The New Orleans Times-Picayune

MESSY, LIKE ME: A CLUTTER ADDICT COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET AND SEEKS HELP FROM A CONVERTED 'CLEANIE'

By Sheila Grissett, Staff writer

09/06/2000

Sandra Felton is a "Cleanie" who used to be a "Messie." Her mission: To save people who save everything.

People like me.

And apparently, there are plenty of people like me. Felton's Messies Anonymous Web site collapsed last fall after too many hits from otherwise ordinary people tired of struggling against piles of everyday rubble.

Frankly, I take it as a good sign that so many of us pack rats could even find our computer keyboards to search out Felton's help.

But there it was, a 12-step program for clutter addicts, prescribed by a sympathetic mentor who knew us by the chaos of our closets, the disorder of our desks, the tumble of our tool sheds, the melange of our medicine chests and the snarl of our sock drawers.

By following the abatement plan put forth in her "Messies" books, seminars, tapes and self-help program, Felton vows to teach us how to tame the clutter that confounds us.

They are lessons learned the hard way. The kitchen floor of Felton's Miami home once collapsed under embarrassing circumstances: the plumbing leak and ensuing wood rot under her sink went undetected beneath stacks of old newspapers that Felton had stashed "just in case" she (or anyone) ever needed to re-read them or use them (party hats!) for a project.

It was a turning point.

"I just wasn't going to take it any more," Felton says. "After years of not understanding why my stuff was out of control, I was determined to bring some balance to my life."

And so it was a wiser and determined Felton (with a terrific, new kitchen) who struck out one day -- one corner -- one stack -- one pile -- one piece of sturm and drang at a time --to de-junk her life. In the process, she became a Messie guru, sharing her doctrine of de- clutter through the support group she founded in 1981 and marketing a clutch of subsequent teaching products, including six Messie Manuals in four languages.

"A Cleanie can't help a Messie," Felton says in the tone of the confessional. "Only another Messie can help a Messie."

For example, Felton says most Cleanies don't know that most Messies have poor memories, which we supplement by keeping everything in front of us. "If Messies put it all away, they know they'll forget to do it. ... Post-It notes were designed for us."

And if that's not enough, Felton says many Messies, especially the sentimental ones, actually save stuff to keep the past alive (baby teeth), and take real, honest-to-God comfort in being able to actually see personal possessions (Fannie the Flamingo) that Cleanies keep in storage.

"And no one except a Messie can fully understand the feeling that 'things' have a life of their own," says Felton.

Follow the bouncing Messie ball: If I get rid of something belonging to me, I feel as if I am giving away part of myself. Even worse, if I get rid of something that has belonged to someone meaningful to me, I feel that I am giving away part of that person and betraying his memory.

"When it came time for me to get rid of my last maternity dress, I put it on the bed each day so that it could lie in state," Felton remembers. "I needed to do that to get used to the idea that it was going to leave my house, and for it to get used to the idea that it was leaving."

Felton says that on those rare occasions when Messies do part with something, it is only after first finding it a good home.

Cleanies, Felton says, can't relate.

"They don't understand at all," she says. "Cleanies have a gift for organization. Something out of place sets their teeth on edge. If Cleanies only knew how we struggle."

But Felton of the collapsing kitchen does understand. She coats her advice in the compassion craved by good people doing bad things with books, baskets, bowls, bottles,glassware, linens, light bulbs, flower pots, flower seed, seed catalogs, all catalogs,collections, letters, plastics, porcelain, pots, pot lids, paints, paper, pencils, pens, magazines, newspapers, notebooks, nuts, bolts, bicycles, boating gear, fishing tackle,sewing stuff, hat boxes, extension cords, extra phones, phone cords, computer junk,electronic stuff, memorabilia, golf tees, golf balls, baseballs, croquet mallets, crochet needles, greeting cards, playing cards, craft projects (some almost finished), crates, socks(some matched), clothes that don't fit, clothes you'll never wear, mother's quilts,grandmother's hats, great-grandmother's dishes, everything the grown kids left behind,everything the little kids make, Dad's tools, assorted gizmos, thingamajigs and doodads.

Oh, yeah, and don't forget the 200-pound gas generator and all that other Y2K stuff.

"Other people have more boundaries than we do," Felton explains, meaning those Cleanies again. "We let a lot more into our homes and into our lives, and we keep a lot more of what we let in."

So, how does a Messie know how much is too much?

"It all depends on how much your clutter is impacting your life," Felton says.

Doesn't organizing nine filing cabinets at home mean a Messie is getting the addiction under control?

"Oh, Messies love files," Felton says. "They frequently have not just one four-drawer file, but three or four. It is the one big attempt at organization they have made.

"In business, a study has shown that 80 percent of the items filed never see the light of day again. My guess is that 90 percent of things put in a home storage file are never used again. We need one working two- drawer file cabinet. My Cleanie friend Carmen keeps one hanging file in a carved decorative wooden box from Ecuador." That's cold. And this from a woman who once contemplated making Christmas ornaments from her underwear parts.

"I'm not trying to be cruel," she says. "But we have to start somewhere."

OK. Where?

"You must understand the deep-rooted 'why' of your messiehood," Felton says, "and then the 'how' of breaking away from the behavior patterns that cause it."

Oh, boy.

Felton believes the first step in licking messiness is admitting that it's out of control.

"That is the breakthrough," she says. "That's where denial ends. That's when we stop blaming other things (my house is too small) and say, 'The problem is me.' It's a bit like the alcoholic who knows there's a problem, but won't admit to alcoholism."

Felton says there are different types of Messies.

"Aside from abysmally low ratings on the housekeeping scale, Messies have little else in common," she says. "We make messes in different styles and for different reasons."

She identifies nine different Messie mindsets. They include: the Clean Messie who cleans but doesn't unclutter; the Safe Messie who finds cleaning risky business; the Sentimental Messie who clutters with her favorite stuff; the Spartan Messie who recoils from normal use of normal things; the Relaxed Messie who acts like royalty at home; the Rebellious Messie who is still an angry kid; the Old- Fashioned Messie who does it Grandma's way or no way; and the Perfectionist Messie who ignores all jobs that can't be done perfectly.

Felton says a Messie can have a combination of mindsets. Two Messies living together can create different kinds of chaos from different motives, yet recognize (and criticize) only the other's messiness.

"Messies have very real reasons for doing what they do," she says. "And they feel very strongly about their reasons. They're generally logical and intelligent people who excel in many areas."

The disorganized person spends too much time looking for the car keys, the wallet, the coupon, the right screwdriver, the other sock or the electric bill due tomorrow.

"Although they may not like a disorganized life and the problems it causes, the things they do that keep it that way are consistent with how they think, " she says.

Felton says there are five particular pitfalls of Messiedom: collecting and saving, storage and organization, neatness, paper, and banking.

Again, the five are related and often overlap, but Felton says a close look usually reveals a favorite or two.

Take collecting, for instance. Felton isn't talking about some well- placed pieces of Red Wing pottery. In a Messie, she calls it "the keen desire to gather lots of things." The motivations vary: They have sentimental or antique value (Grandma Stitcher's thimbles); they 'might come in handy someday' (extra shoelace); they might have some value (bra underwires); or they might mitigate a future crisis (generator).

Many Saving Messies also harbor an unacknowledged desire to have on hand anything anyone could ever need, especially in an emergency. She explains such thinking in her book, "Messie No More."

"Keep all prescription medicines. Someday your child may be very ill in the middle of the night and the doctor may say that only one medicine will help him. You'll look in the cabinet and find that you have that very medicine, even if it is 10 years old. The doctor will say that it is better to have 10-year-old medicine than none at all, and you will give it to your child and he will be saved. So, you see, it is dangerous to throw anything away."

Felton drums the message: The thinking feeds the actions that devour effective organization.

"Once you change your thinking, you're on your way," she says, "but the cure is in the doing. I'm not telling you that you have to get rid of things, but if you want a home instead of a museum or a library or a warehouse, you will have to get to that point."

This is a woman who has experienced the pain of parting.

To reform her own Messieness, Felton spent several hours a day for 3 1/2 months working and discarding, room by room. And like a dieter sweating to shed that last five pounds, the final few things she discarded were the toughest.

"When I gathered that last precious pile of things in my hallway, I put a cardboard memorial plaque on it to say 'Goodbye' and 'Thank you' and 'I'll miss you,' " Felton says. "I left it on my hall floor for several days while I grieved its leaving."

But try to focus on the bright side, she offers.

"While it causes temporary pain to throw something out," she says, "that's mild compared with the pain that comes from having to live helplessly with all that clutter."

Fair enough. But no matter how thorough the rehabilitation, no matter how complete the Messie-to-Cleanie transformation, one thing will never change:

Fannie the Flamingo stays.

-- FM (scipublic@aol.com), September 15, 2000