By Clyde Noel
 Clutterboy owner Tom Anderson, sits in his clutter filled car. Clutterboy specializes in clearing local packrats’ clutter. |
Call them sentimental pack rats. They desperately need more room and can’t bear to part with their stuff.
A pack rat’s garage has boxes of old records, books from grade school, piles of magazines, old calendars, broken tools and toys from children who moved out of the house
10 years ago, plus that horrible Christmas gift from Aunt Milly. Enter Clutterboy. It’s time to reclaim your garage.
“Ninety percent of personal effects people accumulate can be recycled,” said Tom Anderson, owner of Clutterboy. “A clean clutter-free space will let you regain work time, your weekends and your sanity.”
Anderson’s clients are people with busy lives, people going through a change and those with cumbersome spaces. His clients live between Palo Alto and Cupertino. Between residential and corporate clients, he is constantly cleaning other people’s stuff.
“My house was on the market for 10 days. It had 100 people view it and got 10 offers all above the asking price,” said Bob Doolittle of Sun Microsystems. “This was a direct result of the hard work we did together to make the house look terrific and get the response it did.”
What is clutter? Anderson said it is anything you do not use, love or want. It comes in all forms in your house: shoes that don’t fit, a toaster that hasn’t worked since 1996, instruction manuals for appliances you no longer own and empty plastic containers from the kitchen.
“Working with a client involves a trust element because it’s their ’stuff.’ In many cases it’s a private part of their lives,” Anderson said. “I start working with them in their garage. When the comfort level is established, we move into the rest of the house. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they are with me. Basically I’m a handholder for their personal stuff.”
Anderson, a resident of Los Altos, said he finds it just as easy working with a man or woman, but women are more open to dispose of stuff they don’t need.
“Women can identify their personal effects easier; men have a harder time to let go of their stuff,” he said.
The reasons men give are: It was a present; It might fit me again someday when I lose weight; I’ll use it when I get it fixed; I might need it someday; and now that I have all this junk, it’s too much of a hassle to get rid of it.
Anderson distributes the clutter he removes. Books go to the Los Altos Library for their book sales, old bicycles and lawnmowers go to an East Palo Alto non-profit, clothing to a church, and paper products to a recycler. Once a quarter he disposes of merchandise at the flea market.
“I solve problems and take away the homeowner’s headaches, Anderson said. “Clutter drains your energy, undermines your self-esteem and keeps you in the past. Clearing clutter is the most fundamental Feng Shui remedy.”
