Storage dilemma: 'I can't stand stair piles as nobody ever takes them upstairs' – this $50 solution works with the problem, not against it

The same way you might talk to your friends in a group chat, I have ongoing ones with my colleagues, and when I asked them last week what organizational problem is really winding them up at home, there was a standout problem: Stair piles.

Namely, that piles of 'stuff' accumulate so fast on the stairs, and nobody in the household ever takes them up. That’s why, as Head of Solved, I put my expert thinking cap on and hunted down the perfect home organizing idea to banish this nuisance mess-attractor once and for all.

And the secret to this solution is to work with the problem, not against it, with a well-placed stair tidy with handles, available from Amazon. Here’s how.

The stair pile problem

First, what is a stair pile, and why is it a problem? These build up as items that need to go upstairs get placed on the lower steps, waiting for someone to take them up on their next trip to the first or second floor.

The trouble is that so-called doom piles like this start to fade into the background visually, as our ability to register any mess fades when one area often has the same problem for a long time. In other words, we become so used to seeing a pile somewhere that our brains no longer register it or recognise that a task still needs doing there.

This can result in inaction. Add that to a busy household, and the well-documented psychological ‘bystander effect’, where everyone in a situation believes someone else will take the necessary action, resulting in nobody doing so.

It's a classic and well-known observation in behavioural and social psychology. A more recent study, published in the Sage Journals and also available to read in the National Library of Medicine, revisited the issue in 2018 and said, the 'reduction in helping behavior in the presence of other people' can be largely explained by situational influences on decision making, but also that 'emotional, motivational, and dispositional' aspects can exagerrate the effect, including resulting in 'freezing' or 'avoidance'.

In our context of stair piles, your household might have multiple piles that nobody ends up sorting, as they believe someone else will do it, and on top of that, if nobody is doing it, everybody's motivation to fix it becomes stuck at next to zero, as well as most people avoiding the action completely.

That's why the fix for your stair piles is to work with the issue, not against it. Work to adapt the stair pile, in essence, not banish it.

The easy fix for stair piles

The fix crosses over into some of the elements that make the ‘desire path decluttering method’ work. This is useful when a persistent mess keeps appearing in the same space. You provide a storage idea or organizing solution in that area to work with, containing the mess, rather than against it and expecting to stop it accumulating in the first place.

That’s why a stair basket, such as the pretty cotton rope ones from Amazon, and a schedule or rule for administering to it, is the fix I have recommended to my colleague, Head of Gardens, Rachel Bull’s endless stair piles.

She says, ‘I really can't stand stair piles. It’s clutter waiting to go upstairs, and nobody ever takes it. This is a problem for me that I haven't managed to overcome in years, other than nagging at other family members!’

I can feel Rachel’s pain, as my house is also prone to daily stair piles. Usually, my husband and I take them up and put them away, but there is more mess and ‘needs to go upstairs tasks’ than trips up the stairs in our home. Plus our nine-year-old daughter always ignores them, no matter how much I nag her.

However, I can confirm that after first spotting a stair caddy at my mother-in-law’s house, I knew it was the perfect fix. The position on the stairs instantly tidies and corrals the items that need moving, whilst not getting in the way of such a functional space. If anything, it neatens the stair pile and sets a visual reminder to move it upstairs as when it’s overflowing.

It has ergonomic handles to make it easy to carry up if you already have something else in hand, such as a cup of coffee, or a pile of laundry, plus it’s handwoven soft cotton rope structure is safe for use on hardwood stairs with no chance of scratches.

Just make sure to measure the depth of your stairs so yours won’t wobble or be unstable. I had to refund the first one I got. As pretty as my first wicker stair tidy was, it was too shallow for my steps. The cotton one works perfectly and looks lovely too, as it’s available in three colorful ways to suit every home with a depth of x inches.

Rachel says, ‘espite being desperate for a solution to my ever-present stair piles, I had no idea a dedicated stair basket existed. I am obsessed with how simple it is, and also with the premium look of them. The black and brown woven basket goes perfectly with my mahogany-stained stairs, and doesn’t look out of place in the way a plastic box would.

‘Until now, I was the only person in my family who picked up the stair piles, but now we have a firm rule: The children take the basket upstairs as they are going to bed every evening, even if it isn’t full, and the contents are delivered back to their correct homes.

‘They actually quite enjoy the sorting part, and I no longer have to endure four stairs strewn with all kinds of house detritus.’

What to shop

If you have laundry clutter at the top of your stairs, the Joseph Joseph triple compartment hamper might be just the fix you’ve been looking for.