How Clean is Your House

My new favorite television show is "How Clean is Your House: US" on BBC America, not, as I mistakenly remembered yesterday as "Clean House" which is on another channel. From time to time we catch an issue of the UK version of "How Clean is Your House" which we also love.

"How Clean is Your House: US" is a riot with Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie, the two British ladies who channel Hyacinth Bucket of "Keeping Up Appearances". But they are nice Hyacinths, not her scheming, browbeating version.

This is the show that actually does swabs and grows cultures from the filth in one's house. They even grew cultures of the germs in the air at one dirty house where the owner was plagued with asthma and chronic coughing.

Gordon can testify to his persistent sinus infections and allergies when he lived as a bachelor in Texas with carpet.  Now with regular fresh clean bedding and no carpet and herbs and natural treatments, his sinuses are happy campers, and Gordon is a much happier fella. How do men survive without us women?

I like some of the mix-your-own cleaning product to, for example, polish brass, remove hard water stains on shower glass, etc. Some of those age-old recipes one would expect from a butler or upstairs maid in a stately English country mansion. Vinegar and salt and baking soda and lemon juice and bleach are common ingredients.

One of these ladies have a Cockney accent (Kim) and the other has a Scottish accent (Aggie). Their scolding at the dirty home owners is fun to hear! They and come dressed with To Die For shoes and dressy outfits and manicured long sculptured nails. Then they change to white lab technician outfits and colorful plastic gloves with feathers and bling. They are comedians, and Gordon and I enjoy their humor.

Now, I am a huge fan of all the ingredients mentioned in paragraph three, and we are always washing with vinegar and hot water to kill dust mites and germs in our pillows and comforters and sheets and mattress, floors, counters, dishes and glasses and utensils, etc...

An episode of "How Clean is Your House: US" consistently motivates me to pick out one project every day to disinfect and organize or tidy. "They" say that a new habit can be developed in a month of doing something consistently? Well,  my one month of doing some new house-keeping task per day will be rolling around pretty soon, and I like this forming habit!

Note: Health experts warn against using antibacterial hand soap ALL the time. One can be so obsessive about using antibacterial soaps that one's body does not make the necessary antibodies to fight off the germs that exist on our bodies naturally and all around us, wherever we go. I think I remember something about the antibacterial soap paying a small part in the rapidly developing hoard of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

I read a study recently about babies and children raised with pets in the house develop needed antibodies and thus have fewer allergies and asthma and respiratory problems in teenage and adult life. Cool!

Hmmnn...what shall be my project for today?  Maybe I will re-subscribe to the FlyLady email motivational list. I miss the silly approach to organized living. Do you know what a "27 Fling Boogie" is all about? Oooh La La, what fun you are missing!