The Home DIY Projects Americans Find Most Stressful

Arielle Tschinkel
Arielle Tschinkel
Arielle Tschinkel is a freelance pop culture and lifestyle writer whose work has appeared on Shape.com, WomansWorld.com, FirstforWomen.com, Insider, HelloGiggles, and more. She loves all things Disney and is making her way to every park around the world, and is a die-hard Britney Spears fan for life. She's also obsessed with her Bernedoodle, Bruce Wayne.
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published Aug 1, 2022
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No matter how handy you might consider yourself to be, DIY home projects are always an exercise in creativity, humility, and, of course, patience. Even the simplest of tasks can end up veering into disaster zone territory if you don’t have the necessary tools, skills, and tenacity, which is why the home pros at Angi sought to discover the most stressful DIY tasks that end up driving Americans to tears.

Credit: Angi

As part of Angi’s home DIY report, researchers analyzed Twitter data to determine the top 10 most stressful home projects as well as the top 10 least stressful ones. Perhaps unsurprisingly, anything “mucky, stinky, or drippy” leads to the most tension — that is, projects that “immerse you in the awfulness of your home’s digestive system. Time passes with slow frustration when you are up to the nose in drains, pipes, toilets, or gutters.” 

Credit: Angi

With a whopping 66.93 percent stress rate, the most stressful DIY task is unclogging drains. Following closely behind: fixing leaking pipes, unclogging toilets, fixing a dishwasher, cleaning gutters, fixing a leaking tap, repairing gutters, repairing doors, fixing a laundry machine, and fixing a patchy lawn.

Credit: Angi

Per the report, “The least stressful jobs tend to come with a visible result you can step back and admire, but the most stressful tasks above offer no ongoing satisfaction since they involve mundane home features that you only notice when they go wrong.”

Credit: Angi

Curious about the least stressful DIY tasks? Putting up a shelf, upholstery, fixing a drawer, fitting a carpet, laying a patio, repairing a deck, fixing a chair, tiling a bathroom, fixing a light fixture, and removing carpet. Angi pros note that these tasks bring the most satisfaction and serenity, especially since they offer both cosmetic and functional improvement.

Credit: Angi

For more info about their findings, check out the full report here. Researchers determined the data by extracting tweets with “DIY,” keeping only the top 100 most populous U.S. cities with at least 50 tweets. They then compiled a list of specific tasks and ranked them accordingly based on the number of corresponding tweets, calculating the percentage of posts about a project that left the DIY-er stressed.

This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy. See it there: These Are the Home DIY Projects Americans Find Most Stressful