19: How to Clean Everything with Ann Russell
Today I’m joined by one of my favorite TikTok creators, Ann Russell. She has 1.9 million followers and is the author of How to Clean Everything: A Practical, Down to Earth Guide for Anyone Who Doesn’t Know Where to Start.
Show Highlights:
Why we all deserve to feel safe in our homes and unjudged on standards that we don’t deem important
How Ann has come to know how to clean everything
Why every cleaning task follows the same process: “Find the solvent that dissolves the stain without damaging the surface.”
How Ann creates a safe space for people to ask their cleaning questions without shame
Why much of our care/cleaning task knowledge is bound up in the romanticization of our identity
How Ann approached housekeeping tasks at home when her four children were young
How Ann responds when her career as a professional cleaner is belittled
Why basic cleaning tasks shouldn’t cost a lot of money or take a lot of time
How consumption and capitalism impact how we feel about our homes
Why keeping a perfect home doesn’t protect you from bad things in life or bring success and happiness
How “Cleanliness is next to godliness” has been used as a big stick against certain groups of people
Why people grow up thinking they are “bad people” when they cannot keep house
How to tackle old crayon marks off walls
Resources:
Connect with Ann Russell: TikTok
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
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KC Davis 0:00
Oh hello you sentient balls of stardust. This is the Struggle Care Podcast, the podcast that wants to help you take care of yourself, even when life is hard. I'm your host, KC Davis. And today I'm talking to one of my favorite Tiktok creators Ann Russell. Ann, say hello,
Ann Russell 0:22
Hello. I'm pleased to be here.
KC Davis 0:24
I am so glad you're here. So Ann Russell if you guys don't know Ann Russell, she has a bigger following on Tik Tok than I do, which I noticed this morning. You've got 1.9 million followers on Tiktok, which is incredible. You're also an author, your book, How to clean everything a practical down to Earth Guide for anyone who doesn't know where to start. And when is the release date for this book,
Ann Russell 0:48
First of September. I think we're aiming for young fledglings going off to university young people leaving the nest for the first time when they finally graduated. And I think that's the aim.
KC Davis 0:59
Love it. So first of September, is your UK date? And is there a US release date?
Ann Russell 1:05
There is I believe it's in January, I think it's something odd like the ninth of January. I keep looking but it changed at one point. I think it's the seventh of January. But yeah, January.
KC Davis 1:16
Okay, so I recently bought my first housekeeping book, because I thought, well, you know, I need some information. And I can't remember the title of it. But it was like one of the most popular ones, at least in the US. And I get like a couple of paragraphs into the introduction. And all I could think was like, I can never recommend this book to any of my followers, because she starts off and she's kind of like waxing poetic about, like, the beauties of housekeeping. And like, she just kind of turns it into a very like, as I stepped into my femininity, and I was like, it's just, it's everything that I try to strip away from care tasks and my content, you know, like, okay, they're just functional, like they have nothing to do with you as a person. So that's one of the reasons I can't wait to see your book. No,
Ann Russell 2:05
I mean, I have always said that the only thing that a spotless house tells you is that somebody has a spotless house. There's no moral value to cleanliness whatsoever. Some people value it very highly, and that's fine. Other people really don't care. And as long as they can, my only slight caveat to that was if you do start restoring your way in bottles, go to a doctor because they can help with that, that's probably stepping over into something that is needs proper help. But you know what I mean, as long as you you deserve to feel safe in your own home. And part of feeling safe, is not feeling judged on standards that you don't find important. Some people don't find reading important, and don't ever read. Some people don't find cleaning important, and don't ever clean. And that's fine.
KC Davis 3:00
I like it when you said you know, you deserve a safe environment. And I feel like that's kind of where it starts like you deserve a safe environment. You deserve a sanitary environment, you deserve a functional environment. And if that's hard for you, you deserve compassionate and non judgmental help. And speaking of non judgmental, I think the reason why your account blew up is because you're one of the few sort of cleaning accounts that doesn't bring all of this kind of perfectionism and snootiness and judgment into cleaning. And so I'm just curious like, well, first of all, why do you know how to clean everything? Let's start there.
