or to decorate the whole house with nothing but flowers.

What we´re saying is that there are a lot of different ways to bring a touch of warmth and frosty beauty to a home. And doing a home exchange is the perfect way to inspire you. Spending a considerable amount of time in someone else´s house gives you the opportunity to soak in the little touches and really notice the detail. You can draw on their inspiration and take some ideas not only from the different culture and the different city, but also the different style of home making.

It´s something you exclusively get the opportunity to do if you travel with a home exchange. Lots of people go travelling to find new ideas, to gain new experiences, to free themselves from the shackles of routine and let their creativity flow. The environment of someone else`s home is the perfect place to let this happen.

So. Compulsive hoarding disorder. Let´s have a little lookie at what Wikipedia has to say about it.

“Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding) is the acquisition of, and failure to use or discard, such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping. A person who engages in compulsive hoarding is commonly said to be a “pack rat”, in reference to that animal’s apparent fondness for material objects.”

Aha! It´s a recognised condition. I knew it wasn´t just me. This feeling… is a good feeling. (As for the whole “pack rat” thing, that wasn´t so easy on the ears.)

But let´s not get bogged down in aetiology. The more pertinent issue here is how we can deal with this when we do a home exchange. Or - even better - how home exchange can deal with this problem FOR us.

The idea of having someone in your home can work wonders for bringing out in you that religious zeal to make your nest sparkling and neat as a button. It gives us the perfect excuse to do that decade over-due spring-clean.

Seeing your house through the eyes of a visitor often encourages us to put to rights everything that we´ve wanted to get done for the past few months. (Years….decades. However it may be for you. I´m apparently a “pack rat” so I´m not judging anyone here.)

But pack rats or not, there is an element of exposure that comes with doing a home exchange. This is a brilliant way for us to animate ourselves into getting everything into the state we want it to be in. It can imbue within us a greater strive to make our living space, our environment - our HABITAT - look the best it can.

For me this would involve getting rid of the piles of newspapers and the empty water bottles that are taking over my life right now. But for most normal people, it´s a great motivation to finally getting around to doing all the things you´ve been meaning to, but have struggled to find that last push of motivation.

Home exchange. There´s a world of hidden benefits.