CLEAN FREAKS

Buying sprees spawn more buying--for equipment to store all this stuff. Signe Yberg, 31, a hip East Village stylist, visits the Container Store in the Chelsea section of New York City twice a month. "When the store first opened, I was here every week," she says. An inveterate collector, Yberg, who is childless, gets vintage kids' clothes and used footwear from eBay. When her clothes collection threatened to overtake her apartment, she got plastic barrels to store it. On one recent trip, she bought a shopping-cartful of plastic boxes for her 100-plus pairs of vintage shoes and boots. She says that bringing order to chaos--even chaos of her own making--"gives me a little high." The Container Store's vice president of marketing, Casey Priest, says it's no coincidence that sales have been strong since 9/11. "Our customers want to get control," says Priest. "And when they can't control the world around them, they turn to the things they can control," like sorting their sock drawer.

In the long run, of course, TV shows, slick magazines and pricey Portofino leather storage boxes are really just a quick fix and can't replace old-fashioned elbow grease. Cheryl Mendelson, author of the best-selling homemaking compendium "Home Comforts," cautions against what she calls "organizing porn." Forget the fantasy. Cutting through clutter, she says, "isn't a consumer activity or a spectator sport." And a one-time cleanup won't solve the problem--any more than a crash diet will cure lifelong bad eating habits. Keeping an orderly house requires constant vigilance. "You have to develop good, efficient habits," says Mendelson, "in order to maintain the foundations for a comfortable life."

Back in California, it took the "Clean Sweep" team a full two days to overhaul the Wongs' master bedroom and home office. During the big "reveal," the couple was appropriately dazzled. The awkward stack of electronic equipment in the office had been tucked neatly into a customized two-person desk. Upstairs, the haphazard pile of bedtime reading was lined up in order of size on the Wongs' sleek new cube nightstands. But later, as the crew packed up to leave, the couple looked dismayed. The two rooms turned out great, but Heeman wonders just how long it will last. "It seems like so much work to keep it clean," he frets. Does "Clean Sweep" ever make return visits? Behind closed doors, he's got a few more rooms that could use some help.

WITH JULIE SCELFO

© 2004