How it all begins

My first contact with Stella was on the 6 March 2008. On returning home from a session with a client, I checked my phone for messages. As one of the messages had cut off half way through, something led me to return the call of one of the numbers, even though no message had been left.

Stella was so pleased that I had called back, though her nerve had gone after ringing my number, and after a chat we agreed that our consultant Chrystine would ring her the next evening to book a session.

11 March 2008. Chrystine spoke to Stella and she had had a cold and depression, asked to be rung in 10 days. Finally, they set a date: 1st April 2008.

29 March 2008. Stella called me to say that she was getting cold feet, in part because she had not yet seen our agreement document, and had some concerns about confidentiality and privacy. I was able to reassure her, as did the document, and the visit was set to go ahead.

About our Blog

This is the true story of Stella, one of Cluttergone’s clients. She is someone just like you, who is struggling with clutter and organisation. Chrystine, the consultant working with Stella has kept a diary of her visits.

We have been so moved in the time we have known Stella that we felt that others could benefit from an insight into her life.

Hopefully this will give you an idea of the way we work, the issues that arise during clutter clearing, and most importantly Stella’s success.
Stella is a real person, although for the sake of anonymity and confidentiality personal details have been changed. The diary is written after each visit but for Stella’s comfort publication is running several months in arrears. Our personal thanks to Stella for allowing us to share the diary and follow her journey.

Read on for the latest installment of Chrystine’s diary and follow Stella’s progress.

About Stella

Chrystine Bennett writes:

Stella Brown, a highflying professional person working in a national organisation, was hit by a serious illness later compounded by clinical depression, she has since retired.

In 2007, Stella started thinking about all the stuff that had built up around her. She knew she couldn’t manage to clear it by herself so she started looking at clutter clearing web sites. She didn’t want someone who would come and just tell her what needed to be done. She wanted someone who would get down on the floor and do the actual dirty work with her. After reading several websites very carefully, she was convinced that it would be Cluttergone.

A broken boiler pushed her to clearing some of the paper in the front hall and purchasing a shredder. Stella, looking at the piles of paper decided that even though she couldn’t deal with the clutter herself, she could stop it from getting any worse. She put a recycling bag in the front hall next to where she opened the post.

6 March 2008, she was ready to contact Cluttergone.

Stella told me during a recent visit that having screwed up her courage to make the call; she’d hung up when the phone wasn’t answered after 4 or 5 rings. Beverlyused the phone memory to call her back.

Stella told both Beverly and me that she knew this was going to be a very long process and that she wasn’t setting any kind of deadline. We advised that each visit should not be longer than about 4 hours and there should be 2 weeks between each visit.

Subsequently, I learnt from Stella that her psychiatrist was reassured by this and the fact that we were not trying to push too far or too fast and that she retained control. Stella has also more recently said that it continues to be scary to be clearing the clutter but with the support she has she can cope.