Flickr: Photo by eflon

Spring cleaning is sort of a rite of passage, but did you ever stop to think about why you start pulling everything out of closets and turning bedrooms upside down this time of year?

Hint -- spring cleaning is not just about the energizing arrival of spring. Maybe it's what winter has done to your house.

Confused? A new survey sponsored by the Soap and Detergent Association claims the number one reason we spring clean is to get rid of clutter.

You know -- all that stuff that's built up in your house when it was too darn cold outside to cart it to the dump or even the recycling center. My basement is filled with empty bottles simply because I've been too wussy to take them to the reverse vending machines outside the grocery store (we're a bottle deposit state).

Our curbside pick-up for our recyclables is often foiled in the winter by snowstorms that make it impossible to put out the cardboard and paper products, so we have plenty of them to cart out of the house now that the sun is peeking out.

The ability to open the windows and air the place out helps too, but what distinguishes this cleaning time from any other time of the year is really the amount of stuff we cart away.

Do you store up clutter during the winter months?