Ann Russell 3:37
I have done it for my main source of income for nearly 20 years. So a lot of it I learnt on the job. And that's so that's it. A lot of it is also basic chemistry and common sense. But that's how I know how to do it.
KC Davis 3:53
And you really know how to do it. Like, I'm so impressed. I was going through some of your Tik Toks today. Because when people ask you questions about how to clean things, it's not just what I consider, like the basics. I mean, I wrote out so like you have tiktoks on how to clean smoke off of walls, how to get superglue out of car seats, how to get ink off of air pods, spray paint out of quilts, and my favorite bike tire marks off of a wall. It's like there's nothing that you don't know how to clean.
Ann Russell 4:23
Well, the thing is, it's all the same. It's exactly the same all cleaning, every single step of it is the same thing. You have to find a solvent to remove the stain that doesn't damage the thing that the stain is on. And when you've solved two of those, you've got it not all stains can be removed. It is very possible that some things dyes are not made to be removed. They are by their nature designed to be permanent. Some things can't be removed, but other than that if you can find out what dissolves the thing that you've spilt. And as long as it doesn't damage the thing that it's on, you should be able to get it out. Sometimes you can't, and whatever, but at least if you work that one you think, Okay, start with the superglue. What dissolves superglue, acetone, it's on fabric. If it won't damage the fabric, I do put caveats to that, because it's very volatile. And it needs to soak. And it can be quite hard to get the acetone to non evaporate before the super glue, because it goes like that. But it's all the same. It's exactly the same thing from start to finish, know what you've got no, what removes it from the thing that it's on. And if it damages the surface, so on, you've got to work out what's more important the surface of the stone?
KC Davis 5:44
Well, I love that there really is quite a bit of skill and knowledge that goes into cleaning. And I love that for two reasons. Number one, I think that a lot of us, particularly women are those that were socialized as women somehow got the message that like the ability to clean and do other care tasks, is some sort of like, innate thing we should possess. And so we feel guilty or ashamed if we're not good housekeepers if we don't know how to clean something. And I think when we put it up as there's like real skill and knowledge, so if you didn't grow up with a caretaker that taught you how to do those things, and I think sometimes there's almost that extra shame on top of it, it's not just I don't know how to clean my AC filter, it's, and if I asked for help, or if I let anyone know, I'm also sort of tipping my hand to the fact that like, I didn't have anyone show me this. I'm lacking in this, you know, area, I'm not a valid adult. And I find you so comforting, because one of the things I noticed is that you're one of the few cleaning accounts, where people aren't just asking like, hey, how do I get grass stains out of pants? How do we get this but people are so used to you being a non judgmental space, that you're one of the few places that people will come and say I've got maggots, how do I get rid of them? Right? Like I've got smoke? How do I get rid of them? I've got fruit flies, urine stains mold, like how do I get rid of these things? And I'm just I'm kind of curious, like your thoughts on? I know, so there's a lot of cleaning accounts on tick tock, sort of affectionately referred to as clean talk. Why is it you think that your account is the one that seems to be a safe place for people to ask those questions?
Ann Russell 7:25
I think I try and set the bar. Not at all. As far as I'm concerned. There are no okay. There are some bad questions. There are some really icky questions, and they're nothing to do with cleaning. There are some invasive and unpleasant questions that humans ask other humans that are horrible, but most in asking how to do something. If you don't know something, you don't know it. So how are you going to find out if you don't ask I went to boarding school, I learned a fair bit weirdly, my main things was cooking. Many years ago, I was cooking because one of my aunts had been a professional cook, housekeeper all her life so she could cook. And my grandmother was very judgmental and would humped around my bedroom telling me I don't know, child, I'm dog tired. You could do this to me. And I would be crying while she tidied up. And I couldn't do it. I didn't understand how she did it. And then I went to boarding school. And when I first left boarding school, I remember standing in a bedsit and I had dirty dishes. And at the time you had to put money into a meter and you had a little gas heater that you've and I couldn't get glasses to be not sticky. And of course, now I'm older, I needed rubber gloves and hot water. But I couldn't work out how to do it. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. And there was no one to ask. So I threw them away. And now I do know how now I've learned this stuff. I figure. Other people deserve to know if they don't ask.
