Scrubbing the House Right Down to the Vibes
Recently, she arrived at my front door, swathed in a pale pink pashmina, brandishing an empty pink spray bottle. Slight and pixieish, she looked like a New Age fairy, as played by Anne Hathaway.
Ms. Shaye, 49, who has an M.F.A. in creative writing and practiced for years as a corporate lawyer, is no mere clutter buster. She is what is known as a space clearer. And she was there to perform a really deep spring cleaning of my apartment, beyond anything the vacuum might reach — way, way beyond. The dust bunnies were safe; it was bad vibes she would be Hoovering up.
Beloved by reality television show producers and Manhattan real estate brokers, space clearers like Ms. Shaye barely garner a raised eyebrow anymore. Running off the fumes of the big four religions, with a lacing of indigenous ritual and a dash of early 20th-century palaver — Madame Blavatsky by way of L. Ron Hubbard — the shamans and healers, mystics and mediums of the last century’s not-so-New Age have become indispensable exterminators for certain homeowners in New York and other big cities, who summon these psychic scrubbers to wash their apartments and town houses (as well as their offices and even some events) with ho-hum regularity. They get more publicity than most decorators and architects, and have armfuls of testimonials from brokers at companies like Core and Corcoran.
Uncertain times, it seems, call for unorthodox housekeeping — or “that extra advantage,” as Desiree Gruber, a founder of “Project Runway,” put it.
Jeff Sharlet, who has written extensively about faith and religion in this country (his last book, “Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness and the Country In Between,” came out in 2011), would argue that woo-woo ablutions are no longer merely a coastal practice. “It’s in many ways a small-town Midwestern phenomenon, a red-state phenomenon as much as a blue one.”
Fair enough. But why clean so, ah, thoroughly? Why not? asked Dominic Teja Sidhu, 31, a curator, creative director and art adviser who said he calls upon Ms. Shaye for all his projects, including photo shoots, gallery shows and art installations. “It’s very affordable, the cost of a car service, and the money is going to such a good place,” he said. (Regarding the money: Ms. Shaye charges $50 for a project clearing, $250 for a remote home clearing and from $350 to as much as $1,000 for an on-site zhoosh of an entire house.)
Consider it internal redecorating, said Miriam Novalle, a perfumer turned tea purveyor who has her Harlem brownstone cleared by Barbara Biziou, a wildly well-publicized Huffington Post blogger and executive consultant (or “global wisdom keeper and agent of change,” as she calls herself), every year for her birthday. “And I just had a big one,” Ms. Novalle said, slyly ducking a question about her age.
“Think of how you get stuck at home and you can’t move a pillow,” she continued. Space clearing gets rid of that stuck energy, she said, adding that after one session with Ms. Biziou, she stayed up all night repainting her house.
Like Ms. Shaye’s Web site, Ms. Biziou’s erupts with testimonials, including those from marketers at Coca-Cola and Coty, as well as a founder of the spin studio SoulCycle and a former ambassador. What has changed in her 20-year practice, Ms. Biziou said the other day, is her client base, which in recent years has widened from those mostly in the entertainment industry to those in “the straighter professions,” as she puts it, “doctors, lawyers, Wall Streeters.” Another growth category, she said, is divorcing couples and the post-divorce house clearing.
In her early days, in the 1990s, Ms. Biziou recalled clearing the sets of the more obstreperous talk shows. “The skinheads would leave and everyone would say, ‘I need a drink,’ ” Ms. Biziou said. “I’d say, ‘Let’s just clear the energy.’ ”