Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Great tips and horrifying homes |
| Disadvantages: |
They'd better not see my house ! |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
How Clean Is Your House was first shown in the UK in 2003. It is basically about 2 glorified cleaners (Kim Woodburn and Aggie Mackenzie) that take over a house, rub the owners noses in all the dirt then do it up beautifully and bring the owners to tears, and a new twist this series - they go back and see whether they've managed to keep it clean.
The program is brilliant for picking up all sorts of stange but cheap ways of cleaning things
e.g. distilled white vinegar for removing limescale or denture cleaning tablets to clean the loo! They make it look so effortless you almost get off the sofa to attack yours.... then I sit back down and and laugh at someone else's loo instead!
HOW POPULAR IS IT?
The program is produced by 'Talkback' and is now in its third series on primetime Wednesday
Channel 4 TV. It was a massive ratings winner with 150% more viewers than the average prime time TV show (but then again, there never is anything to watch on a Wednesday so its not like it had competition!) but because its been such a sucess they've remade it in Germany as Die Putzteufel – Deutschland macht sauber on RTLII, and the Netherlands as Hoe Schoon Is Jouw Huis? on RTL4 and the cleaning madness seems to be spreading.
THE PROGRAM ITSELF
In each show it starts off by meeting the family, usually the mother is depressed, the father is a slob and the kids are the cleanest in the house but too ashamed of their parents to bring a friend around, although there are of course exceptions.
They then go round the house with the cameras and everybody sheaks and goes wide eye over the rubbish all over the floor, the cat mess everywhere, the brown (previously white) toilet and worst of all... the dreaded grillpan. Kim shouts several times 'Ohhhhhhh Aggie, come and look at this!!!' and Aggie gets out her petry dishes and cultures the dirt to see how much bacteria there is. In every show you are garanteed the house is over-run with bed bugs, dust mites, rats, mice, cockroaches, woodlice, maggots, or fleas, etc etc
You then get to see how they remove all the damp, mould, limescale, mildew, grease, animal hair, faeces, and remains, stains, and general grime from the house. They run the owner's noses into it, calling them 'filth offenders' and having no sympathy, saying phrases such as 'you may well choke, its your dust!'
They then get in a huge army of cleaners to finish the job off properly, but before letting them back into the house they show them the bacteria samples and the colour of the water from the carpet washing so they feel suitably guilty.
They lets the guests back in and show you before and after shots and they dont even recognise it as being their home. Everyone smiles and leaves and 2 weeks later Kim and Aggie come back to see if theyve managed to keep it looking the same.
BUT WHAT IF I FORGET THE TIPS?
The second series was also accompanied by a book (my cleaning bible) with all the best tips in so you dont forget whether the bleach was meant for the sink or the brightly coloured mat...
It retails at £12.99 but you can buy it much cheaper now from places like amazon. It goes through each room of the house and how best to tackle it, as well as suggesting what you should be doing and how often to keep your house looking like a show room.
FAVOURITES
And my favourites so far? Either the house over-run with cats where they found the skeleton of a dead mouse under the mat at the bottom of the stairs, or the one that was so infested with mice that there were even droppings in the grease in the grill pan!!!! Ewwwwww
HOW TO GET SOMEONE ON IT
If you know anybody that is daft enough to let the world know what a dirty slob they are, they can get on the show by phoning 0207 691 5243 or emailing hannah.brownhill@talkback.co.uk although I have to warn you, even Channel 4 draws the line at cleaning student houses!
The official website for the show is:
http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/H/how_clean_is_your_house/
AN ENDING THOUGHT
But I have to wonder if they are really like some builders - put all the effort into other people's houses and completely neglet their own..... Kim with her pile of fluffy gloves thrown into a heap on the kitchen floor and Aggie with the old bacteria samples still in her fridge...