KC Davis 8:50
I'm literally like, I don't know what it was that really hit me. But I was tearing up when you said if people don't know something, then they don't know something with theirs. That doesn't mean anything. And I think so many of us for different reasons, have internalized this message that if I don't know something that is something to be embarrassed about that reveals a lack of something in me and I remember from a young girl, my mom always tells stories about this. I didn't want to do anything I didn't already know how to do. And I remember really specifically sort of looking around early in my life and feeling like I must have just gone to the bathroom when God was like handing out directions on how to do life to everyone because it seemed like everyone else knew how to do things. And I didn't. And I was gifted in some ways. So there were things that I intuitively was very good at. But I think sometimes the downside to that is if I wasn't automatically good at something if I couldn't automatically Intuit something. I felt like that was too vulnerable to explore. I either had to know how to do it or I was not going to do it at all. And I think that there's something really powerful About taking what a lot of people consider to be, well, you should just know this and kind of making it a safe space to go. I mean, maybe, but maybe not. And like, at the end of the day, you don't know what you don't know. And there's nothing wrong with not knowing.
Ann Russell 10:14
In fact, there is always a certain, I think it's very much put on women is that they should be good at things competent at things, you should have great hair, you should be well dressed, you should be good looking, you should have good hands, your food should be amazing. You have these list of bars that you're expected to meet. And not only are you expected to meet them, you're expected to care about them. And a lot of it, I think, is predicated on the idea that you should be this fictional being that we've all heard of. And of course, with television, and magazines, we have all seen, you know, in the Victorians had it, you know, the perfect mother, you know, with a cool hand, Gone With the Wind, if you think Scarlett O'Hara, who was a poisonous woman, her mother was this perfect woman with cool hands. This icon of perfection, it's a trope that comes up through all sorts of literature. And when we can't measure it, we feel inferior, we feel wrong.
KC Davis 11:30
And it makes it hard to learn life skills and domestic tasks because they feel like, you know, okay, I want to learn the law or I want to learn chemistry, I want to add things. It's like, okay, I'll go to school and learn it. And but like, knowing chemistry versus not knowing chemistry doesn't have anything to do with your being or your worthiness or your ability to adult. But what I find is just like that housekeeping book that I got so much sort of basic care tasks, knowledge is really bound up in this like romantic story of identity. Right? Like you see, women who sometimes post online about their homemakers, their stay at home parents, they like to bake they like to do this, which here's the thing, like cool, like those are cool things to like, but they can't just come out and say like, I like baking bread. Here's how you bake bread, it has to be like I was meandering through the woods, barefoot, really thinking about my femininity and my place in the family. And little, you know, Jerry was next to me and just thinking about what it means to be a mother, and to be hospitable and to make a home. And it's like, everything has to be all wrapped up in this like, I don't even know,
Ann Russell 12:47
it makes you feel like a terrible parent. You know, it's interesting. My children, I mean, I have four children. They're all adults now. They kind of remember things from their childhood that I don't really remember. I mean, some of their childhood was distinctly rackety and chaotic. But it's interesting that some of the things that they remember, are times when I just kind of threw the rules out that my son was quite young. He was a little oddball, and he had a birthday party. 10 or 12 of his kids came around middle of the summer, hot day. And, you know, it was, what 30 years ago, you know, bowls of crisps and cake and stuff. And we were going to play party games, and even then that they had quite a lot more money. So they were used to like bouncy castles and clowns, and it was meat with a bowl of crisps. And they were all kind of you know how they do and I think he must have been about eight. And in the end, I just thought I don't know what to do with these kids. And it was a lovely summer's day, and out the back we had a field. So I took them up into the field waved a five pound note and said, the first person who can catch a cricket gets a fiver. And that was it for an hour. They ran around the field trying to catch cricket, which is actually really quite difficult unless you're quite slow and paid. And then we all trooped back in nobody having caught a trick, and I said with food, and in the end, I just looked at them and they're just kind of drooped again. So I threw a bowl of crisps at one of them and said food fight and left. Just left them in, just left them in the front room, hurling Christmas each other it was fine. I let the dog in it was you know, it took half an hour to clear up but they had a really nice time. And all of them remembered it the next week as being a really good party because they'd been allowed to do something that they weren't allowed to do. They were allowed to do something that was forbidden. I don't think any of the mothers ever spoke to me. But they had a nice time and my son remembers it.
