KEY POINTS:
Clutter is a disabling, depressing, potentially deadly toxin found freely available in two forms: stuff with sentimental value - nana's pottery rooster - and stuff that might be useful one day - the TV that showed you Charles and Diana's wedding.
The good news is there are antidotes. Your goal is not the sterile environment of full-blown minimalism, merely creating opportunities to find an empty chair and rest up. The journey's not easy, but it's easier than you think.
Clearly, you have refused those offloading invitations extended by goodwill stores, clothing bins and city councils and are incapable of asking that hardest of all questions: have I ever, or will I ever, use this?
Detoxification begins with commitment to three principles.
One, the advice of 19th-century designer and craftsman William Morris to have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or think to be beautiful. As a mantra for the purifying soul, it can't be bettered.
Two, get the car out of the garage. A garage is the repository for things neither useful nor beautiful until the council's next inorganic collection.
Three, stop pretending.
On to the practice, then.
1. Psychology. Befriend a hoarder. These may be sourced through word of mouth, council moles, and newspaper and television reports. Invite your hoarder over. Mention you're sending this, that and the next thing to the tip. Say, "Of course you can have them".
2. Dependents. Take a long hard look at all those smelly socks, Barbies and pill bottles that are disturbing your Zen. Ask, do I really need that husband and those kids? If you must keep them, ask them to take responsibility for their own clutter.
3. Bathroom. Accept the fact that you cling to the moisturisers, scents and face packs purchased before Perestroika because a) one day you might take care of your skin; b) to bin them is to admit that in 20 years you've blown $19 million on crap. You can either throw out everything you haven't used in a fortnight or display the collection on open shelves with small cards explaining the purpose of your exhibits and their era of manufacture. Charge for entry to your museum. Or just bin them.
4. Stuff drawer. William Morris would have a fit if he could see those screw-in lightbulbs that should be bayonets, balding twisties, china fragments and associated tubes of glue or that little red thing with the wire loop that you haven't dared throw out in case it's holding the house up. Throw it out and see. Downside: the house collapses. Upside: the insurance money enables you to start afresh under the old identity.
5. Laundry. Aside from the washing machine, dryer and their related powders, liquids, and clothes baskets, this is the natural home of mops, brooms, dustpans and brushes, collapsible steps, fly sprays, citronella oil, candles, shoe polishes, plant foods, pet preparations, pond treatments, rodent traps, bin liners, rubbish sacks, supermarket bags, and kitchen and bathroom cleaners that won't fit under their respective sinks. Make an inventory of your cleaning products. Consult it before you shop and you won't add another floor cleaner to the five already on the go. Resist the temptation to replace everything with that thrilling new multi-tasker they're advertising until you've used your existing range.
6. Pantry Bin. anything hopelessly past its best-by date, unsealed and/or weeviled. Cooked weevils may be harmless but they're neither useful nor beautiful.
Now the pantry's half empty, arrange the contents by type. They'll only stay sorted till the next supermarket shop, but at least you'll know what's in there. Put anything you'll never eat in a box in the garage. This is the core of the civil emergency survival kit you'll need. Congratulations, responsible citizen.
7. Fridge. Strip the door of those tradesmen's cards, children's artworks and pictures of the cat. Remove the contents. Buy a bigger fridge.
8. Not-your-faults. Bin or give to your hoarder anything bought under the influence of infomercials and every unsatisfactory present cluttering the linen cupboard. Aunty Ida won't notice if the antimacassars she gave you in 1985 aren't protecting the armchairs from Brylcream, and anyway, anybody who gives you antimacassars isn't really kin.
Ask friends and relations to henceforth celebrate your special anniversaries with supermarket vouchers. Book tokens and magazine subscriptions are your enemies; the library is your friend.
Vow never to watch late-night television when drunk and susceptible to the temptation of those tele-marketers.
9. Wardrobe. Forget dieting. Honestly, what could be easier? Instead, vow to maintain your present weight. With a bound, your wardrobe is free of the Bronze Age size 10s that constitute 90 per cent of its contents. Donate anything decent to Dress for Success, or sell it to a fancypants op-shop.
10. Car View. this as a useful storage facility. Street-parking ensures ungaraged youths will break into it and steal unwanted CDs, stereos and items of designer clothing.
