Mary couldn't get her leaky faucet fixed because she was ashamed to let a plumber see the inside of her cluttered home. Jane was pregnant and didn't know where she would put her new baby because she had so much "stuff" piled in every room of her apartment. Lorene's house was so messy she couldn't bring her terminally ill husband home from the hospital to die. These people (whose names have been changed to protect the sloppy) and thousands more have been aided by a self-help group appropriately named Messies Anonymous. (M.A.)

Sondra Felton, a Florida high school teacher, founded M.A. in 1982 because she understood the pain of people who just couldn't get organized no matter how hard they tried. She suffered from the same problem. Ms. Felton decided she could no longer live with the mess in…