I’m on the slippery slope to living like Stig of the Dump. Can a £12 towel rail turn things around? | Emma Beddington

After years of slovenliness, I finally have somewhere to hang all my worn-but-not-dirty clothes. That just leaves the rest of my mess ...

I've often mentioned the cardboard removal box where I dump my worn-but-not-dirty clothes, craving, I think, the cleansing fire of public shame. Who lives like that? How do other people not end up with a clirty - that's clean-dirty - floordrobe (apologies for the double portmanteau)?

It felt like a broken windows" thing - the US policing term for visible minor neglect acting as a gateway to crime or, in my case, shrugging surrender to the march of entropy. At my age, in this empty nest, it's a slippery slope. Does moisturiser matter? Why bother with a plate for whatever fridge scrapings I'm calling lunch? What's wrong with some wholesome soil under my nails? Fail to floss once and next thing I know, I'm Stig of the Dump, living in a dump.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist