Spring into Cleaning with the Clutter Clinician

Christine Muccigrosso wants to get into your drawers.

And your closets, your basement, garage, attic, file cabinets—you name it.

Always an organizational junkie, Muccigrosso has turned her penchant for cleaning, filing, coding and purging into a new business—The Clutter Clinic.

For a fee, Muccigrosso will come to your home—or office—and help you clean out the clutter that has overwhelmed you. You need to book a minimum of two hours but a normal Clutter Clinic visit lasts more like four to five hours. The Clutter Clinic serves Essex, Morris and Union counties.

What's the most major issue? "People have too much stuff," said Muccigrosso. "They don't throw things out and they buy too much—there's a huge shopping addiction in this country."

Muccigrosso noted that "organizing is a skill that isn't taught. It's not something your're born with either—although some people are more organized than not."

Organizing is most certainly a skill that Muccigrosso has learned and mastered. She will come to your house, ascertain your goals, assess the area in question and help you start organizing your things into four categories: recycle, donate, garbage, keep. And she'll give you a long-term strategy for staying on track with your newly cleaned and organized space.

Muccigrosso dabbled in professional organizing—and house staging for realtors—several years ago, but she is mostly known locally as the proprietess of the much lamented and departed Cafe Meow on Springfield Avenue in Maplewood. Cafe Meow, a self-proclaimed "funky, cool eclectic" cafe that allowed patrons to hang out and meet up all day while providing fresh coffee, fresh-baked goods and healthful and hearty lunch items, closed on October 6, 2008. It's a day that will live in infamy for Cafe Meow fans.

Muccigrosso herself was deeply saddened by the demise of the business and then was swept up in foot surgery and physical therapy for six months following. When she finally made a full recovery, The Clutter Clinic was born.

For those who ask, "Do you really need to hire someone to help you organize?" Muccigrosso acknowledged that it's good question. "It's not that people can't do this on their own, it's that they won't unless they make an appointment." People also need someone to keep them on task, she said. It's easy to get lost in an album of old photos and lose track of the whole process. "You're paying for a coach, a teacher, someone to keep you focused."

And the biggest difficulty of all if you do this on your own? "It's the physical workload. After five hours of doing this, you are physically and mentally exhausted." With both feet fully mended, Muccigrosso is both coach and beast of burden.

Besides the physical toll of organizing, there's also the mental anguish.

"People who call me are just overwhelmed by the amount of stuff they have and they just don't know where to start or how." Muccigrosso noted, "It's a very emotional process. Some people are really married to their stuff and it's difficult for them to get rid of it. But what I find is that if I challenge them on something that they think is necessary to keep, they start to see that the reason they are hanging on to it has nothing to do with it's usefulness. Sometimes they just need that reality check from an outside observer to realize that it's a ridiculous item that they are holding on to for even more ridiculous reasons. Many people feel a sense of relief when an outside person tells them it's okay to let it go."

And Muccigrosso promises that she is discreet: "My motto is, 'What happens at The Clutter Clinic session, stays at The Clutter Clinic session.' I don't kiss and tell and am totally respectful of other people's stuff, although, I can and will be brutally honest about things."

And although the process can be mentally difficult, Muccigrosso said that it's ultimately freeing. "I find that once the client lets a few things go, it gets easier and easier for them and pretty soon they are tossing everything out! It's such a liberating experience, it's like a drug. You can't wait to get that high again and again. It's addicting—in a good way!"

As much as Muccigrosso would like to come to your house and clean out your closets, she's also full of advice on how to avoid getting to the point where you need to hire her:

"I preach over and over again to live simply. The more you simplify, the easier your life is and the more you get out of it." Muccigrosso noted, "There's a trend in the U.S. that bigger and more is always better and people have so much stuff they have to buy bigger houses to house it!"

"Right now we should all be downsizing, living within our means and doing without. Your house is prime real estate and if you fill it with junk in every nook and cranny, you have less to live in. It's hard to think when there are so many distractions, and it's hard to move forward or be creative when you have all these piles of 'unfinished projects' or 'deal with me' items."