The Closet Organizer (Portfolio)

ABSTRACT
Clutter is a current problem in many households world-wide that may be resolved through design. An overview of the current field shows how to get organized, identify assistance available to those with clutter problems, and realize the personal and environmental benefits of solving the problem.

INTRODUCTION
This essay applies design thinking to the issue of clutter. Most people see objects in terms of benefits and fail to consider the responsibilities and potential liabilities related to ownership. For example, acquisition takes storage space. When the objects acquired exceed storage available, personal space can become more about making accommodations for worthless items and less about getting through one’s day smoothly. The build-up of worthless items can continue until living with clutter becomes a near impossibility.

On TV shows like Clean House, Clean Sweep, and How Clean is your House, hosts guide the residents of houses brimming with cluttered living space to clear out and sort their possessions. These are the serious clutterers. Floors are covered leaving only paths for walking through junk. A common problem viewers can see from guest to guest is that once things start to be sorted, duplicates of the same item can be found: seven white button-up shirts, thirteen pairs of red pumps, or two sets of furniture for the same room. People are drowning in the things they need and can’t find.

How Clean is Your House deals with serious filth problems that come with years of clutter. Samples are taken from throughout the home to a lab to be tested for all sorts of mold, bacteria, protein, and bugs. Regularly things like carpeting and refrigerators need to be thrown out completely as cleaning attempts would be futile. Lab results usually find the kitchen sink to be more microbe-ridden than the toilet. The show talks about what specific infestations in the cluttered areas can cause what specific illnesses. It’s sobering when you realize things like not being able to dust can lead to asthma.

Writer Mary Lou Healy who professes to live in a moderately cluttered home, writes “What’s so Bad about Clutter?” (Healy, 2007). Healy admits that when she’s expecting guests, she does need plenty of time to clean house. She notices that everywhere she goes magazines and newspapers carry articles that address the problem of clutter. She looks up “clutter” on the Internet to find there, too is the issue addressed with attitudes combating her own. Her reasons for being cluttered are as follows: “It tells me who I am and what I’ve been doing – in case I happen to forget. There are the stamp collections I stopped working on years ago and the huge bag of scrap material, hoarded against the day when I might want to make a quilt or hook a rug – a day that keeps receding into the future. There are the stacks of magazines with articles too interesting to discard or photographs too beautiful to put into the recycling bin – a bin with which my husband is far more enamored than am I.

“I won’t dwell, beyond a mention, on the closet full of clothing a size too small, which, I firmly believe, one day will enfold me again; or my mother’s mechanical toy collection, which must be kept for possible grandchildren’s delight, or all those kitchen gadgets that are so irresistible in the store, so impractical for actual use. There are boxes of recipes, cut out when I was hungry but too complicated and time-consuming for everyday meals.” Healy also recalls that if buying an item was mentioned during her childhood, her family usually found that they already had the item in their attic.

Another article begins with the story of a big move with a small pack; Hazel Pary left England carrying just one rucksack. The sack contained her material possessions, which she had reduced the bare minimum as the months went on before her departure. She felt liberated at the time. Now ten years later, Parry has a house full of the same kinds of clutter anyone gets, “cupboards full of VCDs, shelves heaving with books, files, old magazines and newspapers, a desk full of unfiled documents I’m not sure I’ll ever need, drawers I dare not open, and suitcases packed with clothes I haven’t worn in years. And to top it all, four children and all the clutter that goes with them” (Parry, 2006). Aside from the kids, she is not happy living with her clutter.

Parry theorizes that clutter is a more recent occurrence, brought about by a consumer society in which people have more money to spend on material items. Talking to declutterer and author Sue Kay, Parry includes that clutter accumulates over time. The article says that people hang on to these things because of frugality, which can be instilled by parents. Another reason Parry finds is guilt and sentimentality when people think the item has to stay because it’s a gift or is too meaningful to let go.

