American Homes: “An Orgy of Consumption”

From the Associated Press and writer Joseph B. Verrengia comes an extraordinary and credible article about American’s overabundance of stuff in their homes.  Thanks to my Mother for letting me know it was printed in today’s Trenton Times, in New Jersey.

The well-thought out and extensive article was full of information from the following Experts:

• Organizational Guru Peter Walsh.
• Philadelphia design critic Thomas Hine.
• The National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.
• Sanjaya Saxena, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.
• Connecticut’s Hartford Hospital Psychologist David Tolin.
• Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Professional Organizer Sheila Delson.
• Denver psychologist and organizational consultant Aricia LaFrance.

Here’s an exerpt.  You can read the entire article here.

"And the opportunities to acquire have only skyrocketed.  The old corner store once stocked fewer than 1,000 items. Today, a Wal-Mart SuperCenter covers a quarter-million square feet — that’s nearly six acres — and carries 130,000 products.

If you can’t make it to the store, merchandisers will bring clutter to your threshold. Online, 49 million people order $7 billion in merchandise annually from Amazon.com. EBay auctioned possessions worth $34.2 billion last year.

Yet scientists have difficulty quantifying clutter. It is a private problem that most people — like Lowe — sweep under the bed and shove behind closed doors."