No newspapers stacked on the living-room floor, no letters in layers on the kitchen table, no teetering pyramids of coins.

The woman of the house has scored a temporary victory. All male possessions have vanished into cupboards and drawers.

What is it about men and piles? Not all women are tidy, of course, but they do at least understand that objects can be put away, leaving surfaces free for useful activities such as cooking, eating or sleeping. Men, on the other hand, see surfaces as virgin territory waiting to be filled and their marker of choice is a pile.

It doesn’t particularly matter what goes into the pile. It could be old bus tickets, a receipt from WH Smith, two broken shoelaces and a packet of plasters. It could, on the other hand, have a pleasing homogeneity: a whole tower of magazines, perhaps, or a soft tussock of socks.

But the rule is that a pile, once built, can never be disassembled. It will stand there in perpetuity, slowly gathering dust, a monument to the resourcefulness of its creator. Occasionally it will be extended, like a loft conversion on a three-storey house; even more occasionally, it will be moved, in its entirety, to a more pleasing location. But demolition? Never.

“I can’t get through to Andy that putting newspapers in a pile, however neatly squared the corners, does not amount to tidying the living room,” says my friend Alex.

My friend Yvonne once committed the almost unforgivable sin of “sorting out” a male pile. She divided its contents into three smaller piles: rubbish, work stuff and stuff-you-might-want-to-keep, believing that her husband Simon would then find it relatively easy to take the appropriate action (put in bin; take to office; file). How wrong she was. All that happened was that three new piles, as invigorated by separation as a clump of snowdrops, took the place of one.

Men, of course, insist that the pile is the perfect filing system. “I know where everything is,” says my husband Matt. But knowing where something is — that a pink sugar strand, for example, is somewhere in the box of hundreds and thousands — doesn’t necessarily mean that you can lay your hands on it in a hurry.

I know this because he’s in charge of the MOT and car insurance and every year, pile upon pile is turned upside-down in a fruitless search for vital sheets of car-related paper.

So what is this pile-building about? It would be childish to suggest that a pile is a kind of phallic symbol, like an obelisk or a sword. After all, some piles are better described as heaps, spreading out like random cowpats. It would be equally silly to suggest that every man is a frustrated Bob the Builder.

Accepting that we are dealing with stereotypes, which may or may not apply to all men, Phillip Hodson, fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says that different piles have different origins.

“With the clothes mountain, men tend to use the floor as a coat rack because they really don’t care about the resulting untidiness. It doesn’t bother them. The same applies to dishes. They tend to pile up stuff in the sink, even if the dishwasher is only five yards away.”

A pile, then, can result when a man doesn’t really care about its contents. But when it comes to a private hobby or an interest he is passionate about, a man will impose order; chronologically filed bank statements, for example. It’s all systems and shining neatness, and don’t you dare sully my vintage car with your tatty old sweet wrapper.

If you look at the larger picture, says Phillip Hodson, “Men like to leave tracks behind them. They like to prove they exist by creating a rumpus in the world: I’m big, I’m noisy, you can see where I’ve been.” In this context, a pile, in all its random, chaotic glory, is proof that a man is important. Just look at the evidence of what he did last week, all jumbled up in a nice big heap.

So what’s a woman to do? If you’re desperate, heave his pile into a black plastic sack and put it in the loft. If he doesn’t notice after two years, burn it. Alternatively, tidy up with brutal efficiency and tell him you’re thinking of putting the house on the market.

KNOW YOUR PILES

The Eiffel Tower: A combination pile built on wide foundations. May contain coins
The Viennetta: Carefully constructed layers of white envelopes and pizza flyers
The skyscraper: Mainly newspapers. May contain What Car? magazine
The whopper: A pile of gargantuan proportions with, at its core, an empty box (mobile phone, iPod, etc)
The cowpat: A thrown-together heap. Will contain fluff