Parry also spoke to professional organizer Kristen Lowe whose clients come from a wide range of situations. Lowe found that clutter tends to build up in people’s lives if they struggle with making decisions. These people find it hard to know what to do with items, and the decision can go to the default keep-it-to-be-on-the-safe-side choice. Lowe is quoted as saying, “Where space is relatively unlimited – for example in countries where homes have basements, attics, garages, spare bedrooms – this can go on indefinitely.”

Organizers in Parry’s article agree that clutter is a problem taking up time and space. According to one recent study, the average person wastes 150 hours a year looking for lost papers. By adding to stress, clutter can affect psychological well-being. Lowe notes that clutter overwhelms people and puts a strain on relationships. Studies on the physical and financial consequences show that 80 % of medical claims are now stress-related, and that the average American executive loses one hour a day to disorganization.

Lowe then points out that there is also a critical time when clutter becomes a health and safety issue. An example is when halls can’t be navigated because of the boxes piled up. She knows that it collects dirt and dust, and she’s seen some pretty nasty stuff in boxes left unopened for a couple of years. Bedrooms, she finds, are particularly interesting, where people have seemingly thrown and stuffed items anywhere they could. The article says people can get ashamed of clutter problems and stop inviting people to their homes. Some people struggle with becoming uncluttered and the emotional aspects of it years.

Ending on a positive note, the article includes the good news that most people can overcome clutter and achieve a more satisfying living state. Time and money will be saved, relationships improved, schedules will be more balanced, and there will even be reported a sense of great relief, empowerment, and optimism. Kay sums it up by stating, “You’ll feel better because you’ll be surrounded with things you like. You’ll be living with the things relevant to your life now, not the life you were leading several years ago or thought you’d be living one day.”

Sara Schaefer Munoz brings relief for closeted clutterers by relaying the story of one who seeks professional help. As the account goes the clutterer pours out her feelings of stress and her longing for peace. Then the consultant from California Closets Co. creates that peace in her home with an area for school bags, jackets, and projects like gift-wrapping. This article tells how companies like California Closets Co. and ClosetMaid are offering simplified living, harmony and order with their products and services. These products and services can be customized for particular life events such as marriage or retirement. Even feng shui has emerged as an option for organization.

Organizations including the Mayo Clinic and the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation (OCF) reiterate what Dr. David Tolin has to say about hoarding, that people may have a compulsive hoarding problem if they meet these three criteria:
1. You regularly hang onto a large number of possessions that most other people would not consider to be very useful or valuable.
2. Your home, or parts of your home, is so cluttered that you can no longer use those parts of your home for their intended purpose.
3. The clutter is bad enough that it causes significant distress or impairment. (Tolin, 2003).
Clutterers fitting the last criteria, “cannot have friends or family over to their homes because they are so embarrassed by the clutter, cannot let repair or maintenance professionals into their homes, keep the shades drawn so that no one can see inside, get into a lot of arguments with family members about the clutter, are at risk of fire, falling, infestation or eviction, and feel depressed or anxious much of the time because of the clutter.”

Objects become clutter when they lose their value, which can happen in different ways. If an object is not working well, that object becomes clutter when working it is too much of a hassle to warrant attempts. An object can work, but when there is insufficient space to utilize its value, it’s worthless. In this way clutter can cause clutter.

Clutter brings noticeable symptoms to a dwelling. There can be multiples of items when one will do. There can be problems cleaning. Health problems can result from the filth. Social problems can occur, which in turn cause more health problems by causing stress. Psychological problems can be induced, especially plausible considering that psychological problems are factors in causing clutter.

“Manufacturers sold $5.9 billion U.S. worth of home-organization products in 2004, up 23 percent from 1999, according to the most recent data available from Freedonia Group, a market-research firm. The demand for custom closets has grown so much in the past several years that manufacturers, designers and installers a year ago launched a new trade association, the Association of Closet and Storage Professionals, based in Wheaton, Ill., that is developing certification to ensure professionalism in the industry. Americans spent about $2 billion U.S. in 2006 on custom closets, up 20 percent from the prior year, according to estimates by the association” (Munoz, 2007).

