My MIL is the WORST pack rat I have EVER seen. She's in the antique business and her house is filled, floor to ceiling, with crap. Some of it is worth something, but most is not. She insists that she'll somehow be able to sell all of this stuff, but there's no way. I think once you get to a certain point it's hard to know where to begin the clean-up process.
I, on the other hand, HATE clutter. I routinely clean and tidy up and donate/throw away anything we don't need or use regularly. When my uncle and grandmother passed away we lived in their house for a bit while we were settling in as newlyweds. The problem was that nobody had really cleaned the place in like, 80 years. When xepherys went to annual training I took the whole two weeks, rented the biggest dumpster Waste Management had to offer and stuffed it to the point where they almost didn't take it back. I also made about four or five car trips to Goodwill during that cleaning spree.
You have to stay on top of it. Make a rule: whenever you bring something into your home, get rid of something else. There are a few exceptions, like food (duh), but it's generally a very easy rule to follow and it keeps clutter at bay.
There's also a book that my Dad is trying to get my mother-in-law to read:
Clutter's Last Stand: It's Time To De-Junk Your Life! He swears by it and has made impressive improvements to the interior of their house because of the advice in the book. I'd recommend it, since it's the only thing that has been able to de-clutter my parents' house in my lifetime
