A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home

October 2, 2023
Pateras, who dispenses housekeeping tips on TikTok, makes chores enjoyable in her bawdy debut. Sharing how she keeps her household in shape as a wife and mother of three while working full-time, Pateras explains that she prioritizes cleaning a little every day, reasoning that completing daily such small tasks as washing dishes or putting away toys makes easier her less frequent “deep cleans,” which involve vacuuming, dusting, and disinfecting. The plentiful tips are often surprising, as when the author notes that bleach yellows white fabrics over time and readers should instead use “bluing” products that counteract the yellow with blue pigment. Other “hacks” are simple yet clever; for example, she suggests that when hanging a picture frame, one can place a strip of masking tape across the hangers on the back of the frame, mark their positions in pen on the tape, and then put the tape on the wall to determine where to hammer in nails for hanging the frame. Throughout, Pateras’s ribald humor animates the advice (“I love balls... in my dryer,” she writes on preferring dryer balls to dryer sheets). Doing laundry has never sounded so fun.