Hoarder Ruth Addicott frees herself of her junk

I am having my flat de-cluttered to free up some space and the first thing Gemma has seized upon is the bracelet. It looks as if it has come from the kind of bullet belt Rambo or guerrillas fighting in a remote jungle would wear. An exboyfriend picked it up 11 years ago in Vietnam and thought it would be a nice gift and, as he was the nearest thing I was going to get to Rambo at the time, I kept it.

"Do you really need it?" Gemma asks again.

I don't wear it, I admit, and I don't have a gun but someone went halfway around the world to find it. I can't part with the bullets and quickly stuff them back in the drawer when she's not looking.

"What's in here?" she says picking up a brown envelope and tipping the contents onto the floor.

Old photos of me looking worse for wear with friends come flying out, along with birthday cards, nightclub flyers, bingo winnings (£1.12) and a bag of sand from Bondi Beach.

"Why have you kept this?" she says waving a crumpled old piece of paper in front of my nose. As I unravel it, I realise it's my airline ticket to Miami in 1999. I can't throw that.

"Why not?" she demands.

It was a brilliant holiday. I got a serious tan, got stuck in some freak floods and finally got the chance to meet ET (at Universal Studios).

I definitely can't throw that.

Gemma points out that, as I have all the memories in my head, there's no need to keep the flight ticket - but I've stuffed it back in the drawer before she's finished talking.

When I agreed to be decluttered, I was expecting some kind of bossy Super Nanny tidying freak, but Gemma's nothing of the sort.

She's really friendly and has a dry sense of humour and I soon find myself rooting through my drawers and telling her my entire life story.

She reaches into her handbag and pulls out a massive roll of black bin liners, which unnerves me slightly. I'm pretty sure I won't be parting with any of my life mementoes but figure if the pressure's on, I can always bring the bin bags in later, once she's gone.

The next box we come to contains hundreds of old copies of magazines, papers and articles.

I've also kept the front pages of newspapers marking key global events - the Spice Girls meeting Prince Charles and Cherie Blair opening the door in her dressing gown.

I admit, I am slightly alarmed myself at the hundreds of cuttings I have of Blair and his election victory so I give in and start chucking.

Gemma has created two piles and I am soon wading through my junk handing each item to her with a "yes" or a "no".

At least the bin liners are filling up. I hand her cutting after cutting and, as I watch the pile grow, I wonder how on earth I've managed to keep so much tat for so long.

Gemma is looking a bit more relaxed so I decide now is a good time to bring out my rubbers. Erasers, to be precise.

My rubber collection has been my pride and joy since the age of nine and I still have a tin full of them at the back of the wardrobe. I tear off the lid and before I know it, I'm showing her the plant pot, the blue cat, Windsor Castle, the London bus, milk carton, Michelin Man and the cola bottle that smelled of Coke.

"When was the last time you looked at your rubbers?" asks Gemma at the end of the display.

I confess I haven't given them a lot of thought over the past 25 years.

"Do you have any use for them?"

Struggling to come up with an appropriate answer, again, I am forced to confess no.

"So why do you feel the need to keep them?"

I can't part with them, I say. As crazy as it sounds, if I ever met someone who also had an extensive rubber collection, I'd want to be able to bring out my tin and show them mine. I'd hate to think I'd chucked the exhibits.

"Would you really want to meet someone who collected rubbers?" asks Gemma, wrily.

It's a fair point and could be the wake-up call I need. Gemma suggests I set up some kind of retro rubbers club but the thought of spending time with fellow rubber collectors isn't my idea of a hell-raising night out.

"I would never tell you to chuck your rubbers," she says, noticing my panicked expression. "But what you could do - if you wanted to keep the memory - is lay them all out one by one, take a big picture, frame it and put it on your wall."

I'm not sure about having a picture of my rubbers on the wall either. I just like the idea of knowing they're safe in a box somewhere at the back of a wardrobe.

"Everyone has something they're attached to," she says. "It's a case of deciphering how empty you feel your life would be without them."

I can't decipher this now so I decide to distract her by bringing out my eight-foot inflatable statue of Edvard Munch's The Scream. I got it from the gift shop at The Tate. It's too scary to have around the house fully inflated so I keep it flat in the bottom of a drawer.

