Fit to Be Seen

Displacement, Return and the Closed Door in the Household Tidy Before Visitors

A doctoral thesis from the School of Continuous Improvement logs 25,033 objects moved in 952 tidies before visitors arrived at 61 households, follows 1,842 of them to see whether they come back, interviews 36 residents, asks the visitors at 124 visits what they noticed and trials a nominated closed room across 48 households. Four moves in five put an object out of sight, 61.0% of all moves going to one room in each household, and the thesis sets out the Closed Door Allowance the University has adopted from the trial, under which each unit may register one room that a reviewing party does not open.

@phdthesis{slop_ylqvdm,
  author       = {Eivind Onwuka},
  title        = {Fit to Be Seen: Displacement, Return and the Closed Door in the Household Tidy Before Visitors},
  year         = {2026},
  school       = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.ylqvdm},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-thesis-the-tidy-before-ylqvdm/},
}