Fascinating thread -- I'm so glad the forum is taking up this problem. Thank you for introducing it, boogiesmash. I have always had trouble with cleaning and neatness, since I was a girl. My sister and I shared a bedroom. Our single beds were opposite each other against the walls, and there was about a 4 foot space between them. At the foot of my bed, were piles of clothing I didn't hang up. My sister is a neat freak.This situation must have been very hard on her. She drew an imaginary line down the middle of the four -foot space, and ordered me not to cross that line with my stuff!!!

As a young adult, we had a wood stove, our only source of heat (loved it!). When my papers would pill up too high, I would just heave handfuls of them into the fire.

I moved to a city about 20 years ago -- no wood stoves here. Only electric heat.. I developed boxes and boxes full of paper -- some writings I did, some paid bills, you get it...So when I moved into my present apartment,I did not know if there any documents in there that were valuable or not. I had 7 boxes of paper! Fortunately, Medicaid in those days paid for a Senior Companion, and it took the two of us 4 years to sort through it all. Then, my mother paid a cleaning woman to help me out. I've kept it clean and relatively organized since I've had this help. I know that so many people cannot afford to hire a cleaning person. Two suggestions -- check your various agencies and see if there is anyone to help with cleaning/orgainzing. Two, a good thing you could ask for,for various gift-giving (holidays, birthdays, etc) is to give you a cleaning person for a certain number of hours. Note that a cleaning person is not the same as a custodian or janitorial service. The latter is very, very expensive