KC Davis 14:49
And you know what comes to my mind is like okay, let's say that that's the day that I've had as a mother, right? Because, you know, I wanted them to have fun they had fun. And then I go in and everyone goes home and I Notice that there's like a maybe a grease stain, right on one of the couch cushions and I'm going okay, well, I want to know how to get that out. And I think it's really nice what you've done with both your account and what I can only imagine with your book, which is offer this like morally neutral, non judgmental space to go, how do we learn how to get, you know, grease out of a couch cushion from a place that isn't coming from almost like a Better Homes and Gardens, which is a really popular magazine we have here, right, where it's like someone has to bemused about how important it is to keep your cushions clean. It's like, can we just, you know, it reminds me of like when you try to get a recipe and there's like a whole blog before you get to the recipe. That's kind of how a lot of cleaning information is like it's buried in these, like, what makes a house a home. And it's like, just tell me how to get the grease out.
Ann Russell 15:54
Yeah, what makes a house a home is not a perfect home, I think probably you like me, I was made to feel horrible, because I couldn't keep tidy. It made me feel small and upset, and that nobody wanted me. And my kids didn't care about Greece on the sofa, or the cat sleeping on their pillow, what they cared about were completely different things. And if I had concentrated on keeping my home perfect, they would not have been able to do the things that they cared about. So it was the choice of one or the other. And I knew that if I had enforced cleanliness on them, they would have been miserable and unhappy. And I didn't want to do that. And so I really didn't. But I did learn how to get the worst of marks out of things. Because obviously, it's something I remember saying when they were quite small, when they would come home covered in mud would be oh my god, look at the state you're in. Well, they that's why they invented soap powder, washing powder, to get, you know, mud out of clothes. That's why we have washing powder. If it's there, it gets marks out for reason, because people make marks. And like you said it's morally neutral. It doesn't matter.
KC Davis 17:13
So you mentioned earlier that when it comes to cleaning, there are no bad questions. But there are certainly bad questions people ask online. And one of the things that comes up on your account that I've noticed is people who will try to belittle or put you down because your profession is a professional cleaner. And I think that you have the most refreshing response to that. And so what do you tell people when they try to sort of push back and say that? Well, that's not a real career, or, you know, we can't listen to you because that job is somehow beneath these other jobs.
Ann Russell 17:49
I am in a position of enormous privilege, because I do have a degree. So I'm quite happy to wave a piece of paper and go Well, there is that but but actually, I'm online, you're asking me questions, no job. Every single job matters. When the pandemic happened, we needed truck drivers, we needed cleaners, we needed people to pick up the rubbish we did not need hedge fund managers, we did not need a lot of professions that people are taught to I mean, we kind of need in Judges and barristers. But you know, realistically speaking, when the shit hits the fan, you need, you know, surgeons cannot operate if they do not have a clean operating theatre, they cannot manage without porters to lift patients onto trolleys and move them. Every job is valuable, and should be treated with dignity. And if you can do a job and do it with an amount of professionalism and pride and do it well. And it puts food on the table and it keeps a roof over your head. You should be incredibly proud of the fact that you've done those things, especially against all the odds.
