SPRING HOME & GARDEN: Vigilance still the only way to keep chaos in closet

by Beth Teitell
Thursday, April 18, 2002

I was lying on the floor of my closet, reaching under some low- hanging shirts for a shoe wedged between the laundry hamper and a never-used exercise mat, when I was forced to confront a hard truth: I've lost control of my closet.

I'm not sure when the mess gained the upper hand. All I know is that one day the closet was neat enough to pose as a centerfold in a California Closets brochure (turn-ons: matching hangers; turn-offs: dust bunnies), and the next it was so dense that Whitey could hide for years without fear of discovery.

"What happened?" I asked as I fought my way through a pile of towels and vacuum cleaner parts to emerge gasping into the fresh air of my bedroom.

There had been a time when, through hard work, the closet had been tamed. Shirts were grouped with shirts. Pants hung from trouser hangers. Shoes resided with their mates. You could see the floor.

I might not have liked the clothes in there, and in fact I didn't, but at least I could see them.

But, like gardening or staying in shape, keeping up a closet requires constant vigilance, or you lose everything you worked so hard for. And in the same way that I can't face a plant that's dying (and hence hasten its decline by not watering it), or that I stop weighing myself if I sense I've gained a few pounds, once the closet started to lose its trim I contributed to the chaos.

After reviewing tapes from a security camera I had installed for just this sort of problem, I've retraced the downfall to 7:19 on a Tuesday in March, when, tired and in a hurry, I tossed a sweater on a chest that's in there and uttered the fatal words, "I'll hang this up later."

Anyone who knows anything about closets - or life - knows that if one thing is out of place, nothing else can be put in right. Hang one shirt up backwards, and it can take you months to recover. If you even can, that is.

Because once a closet becomes empowered, bad things happen:

First, the clothes start dropping off their hangers spontaneously, falling to the floor in little piles, where they stay until the morning of the big interview or dinner party, when a search party must be launched. Then, even if the item is actually recovered, it will be in need of expensive professional help.

Next, items that have no right being in a clothing closet - pieces of a dinosaur puzzle, empty film cannisters, broken sunglasses - get sucked in.

Finally, the mess achieves the kind of "Big Mo" George H.W. Bush bragged about after his 1980 victory in Iowa, and like a virulent strain of a virus, the problem spreads to the rest of the house, forcing clothes onto the back of living room chairs, the dining room table, the bed.

At that point, no matter how much you like your home, your only option is to get out while you can.