Beware the Cleaner

What everyone should ask a  cleaner before employing them.

The all important question to ask a prospective cleaner is — Not, have you got a police clearance not worth the paper it’s written on document? Not, are you reliable? Not, have you got references?

The question to ask is — are you a writer?   

If the answer is yes – don’t employ them – believe me.  I’m a writer who’s cleaned plenty of houses. When times have been lean I’ve gone out to clean. And what has always floored me, is the amount of security people installed into their homes. Because when I look around me, and think, okay if I broke into this home what would I steal? Well, quite, honestly, the selection is poor.  Bugger me, if I know why people think their possessions are so precious that people would want to steal them.  Houses crammed with electrical goods attached to countless power points, and enough furniture to make IKEA blush. Nah. These things are hardly tempting, besides how would I get a lounge suite into my puny car?

But being a writer, I steal something much more, I steal lives. I steal sights, sounds, smells, histories recorded in photographs and certificates hung proudly on walls. I steal people’s idiosyncratic ways, their behaviours, how they treat their pets, their children, their neighbours. I steal their insecurities mirrored throughout their conversations and houses and front and backyards. I steal so much. Yet I always leave their houses looking immaculate and clean and with a nice smell. Not a trace of things having been stolen.

Then, from all the things I’ve stolen, I distill into words. Threaded throughout my writing are all the people whose houses I’ve cleaned, and stolen from.

There is no such thing as being secure when a writer set their sights on you.

So next time, before employing a cleaner, ask — do you write?