REALLY Clean Your House
I have always lived in relatively new apartments - ones that were unlikely to have any lingering spirits or bad energies in need of calming down or expanding up. But for those who live in old homes, those with long histories, you may have found yourself in need of a spirit cleanser. Someone to clean your house in a less dusty way.
Spirit removers spiritually clean, with some amazing results. Here is an excerpt of a longer article on the subject.
Bhakti Sondra Shaye does windows. She also scours microwaves, refrigerators, dishwashers and closets. 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 an 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.)
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.