Spring cleaning guru Sophie March provides a fresh perspective on a time honoured ritual

Piles of paperwork, overflowing cupboards, and a wardrobe full of unworn clothes. We didn’t notice all this stuff in winter. In fact, those possessions felt like the insulation in our nests.

It’s scary how the onset of spring’s brighter days suddenly throws it all into stark relief. The reality of clutter. Horrors.

How might the particularly moneyed and glamorous dig themselves out of a hole like this?

Well, some of the cannier ones have a hotline to Sophie March, aka The Order Restorer.

Don’t, however, mistake her for a cleaner.

She’s an organiser – someone who can sort, with relish, through the drawers that you are too scared to open, or venture into a garage that no longer has space for a car.

As well as doing an object audit, to discover that you have 15 hammers or five hairbrushes, before streamlining your collection, she can catalogue CDs, make sense out of wine cellars and despatch neglected outfits to the charity shop.

Her kit consists of labels, plastic pouches, files and coat hangers.

March, 49, started her business in 2004, after working as a chef for over a decade. Her little black book is now full of regular clients and she’s already almost entirely booked up for 2012, with a handful of these customers based in Scotland.

Although this organiser, based in South West London, is very discreet about her clientèle, her website displays gushing testimonials from the likes of actress and model Carinthia West, as well as high-profile businesswomen Anda Rowland, owner of Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard.

March, who describes herself as an “iron my knickers, co-ordinate my socks kind of girl”, is in demand.

Her business started by accident.

“I’m very logically minded and practical, so a friend rang me and said they had the perfect job for me,” she explains. “They introduced me to a gentleman who had a large country house and wanted to have his stables, attic and family archive organised. I was there for a month, bringing up all sorts of extraordinary things that had been in the cellar for years – even an unopened suitcase that he had moved in with 15 years previously.”

This satisfied customer introduced March to her next client, and the ball started rolling.

Whenever she gets a new job, the de-cluttering process starts with a meeting. If a rapport isn’t established, March doesn’t take the commission.

“You’ve got to have some sort of bond. After all, I am going to be in clients’ drawers,” she explains. “I have only met one person with whom I didn’t think it was going to work. Importantly for me, there shouldn’t be any medical issues, they’re just people with busy lives. So, if people have OCD, I’m wary. You only want to deal with them if they’re utterly willing to make a change. I’m not a cheap option and I don’t want to rip people off.”

March realises that she’s in a position of trust. Sometimes customers will hang around while she sorts through piles of possessions. At other times, they’ll have to go to work, in which case she will be left alone in their home, with private possessions and important documents.

“For them to let me in is incredibly brave,” says March, who refuses to expand her trustworthy team of one.

There have been a few odd moments. Once, she found a neglected rhinoceros foot in a cellar, along with a photo of the owner’s great aunt, brandishing the shotgun that had killed this animal on a safari trip. On another job, while sorting the house of someone whose mother had recently died, March discovered £700 in cash in the pocket of a fur coat.

Another client lost her favourite painting when she moved into her house, only for March to find it in the attic ten years later.

And then there was the time she found a rat living in a napkin drawer.

Luckily, most of us don’t have that sort of thing to contend with, just a bit of clutter. So, according to March, how should we approach this year’s spring cleaning?

“Start small. People tend to begin with an enormous task, which becomes depressing,” she explains.

“Don’t do every single drawer in the kitchen – just one, and make sure to finish the job once you’ve started. For me, a whole room will take a day and I’m doing this kind of thing regularly.

“If you’re doing your wardrobe, then get things out in collections - ie all the T-shirts, and work on sorting them out. Don’t veer off onto another subject until you’re finished. I always try to present things like a shop - laid out in a logical manner, as it’s more tangible to deal with.

Also, if you’re going to put something on eBay or take items to a charity shop, then commit to doing so the same afternoon.”

Even if it’s difficult to get motivated, once you’re done, you’re sure to experience a warm glow of satisfaction.

Eight years after starting her business, March still gets a buzz from finishing a job.

“I love going back into the room, when it’s all sorted,” she says. “I’ve restored order in the house and given everything its logical place. It sometimes feels as if I’m having therapy myself,”

For more information, tel: 0208 878 2402

click here to visit www.sophiemarch.com