KC Davis 19:12
I love that about you. And I love that you and like you said there's an incredible amount of skill and knowledge that goes into your ability to know how to clean all of these things. And I appreciate that you have this sense of I mean in you said pride but it's honestly more of just a steadiness of yes, this is my profession, I work really hard at it. I have an incredible amount of knowledge and skill and it is useful and necessary. And what I really admire about you is the ability to do that and also be able to say the cleaning itself is morally neutral.
Ann Russell 19:52
Absolutely. Because it is it is the least thing right the basics of cleaning are so simple Are most things and I've watched you do it when you're showing people do your put a timer tidy up in 15 minutes, you have a cloth, a cloth with hot soapy water. And that gets rid of most things. It shouldn't be a big complicated affair. It should be simple and freeing. If something is bothering you, people get, you can walk into homes of people who are chronically depressed, and they can be really quite grotty. But a lot of the reason that they grotty isn't that they are too depressed to do cleaning, they are unable to think their way through cleaning all of it, it's such a big job. And if you allow the majority of keeping things clean is actually a simple process that doesn't need to take hours of your time, it doesn't need to cost a lot of money that most people can keep most places reasonably clean, and hygienic, in a few a small space of time before they go to work. And a little bit of time when they go home and keep it manageable, then people are less likely to get into that state because they feel that they can cope with it. And if you can cope with something, you can do something if you haven't a messy room, if you put away one tin can more than you get out every single day, eventually, your space will be clear, it just takes longer than if you did it all at once. But you don't have to do it once.
KC Davis 21:50
Well, and it seems so connected to most of the spaces, whether it's print magazine books online, that sort of make care tasks, their main subject matter or content, right, I'm thinking like over here we have HGTV right, we have the fixer upper shows we have the books on house cleaning sort of like that. I think that because what dominates those spaces are these like perfectly tidy houses and these beautifully decorated living rooms, and you know, the the man or the woman and they're crisp, clean clothes with their hair done perfectly, right sort of the Martha Stewart atmosphere. And I think that that being the main representation of hey, here's how we could go and learn how to do care tasks and care for ourselves. It's almost like it becomes its own ethos instead of just information so that you can be comfortable and live your life. And so it makes sense why someone's looking at their messy room and going well, if I can't turn it into that. If I can't turn it into like what a Pinterest board says a clean, nice room from a real adult should look like, what's the point of even putting 110 Can't away.
Ann Russell 23:03
I mean, of course, you also have to look at it this way, capitalism, if you this is aspirational. But actually what they're trying to do is make you spend money on things that you don't need. I mean, let's be honest here. You know, I mean, you can see there behind me is a dresser with Old China on it. None of that is necessary to me. I mean, I happen to like it. I never clean it. It's thick with dust. But we are all treated as consumers. And we are taught from a very young age that consumption is a morally good thing to do. And we are taught that from quite young. So we see these aspirational shows and you go out and you buy the cushion covers you buy the throw, you buy the incredibly expensive, beautiful ornate sofa that you've seen, forgetting, of course, that you have three ginger cats and it's green and it's not going to last because you buy that and then you feel a failure and you're taught that to make feel better. You go and buy more stuff you buy scented disinfectants and wonderful sprays and bombs and you end up with this huge vat of things and no clue what you're doing no clue and all you know is that you are a failure. Because you have done all these things that you believed would give you this temple of perfection and all it's done is make you broke and feel pretty useless. And none of that stuff has got anything whatsoever to do with having a sanitary clean and functional home.
KC Davis 24:51
It's sort of a timely recording because I went to Target do you know about target don't have target in the UK.
Ann Russell 24:59
We Do not have target in the UK. That's probably a good thing.
