How ‘Swedish Death Cleaning’ Became the New ‘Tidying Up’

Since losing her mother in 2021, Barbara Mohs has been sorting through family photos, Christmas ornaments, Danish china plates and vintage magazines, deciding what to keep. A new TV show has helped her see the value of relinquishing objects.

“At one point in the show, they say, letting go of these things does not diminish your love in any way, and that really resonated,” Mohs, a retired elementary school teacher in San Antonio, said of “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.” Since watching the reality show on NBC’s Peacock, she has given away many of her mother’s possessions and has also begun to sort through her own.