Spring cleaning season is here, and for many Long Island families, that means more than clearing out a junk drawer. For the team at Jane’s Addiction Organization, it means walking into someone’s home at a pivotal moment and helping them reset their lives.
Founded by Jane Abrahams and Wendy Trunz, the Port Washington-based company has grown from a grassroots effort into a full-scale professional organizing operation serving clients locally and across the country. More than a decade in, the founders say their core mission has never shifted: improving lives, not just tidying spaces.
“We always say it’s never about the bins and the baskets,” Trunz said. “It’s about the heart of people.”
The partnership started simply enough. Both women were running separate businesses in the Port Washington community when a chance introduction led to a single collaborative project. That first job told them everything they needed to know.
“We got in the car afterward and said, ‘We’re never doing this alone again,’” Abrahams recalled. “It felt like we were dancing through the job.”
From that moment, they built a team of organizers with backgrounds spanning education, corporate retail and design. That mix of experience allows the company to approach each project on multiple levels, balancing logistics, aesthetics and emotional sensitivity. The work, Abrahams is quick to point out, goes well beyond sorting and stacking.
“It is a business, and we are very professional,” she said. “But at the same time, we’re walking into people’s lives, sometimes at very difficult moments.”
The company has expanded steadily over the years, adding home staging, moving coordination and large-scale project management to its core services. The team now works alongside contractors, movers and donation networks, and has built partnerships with local real estate agents that bring in clients at critical transition points, downsizing, relocating, starting over.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the business through its sharpest test and its biggest transformation. When families suddenly found themselves working, learning and living at home around the clock, demand shifted fast. Closets and storage spaces took a back seat to full home reconfiguration.
“We had to pivot,” Trunz said. “Dining rooms became offices, basements became classrooms, and homes had to function in completely new ways.”
That period also forced the team to master virtual tools, guiding clients remotely and coordinating cross-state moves without setting foot in the home until necessary. The adjustment paid off. Today, the company works with trusted partners nationwide, connecting clients from New York to California.
“That created almost a global network for us,” Trunz said. “We can now help someone anywhere.”
For Long Island families heading into spring with a garage full of clutter or a home that stopped working for them years ago, that kind of reach matters. But so does the local presence. The Jane’s Addiction team understands the specific pressures facing Long Island households, the high cost of housing, the pace of suburban life, the challenge of fitting growing families into fixed square footage.
Professional organizing often gets dismissed as a luxury service. The work Abrahams and Trunz describe tells a different story. Families navigating loss, illness, divorce or relocation are not calling because they want prettier shelves. They are calling because their homes have become unmanageable, and they need help finding their footing again.
That is where the education background on the team becomes relevant. Teachers know how to assess a situation, communicate clearly and meet people where they are. The corporate retail experience brings systems thinking. The design background handles the visual logic of a space. Together, those skills produce something closer to case management than closet organization.
As the warmer months arrive and more families turn their attention to the state of their homes, the Jane’s Addiction team is positioned to take on that work. Whether the project is a single cluttered room or a full household move coordinated across state lines, the approach stays the same.
“We always say it’s never about the bins and the baskets,” Trunz said.
For the families they serve, that distinction is exactly the point.