KC Davis 25:04
Sad. Yeah. So I went to target this morning and I needed socks and hair ties for my kids. But of course, I found myself in the vacuum cleaner, I'll I own two vacuums three, I own a robot vacuum, a mop vac, and then an old like Shark vacuum that just vacuums. And I'm looking at the vacuum cleaners. And I swear I came so close to buying one because like it promised that it had this like one extra function and would do like two degrees better than the other ones. And I really had this moment of like, KC Davis, this is madness, you cannot purchase, this is how you ended up with stuff like you cannot purchase another vacuum cleaner. But it does. It's this promise of it'll be easy. It'll be better. It'll be and I did I'm really proud of myself for walking away without buying a fourth vacuum cleaner. But no, you're right. I mean, it is certainly. And what I've noticed is that it's fun to watch, you know, videos of people cleaning things from top to bottom. It's fun to watch home decorating shows and things like that. But I think the mistake that a lot of us make is that we're watching this really aesthetically pleasing, visual, and consuming that visual via our eyeballs gives us a good feeling. Right? Like even like, I look at a picture of the beach. And I'm like, wow, like it gives me a good feeling to watch something like that. And I think the mistake that we make is then going okay, if watching this makes me feel this way that if I could figure out how to make my home look like that all the time, then I would always feel this way. That's not actually true.
Ann Russell 26:40
No, it's not actually true. And it's like the other one that we are sold that ties into it as much is that most people don't have enough money. The majority of people, you know, just the way of our society goes at some people have an awful lot of money and an awful lot of things. And some people have very little, I am quite privileged in that I know people who have lots of money, and I know people who have nothing. And I know from my own personal knowledge that just because you have lots of money, you are not necessarily a happier person, your life. Sure, if you've got lots of money, while the bad things of life are happening to you, you are not also worrying about having enough to eat and having a roof over your head, which is great. But it doesn't protect you from the real problems that life throws at you the curveballs, the illnesses, the deaths, the all of those things, they happen to everybody. And neither does having a perfect home protect you from any of the really bad things that happens to humans. It's so unimportant. Like you said, you're breadcrumbed into thinking that if you have this, your life will be wonderful, you will feel great. Your children will love you. And they'll talk screaming at you. And you won't have this little infested net written grot demon who's biting your fingers because all you're trying to do is render some small portion of them slightly cleaner. You know what that happens to people who've got millions still have small, sticky grop demons that they have to put in water to render clean, and they still bite
KC Davis 28:39
in. It's such an unfair trap for I think women in particular, because the visual that we're sold about, like what success means as an adult to have a home is the amount of labor and money that it actually takes to have and maintain a home that looks like a magazine cover, you would either have to have enough money to pay someone to do that 24/7 Or you would have to have nothing else going on in your life. And so to sort of sell us this idea that this is what success means this is what legitimate adulthood is this is what good parenting or being a good spouse or good woman looks like. And then for there to actually be no way to pull that off. Unless you have tons of money and still live some sort of meaningful life is like such a jerk thing to do to women. ,
Ann Russell 29:40
Oh, yeah absolutely. And it's really, really unfair. And I have to be honest here. I mean, it's my generation. I'm pushing 60 And I remember the things that we were taught to do and have and value and we chucked down to our children and our grandchildren, whilst removing the means, I mean, in the UK, and when I was growing up, you know, university education was free. We just about still have a free health service. But, you know, things were nationalized you paid for that there were relatively lots of jobs. So you were told that you got a good education, you went to go got a good job, you stayed in that job, until you retired, somebody bought you a gold watch. And then if you're a man, you played golf, and if you were a woman, you drank tea polished your husband's in a bald spot and played a lot of bridge. And none of that is possible. Now, but there is still the lingering expectations of from when a time when women only middle class and professional class women did not work. working class women have always gone out to work to earn money and raised children, they have never had the luxury of staying at home. They have always have subsidize their income, whether by charging cleaning offices at two in the morning, taking in washing taking in mending or ironing, working class women have always had to labor and have always had to have lower standards. There is a huge connection as well. And it's something I just briefly touch on in the opening chapter of my book, the idea that cleanliness equals godliness has been used as a very big stick to beat people of color minorities, working class people, and keep them in line to fall in with this idea of the deserving poor. So people who had money could choose who was deserving of their philanthropy. It's all a very unpleasant, it's quite a bit of classism. And I mean, certainly in Britain, classism, trumps everything. All that unpleasantness is trumped by classism. It's the big thing. And it's an unpleasant idea. And occasionally, people come up. And if you notice, it's very obvious that quite often people who've been brought up from backgrounds that more deprived will quite often say, oh, cleanliness, well, we have not, but we clean because being clean really mattered. It was the thing that you can do that showed that you were a better person.
