How Clean is Your House?

The other day I was watching T.V. and thought I’d stop by my new favorite channel, BBC AMERICA. I came across a show called How Clean is Your House. I was almost afraid to watch but since I had already viewed all my DVR’s cache of The Real Housewives of Atlanta I decided to see what this show was all about.

According to the BBC AMERICA web site, the two women who star on the show, Kim Woodburn and Aggie Mackenzie, are unstoppable hygiene experts who get to see inside some of the dirtiest homes imaginable and meet the occupants.

Why? Why do they want to do this? I was so horrified during my viewing of this show that I threw up in my mouth a little and washed my hands 17 times.

They showed the home of this couple and it was sofa king dirty I could not wrap my head around it. The inside of their microwave looked like an autopsy had been performed in there and there was so much filth in their family room I covered my eyes.

Then, they showed the bedroom of the mom and dad and they zoomed in on their bookcase and it was filled with books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover and 101 Sexual Positions and yet their room was sofa king dirty that I was like not only is their bedroom dirty but their minds are too and then I started thinking about hygiene and sex and the top of my head BLEW OFF!!!!!

Then, they took swabs off their kitchen counters and let that shit grow in petri dishes. They were able to identify about 15 strains of reallybadstuff that could give you everything from diarrhea to Ebola. And the mom was all like, “yeah that’s pretty bad.” And then Kim and Aggie mention that the home has not been cleaned in TEN YEARS.

These people are so filthy I imagine big greasy shimmering waves of stink coming off of them a la pigpen. They have probably spread Ringworm all over the U.K.

Luckily, Kim and Aggie (who totally have their work cut out for them and probably gossip endlessly about all the slobs whose homes they have to fix) get everything cleaned up and give the mom and dad a little pep talk about MAINTENANCE because they are coming back in a few weeks to see how the house looks. I felt really sad at one point because the couple has two children and the kids mentioned (on camera) how they did not want to invite their friends over because they were so embarrassed about the condition of their home.

Their mom better keep the house in order or I will totally fly over there and slap the shit out of her. She needs to mommy up and keep that house clean for her children.

However, I should probably point out that on the cleanliness spectrum, the dirty mom is on one end and I am on the other. For as long as I can remember, even in college where being messy was as normal as selling your textbooks back for beer money, I have been really particular. I get anxious and stressed when things are dirty and I am calmed by cleaning. I also really get off on the smell of new carpet. Whatever.

Having a husband and two kids has put quite a kink in my preferred environment. I simply cannot keep up sometimes (yet you will never find our germs living in a big fucking colony on the kitchen countertop).

I have been, ahem, told by some that I am a little too anal about the cleanliness of my home. But I challenge you to find a floor you cannot eat of of or a toilet you might not drink from in my house. As a housewife, this is my job. My home SHOULD be spotless because I am here all day to clean it.

But P.S.? Everyone needs to start wiping their asses a whole lot better around here or else their underwear is going to disintegrate from all the bleach I am forced to pour into the washing machine. I asked Amy one day, “what age do boys stop having all these skids in their underwear”? And she’s like, “Tracey, do you DO Dave’s laundry? Hmmmmm, so apparently never. None of the people that live in my house can be bothered to do a good job with this small detail of personal hygiene. I have Cottonelle wipes in every bathroom and still no.

And Dave thinks he’s covert about his underwear because he replaced all his tighty whiteys with dark colored briefs. Yeah, not foolin’ me. Besides, I just wait until there’s a pile and then I quarantine them in their own load.

A lot of this cleanliness just comes naturally to me. It’s not like I have to think about whether something is gross or not. Either it is, or it isn’t. Here are some of my tips:

Do not ever fill one of your own roasting pans with water so you can soak your feet in it before you give yourself a pedicure. Go to the nail salon like the rest of us. I assure you that Top Nails will not soak your feet in their foot bath and then try to bake a roast in it. (They may, however, give you the fungus).

And don’t put your big plastic mixing bowl by your child’s bed when they have the stomach flu. People! People! People! I can’t take it. And I will NEVER eat at your home ever again.

And to my twin sister Trish, who is the Oscar to my Felix, I love you but please don’t act shocked when I completely gross out after you tell me you have stored your dead cat in the freezer “because it’s going to be a couple days before I can bury her.” And then don’t act all indignant when you offer to give me the freezer when you are moving out of your townhouse in Austin and I TURN YOU DOWN. I am still not over the dead fly I found in there when I was visiting you back in ’04. It’s really sweet of you to offer but no. Fly+cat=nofuckingway.

So, in conclusion. I am the most anal person you will ever know. I can’t help it and I’m not sure I really care. Clean=good. Dirty=bad.

And you? Are one or the other. So either keep it clean or be dirty and don’t tell me about it. Because seriously? I do not want to know.