Do you think I should keep it? I ask.

There is a short pause. "What do you think?"

Gemma retorts. "What do you actually do with it? If you're going to deflate him and put him back in a box, what is the point in keeping him?Does it serve any purpose?"

Apart from standing him in the window as a security precaution and using it to startle unsuspecting boyfriends in the middle of the night, she has a point.

"You could deflate him, cut the head off and stick him in an album," she adds. I'm not sure if she's serious or joking.

Another box, more cuttings. Gemma suggests tearing out all the articles I've written and keeping them in a file but I'm one step ahead.

Not only have I cut them out already and kept photocopies, I've kept the rest of the newspaper and magazine with the hole in the page as well, in addition to multiple copies of issues dating back ten years. When I eventually confess to having back-up copies of everything in my parents' house too, Gemma looks as if she's ready to despair.

Looking around the room at the rest of my tat, she has failed to spot my Duran Duran cushion lurking in the corner. I picked it up for £1 at a car boot sale ten years ago to give to my sister as a birthday present. The trouble was I'd become so attached to it, as soon as she unwrapped it, I wanted it back.

Then there's the hoard of stylish leather and faux-fur coats, hailing from secondhand shops as far apart as New York and Middlesbrough.

I purchased my first one at the age of 14 and have been buying them ever since. My Dad calls them "flea infested". I call them "vintage".

Gemma concludes I am clinging to the past and can't let go. I conclude it's not my fault and explain I've inherited my obsession for hoarding junk from my father.

He's still got his marbles and old school books from 1952, he's got a drawer full of ties and green nylon tracksuits from the Seventies, boxes full of dusty, faded old rugby programmes and an entire cow's hide he was given as a present in Argentina. (The only reason the cow's hide made the tip was because the dog left a message on it).

I still rely on him to sort out my own clutter from time to time but, being a hoarder himself, he's not much help.

He has only just recovered from his last visit to the tip, where he had the awkward job disposing of Peg Leg (a full size mannequin's leg I carted back from Strasbourg and later used to attract the attention of Phillip Schofield at a Radio One Roadshow in 1989). Doing his best to wedge the leg into a skip while worried bystanders looked on, was a feat in itself.

Despite leaving home 15 years ago, I have managed to accumulate everything from a professional dart board to a life-size cardboard cut-out of Jonathan Ross.

"To be clutter free can change your life," Gemma says. "Decluttering is not only important for your home, office, energy and space - but it is vital for a clear and healthy mind."

Gemma charges £35 an hour and has all kinds of clients, from office managers to women who've just been divorced and want to start afresh. Most people are reluctant to part with anything after an hour, she says. After two hours they're beginning to come around to the idea and after three they really get going.

"How are you feeling about the rubbers?" she asks. She's persistent, I'll give her that, but I insist they're staying.

Gemma knows everything else about me so, just before she leaves, I confess to also having kept the anorak I was wearing when I met Phillip Schofield in 1987. It's hideous. I'm never going to wear it but can't chuck it.

"Can you recall much about the event?" she enquires, patiently.

"Well, vaguely, " I say. "It was October 14, 1987, about 2.35pm in Swansea."

I've obviously offered too much information as Gemma is now sitting there with her head in her hands.

There's a brief pause. "You see, you can recall all the details, so you don't need some hideous anorak to remind you. Do you?"

I am beginning to think she might be right.

It's not as if anyone appreciates it bar me.

"Take the dart board," she continues. "You're saying you no longer play darts so that item is now defunct. There comes a time with most things when you have to say, maybe it deserves a new home now'."

Another idea Gemma comes up with is to keep an ongoing scrapbook where I can stick all my plane tickets, letters and photos as I go along.

Gemma's approach seems to be to listen, remain calm and just sit there until you crack.

At the end of the session, Gemma makes for the door with a load of bin bags but The Scream is blocking her way. As I finally wave her off, I feel the afternoon has been quite productive.

Extreme hoarders would find it money well spent, for anyone else, an hour is a good kickstart to de-cluttering.

I've freed myself up from my mountain of newspaper cuttings but kept my rubbers. You never know when you might need them.

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