Gen Z: Big news. I’ve found a cleaner.
Boomer: Cleaner? You have a studio flat!
And?
It can’t be that hard to keep clean. It’s like Tom Thumb hiring staff for his matchbox.
Size-ist! Anyway, The Times says all Gen Zs are hiring cleaners. It’s the ‘ultimate modern luxury’.
In my day, luxury meant branded bin bags – not hiring someone to clean two square metres of laminate.
Tell that to the 40 per cent of Gen Zs using professional cleaning services.
Forty per cent? What are you all doing that’s so exhausting you can’t wipe down a surface?
Working, duh. According to The Independent, we don’t have sufficient time thanks to longer office hours, social lives, childcare…
I raised three children, worked full time and bleached the loo every Saturday.
Good for you, TBF*. But Checkatrade says demand for cleaning services has surged 142 per cent since 2023.
It’s called laziness. What’s next? Hiring someone to brew your matcha? Charge your phone? Blink for you?
Home help: Mrs Hinch shows Gen Z how it’s done
IJBOL*. I agree with what Ideal Home says – for youngsters, cleaners are an easy way to protect domestic harmony.
Domestic harmony? You’re talking about wiping a hob, not hosting the G7 summit.
According to the magazine, multiple studies show having a cleaner reduces relationship arguments.
I hate to break it to you, but if your marriage can’t survive an argument about who’s changing the Hoover filter, it won’t survive full stop.
What’s a Hoover filter? Anyway…then there are the ‘cleanfluencers’.
Let me guess: Californian 20-somethings filming themselves wiping a floorboard soundtracked by inspirational music?
Nah, most are from Essex. Like Mrs Hinch, who’s racked up nearly five million followers showing off her pristine home.
Surely the only thing more boring than doing your own cleaning is watching someone else do theirs?
In the words of The Times, it’s not just about the cleaning. It’s about the ‘aspirational’ obsession of having a spotless house.
In my day, the only ‘inspiration’ to clean came from Kim Woodburn publicly shaming ‘filthy buggers’ on How Clean Is Your House? in the early noughties.
Kim who?
You know, Kim and Aggie. They wore skirt suits, heels and latex gloves with pink feathers to deep clean people’s grubby homes.
OK, not sure what ‘cleaning’ shows you’ve been watching…
Forget it. If you’re bothered about a clean home, why not just do it yourself?
NGL*, I can’t.
Tosh. As my grandmother used to say: ‘Can’t and won’t are very different things.’
No, us Gen Zs legit can’t. That’s why there are TikTok videos with millions of views explaining how to do basic cleaning tasks.
You need a video to teach you how to Cif a toilet?
Noughties domestic goddesses Aggie Mackenzie and Kim Woodburn
Yes. TikToker @CleaningWithIda has 1.8 million followers who she teaches to clean sinks, showers and kettles.
God help us.
Her tips are fire. Do you know lemon removes limescale from a kettle?
Yes, I do. Just like every single woman old enough to remember Shake n’ Vac adverts.
But TBH*, I still prefer TikToker @TheLatentVariable.
Let me guess, she shows you how to make your own bed?
Nah. She says ‘outsourcing cleaning’ is a necessity, because she doesn’t have the ‘mental capacity’ to scrub a floor and gets ‘overstimulated’ by mess.
If I had ever uttered the words ‘mental capacity’, I’d have been sectioned.
She hasn’t even got a job, she’s a student. She just needs a professional cleaner so she’s ‘more comfortable and productive’ while studying.
You know what I call that?
Beauty and the bleach?
The eternal madness of the spotless mind.
*TBF = To be fair.
*IJBOL = I just burst out laughing.
*NGL = Not gonna lie.
*TBH = To be honest
