A more profound way to clean the home

Zhou said that her interest in decluttering was sparked when she read Kondo's book in 2015. Intrigued at how the practice could potentially help with her personal problems, Zhou taught herself in the way of decluttering by reading more books on the subject.

After getting rid of enough clothes to cover three king-size beds, Zhou felt as if she had fixed both the mess in her home and her life.

In China, the hourly rate for home cleaners ranges from 20 to 40 yuan. Professional home organizers, on the other hand, command a fee ranging from 100 to 1,000 yuan. But Zhou notes that the growing popularity of decluttering in society stems from people's interest in the topic rather than a desire to make it a lucrative career. Of the 2,000 people polled on Zhou's WeChat account, most said that they would not hire a professional to help with decluttering as they view it as a process of self-exploration.

But that has not stopped companies from targeting those who would pay for such services.

In late 2015, 1jiajie.com collaborated with Hideko Yamashita to launch home organization services. The Japanese is the inventor of Danshari, which is believed to be the core concept behind decluttering.

The company said they had recruited and trained a special team of about 300 staff to offer the service which costs between 400 and 600 yuan for organizing a home that is about 100 square meters in size.

A consumer survey done by the Beijing-based website found that 90 percent of its 1.42 million regular users were willing to pay as much as 830 yuan to have their homes or offices decluttered. Among the survey respondents, about 64 percent live in apartments with one or two bedrooms, while less than 10 percent reside in a villa or a duplex. One-third of the respondents admitted that they were shopaholics.

1jiajie.com stopped providing this home organization service in 2016. The company declined to reveal the reasons behind the termination.

In May last year, the admission to a five-day training program in Shanghai by Kondo's consultancy was being resold for 30,000 yuan.

That same month, an 80-square-meter buyer's store, marketed as the only location in China that sells tools and gadgets for decluttering and tidying up, was opened in Shanghai.