During a prolonged bout of illness this fall, I started watching the BBC program How Clean is Your House. While watching it (as well as watching my house fall asunder of a horrible mess with no energy for cleaning) I've discovered many truths about keeping a clean house-- particularly how to do it and why it's important.
Truth 1: Most people who have horrible houses on the show used to have a clean house. While there are bachelors who never got into the cleaning habit, most of the time its families with many responsibilities who used to have a clean house, but it just sort of got away from them. I've seen this one true in life. The problem is when these things start adding up you end up overwhelmed. (For transparency's sake, I must add that I teeter on this point quite a bit.) If you keep up with the little things, then while you may not win the war you probably won't end up completely conquered either.
Truth 2: A dirty house can kill you. The most horrible thing about watching this show, as well as the most inspiring, is seeing all the people with health problems because their house is so messy. Dust mite, e-coli, and so many other nasties can hang out in your mess and give you asthma, allergies, and other illnesses. (Perhaps this is why I kept getting sick this fall, I couldn't resist thinking.)
Truth 3: You can't clean through clutter. You have to get rid of it to have a lovely house. There's no way around it, and in most cases it's not a case of disorganized stuff, but too much stuff.
