Freedom Backfires - Local Woman Retires, Immediately Declutters Husband’s Entire Garage ‘For Joy’

Callum Finnerty | Special Features Editor | Sutherland Shire Gazette

11 June 2025

A Gymea woman’s long-awaited retirement has taken a dark and unexpected turn after she completed the official Marie Kondo online Fundamentals of Tidying course - gifted by her adult children who, in hindsight, “probably should have just gone with a scented soy candle.”

Linda Wilson, 62, hung up her corporate lanyard last month after 38 years in middle management. By Sunday, she had colour-coded the Tupperware, labelled the dog, and set her laser sights on the final frontier: her husband Garry’s beloved garage.

“Mum was supposed to relax,” said daughter Jenna, 34. “Instead she’s joy-sparking her way through Dad’s socket sets like a possessed KonMari warlord.”

Garry, 67, retired three years ago and has since spent his days pottering quietly among mysterious cords, offcuts of wood, and screws he insists “might be useful one day.” That era is now over.

“She held up a 1992 Bunnings receipt and asked if it brought me joy,” Garry told The Sutherland Shire Gazette, visibly broken. “It did. It reminded me of the last time I was left alone in my own house.”

In just four days, Linda has reduced a three-decade tool hoard into one tasteful basket of “intentional living objects.” She’s also colour-coded everything in the garage to a palette of pleasant muted tones - dusty sage, greige, and something called “gentle linen” - insisting the cordless drill now lives in a rattan cube “because visual noise is still noise.”

She’s introduced calming whale sounds “to soften the masculine energy” and replaced Garry’s workbench with a mindful tea nook.

Friends report Linda is “absolutely thriving,” while Garry has been spotted muttering to himself in the carport, trying to locate his emotional centre and the orbital sander.

The Gazette understands Garry is now planning a counteroffensive via a spontaneous caravan trip “with no clear return date.”

Asked for comment, Linda simply smiled and folded a high-vis vest into a perfect triangle. “If he wants to leave, let him.

Declutter husband garage