I've always hated paying other people to do things I'm perfectly capable of doing myself.

Fix my washing machine? Not my area of expertise, so I call someone who knows what they're doing. Load my dirty socks into said machine? I'll take care of that myself, thanks very much.

Rewire my house? Time to call in the professionals. Do the washing up? That's a job for Phil Goddard.

But sometimes needs must, and in this case the problem that needed urgent attention from someone else was clutter: mountains of it. We had four frying pans, six ashtrays, and no fewer than thirty bottles of Louisiana hot sauce - a staple of the local cuisine, to be sure, but still probably a lifetime's supply for a family with a cavalier attitude to birth control, let alone two people.

Often, the problem was self-perpetuating - we would tire of hunting for a stray object, replace it at great expense, and then rediscover it five minutes later.

We were full of good intentions about clearing up the Augean stable that we called home, but the problem had long since spiralled beyond our control. We were like the sorcerer's apprentice, watching helplessly as an army of bucket-toting brooms filled the house with water, and desperately awaiting the sorcerer's return to sort out the mess.

Eventually we found the sorcerer, and her name was Fanny. Remember the empty and derelict house next door whose overgrown garden we pillaged for banana, ginger and tropical ferns? Well, it's now neither empty nor derelict, but a little buzzing hive of industry, bought a few months ago by two extremely nice guys called Kevin and Matt whom we've got quite friendly with.

They've demolished part of an addition to the house to give it greater historical authenticity, and Fanny was the demolition contractor. We got friendly with her too - she was in and out of our house borrowing things like water and electricity, and we apologised for the fact that there was scarcely a square inch of sofa on which to park herself while we chatted.

'Oh, I can fix that for you,' she said. 'When do you want me to start?'

We both knew straight away that she was exactly the right person for the job: bossy, but in a nice way, with the ability to stay focused and not get sidetracked by a million tasks clamouring for her attention, a disinterested outsider who could see the wood for the trees. So we hired her on the spot.

She turned up yesterday morning, and soon we were humping boxes up and down stairs, constructing a ten-foot pile in the garden of things to sell at a yard sale, and filling black bags on an industrial scale.

At one point I saw Pam and Fanny sitting on the floor of the upstairs room that we use as a dumping ground, surrounded by piles of old electricity bills, family photographs and general junk, with a look on their faces that I interpreted as defeat. But no, they were just taking a breather from their Herculean task, and now, after two days, we've nearly finished. The house is starting to feel quite different: simpler, more spacious, and a more relaxing place to be.

Part of the reason why we needed the space is because Pam is starting a business and needs somewhere to work. After decades of cooking and waiting on tables, she's decided to exploit her natural gift for making things.

The first thing she's going to try selling is cigar-box purses - in Britain, we'd call them handbags. You take an empty cigar box -often beautiful handcrafted objects in their own right, and available for little or nothing - add a handle, some feet for it to stand on, a catch and a lining, and you've created a beautiful and unusual object which people will hopefully shell out large sums of money for.

Lots of people make cigar-box purses, churning them out at a rate of several a day, but Pam's are unique and much more labour-intensive works of art. In a New Orleans twist on a traditional artefact, she decorates hers with Mardi Gras beads , necklaces thrown into the crowd from floats in the Mardi Gras parades.

Here is one of Pam's creations, made in celebration of Endymion, one of the krewes, or carnival clubs, that form such an important part of life in New Orleans. She has turned into a one-woman factory, often working into the small hours, unable to lay down her glue gun and drill. If passion is a prerequisite of business success, then she'll do very well indeed.