How Clean is your House?

When Comcast offered us a bundle that included BBC America, I jumped at it. I wasn’t exactly starved for offerings from the BBC: the international edition of the news crops up everywhere, and because we live so close to Canada, we have regular access to CBC and such cultural gems as re-runs of The Benny Hill Show and Coronation Street. No, I thought that I might be able to watch shows which kept me abreast of current British thinking and ideology. I like the shows on Mystery Monday, but I’m not fond of the reality shows where people wander in and re-do their neighbors’ house or where gardeners create an instant landscape while the inhabitants of the house are off visiting their mum.


But then I found How Clean is your House? I have seen most of about four shows and although I am fascinated, I am not sure I can bear to watch many more. Our two protagonists, Aggie (nice Scots accent and glasses) and Kim (penchant for twin sets and pearls) come to the rescue of clueless individuals who live in unimaginable chaos and filth. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that no one has ever accused me of being too meticulous in my housekeeping, but even I have standards! In one case it looked like an intervention as a quite normal daughter tried to shape up her mother who was flitting around the house with chaplets of flowers and feathers on her head and communing with deities who didn’t preach cleaning. Then there was the artist who had been saved from disaster by her cat. Mishka was therefore allowed to perform her feline functions all over the carpets and the kitchen floor. In a couple of cases confused looking husbands aid and abet their wives with no clue about what needs to be done.

Kim and Aggie to the rescue. They are delightfully non-judgmental. Kim preaches the virtues of natural cleaners, wielding borax and vinegar while muttering, “Now, lovey, we can’t have his, can we?” Aggie takes samples to send to the lab and isn’t reticent about announcing the results: “Now you do know what e-coli is?” she asks firmly.

A team of cleaners comes in to banish rubbish and grease and cobwebs. Mishka’s offerings, too. There’s no attempt to paint or re-model, but the transformations are amazing. Our dynamic duo comes back a couple of weeks later to check up on their patients. The voyeur in me is fascinated, but the show leaves me depressed.

Anyone know where to buy the marabou trimmed rubber gloves?