Solutions and billings vary among providers. One provider goes to a client’s home to take inventory of clothes, is involved with deciding what to throw out and what to keep, and proceeds to build a custom closet with the help of an architect and stylist. She says, “You spend that much money on clothes you want to be able to protect them” (Earle-Levine, 2004). Her initial consultation costs $250 and subsequent visits are $200 an hour with most projects costing between $15,000 and $30,000.

Arguably the most innovative approach to clutter abatement going forward is tackling the concept of the clutterer’s motivation to organize. The behaviors involved with becoming cluttered are associated with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and addressed in an article, “Motivation and Compulsive-Hoarding Treatment” by Nicholas Maltby, Ph.D, as well as David F Tolin, Ph.D, both with The Anxiety Disorders Center of Hartford, CT. They apply Prochaska and DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model, often used to facilitate change in a person’s nutrition and health, to the state of their household living conditions. The five stages of change are pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance, taking into account that there could be relapse to old behaviors. The article appearing on the OCF website entails how to identify in which stage a person is and what is the helpful response from outsiders at each one to encourage moving to the next stage.

The contradiction of cluttering behavior surfaces with examination of the thought process; if one keeps items with the idea of securing what is needed without fulfilling an actual need, seemingly responsible behavior develops more and more easily into irresponsibility.

People all over the world who have enough money and/or resources to accumulate are accumulating too much. Maybe we’re looking around at the starving, barely clothed, scantily-supplied living of neighbors and saying, “I know how to keep myself from that.” Then we keep everything. Everything that crosses our thresholds, we let stay in our homes as though we can take responsibility for this mass of materials. The things we don’t use are pushed around in daily efforts to get to and use the things we do use.

DISCUSSION

People who have clutter problems live in a world of abundance even if solutions to their specific needs are scarce or unattainable to them for the moment. The goal is for people stay open to and achieve what they really need and want in life by continuously evaluating the personal value of what they have and clearing space for what could be.

Doing this can be a mental challenge for individuals who, though they’ve collected a lot of junk, are without knowledge of what to do with it or what could be better. A support group created mindful of the common needs of this group of people could offer avenues of self-help. Clutterers can already be very responsible people who just need a little help to actualize their level of responsible inclinations. The support group will be a connection to the available resources of recycling, from paper and plastics to mechanical devices and charitable organizations that accept and sell used items. Group chapters can be formed anywhere in the world.

The impact of these groups could be far reaching as the activities involved are more a way of life than a coping mechanism; anyone can take advantage of the services they will provide. The material used to collect and transport items to the appropriate places will be necessary. Each group central meeting place will have large-scale trash, organic waste, recyclables, and charity goods pick-up, for people without these services at their homes or people with large loads. There will be an outlet for the reuse of all materials that can be saved from the landfills, and an importance will be placed on where an item will inevitably end up before it’s brought into the home. Money made from recycling material, and possibly from the selling of items and compost or mulch, will cover the cost of the projects to continue.

CONCLUSION
Devalued objects that are kept in the home can get in the way and continue to lose value. Clutter is the build-up of these items and can be caused by lack of time, lack of storage, or lack of understanding in how to sort and keep organized. Psychological problems can also be a cause of serious cluttering. Hoarding or the collection of useless, meaningless objects can lead to health problems, social problems, and psychological problems. Moderate cluttering can bring the disadvantages of taking up time and space.

Utilizing the services and products available will clear up these problems. If items are valuable to the user, they are housed in a specific place. People can pass on what they don’t need. Long term organizational solutions through support groups will solidify this concept in the ideals of humans. An interior that functions as a well-designed system will be healthy for the environment, as well as for the people living inside.


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