KC Davis 32:35
Yeah, I actually have that in my book as well, where I talk about hearing a comment and it was a commenter. And I wish I could remember who they were so that I could give them credit. But they basically talked about how growing up very poor, their grandmother used to say, we may be poor, but we will be clean. And it was like it was one of the ways to try and buffer some of the discrimination that you would get as a working class person as a person of color. And I love when people try to come at me with the cleanliness of godliness, because that happens in my comment sections, too. And I actually sat down and researched like, where did this phrase come from? Because a lot of people actually think that it was like a Bible verse, and it's not and I love, love now knowing the story of cleanliness as godliness, because what it came from, there was a famous minister, Wesley, who was giving a sermon. And this was like in the 1800s. And he was talking about a portion of the Bible that says, you know, don't dress in fancy clothes with gold in your hair, and, you know, act like you're better than other people, which was the point of the verse, right, don't show up and start eating before the poor people get there, right? Because the poor people are working and you're not. So don't adorn yourselves with gold and silver and fancy clothes and walk about town acting as though you're better than people. And he's always preaching on this. And he puts this caveat in there, where he says, Now, what I'm not saying is that you should be purposefully unhygenic because cleanliness is next to godliness. And he was specifically saying, you like no, it's still good to bathe like it's still good to take care of your body. I'm not saying ignore the body like that somehow holier and so first of all, I love that it originally it was referring to hygiene not like cleaning your house. I also love that the whole point that he was trying to make is that what you were and your you know, what you look like doesn't make you better than others. And somehow, that phrase cleanliness is next to godliness is now being used in that very way. Like if I'm clean, I'm a holier than you I'm better than you, but the The real kicker of the story speaking of capitalism, is that it the phrase didn't blow up until Ivory soap company made it a marketing slogan. Yeah. It's genius on their part. Yeah. But yeah, Ivory soap company popularized it from that Wesleyan sermon to sell soap.
Ann Russell 35:19
There was certainly in Great Britain, some of the big Cadbury, the chocolate, people, they built an entire kind of village to house their workers. But there were other things that they expected of them that they needed to go to church, that they should be so bad, that they shouldn't you know, that all of these things, they should do that they should not fall into vices. Because if you were a good, God fearing person, you were deserving of charity and employment. And if you weren't a God fearing person, clean and sober. You weren't deserving of a employment and be charity. And it's really unpleasant. And I mean, you certainly in Britain, with the industrial revolution, you got people moving into the towns for jobs, living in terrible, terrible conditions, because they needed the money. And that was, that was obviously no real laws. I mean, you know, if your your looms happen to kill children, they should have been a bit quicker, you need the little and but it was a way for the people who had to distance themselves from the harm that they were doing as well. Because they could just wash their hands and say, Well, we are, you know, these people, they go to church, they're good Christians. These people who don't arm and you're the Ivory soap thing makes complete sense, because it's also an of course, hundreds of years later, we're all feeling the guilt.
KC Davis 36:56
Yeah, it's no, I mean, I think that sometimes when you talk about cleaning, and when I you know, we write books about cleaning, and people at first have this stance, and everyone, everyone asked me what my book is about or what I do. And I'm like, Well, it's a book, it's called How to keep house while drowning. And I basically talked about cleaning and care task. There's sometimes this reaction from people about like, it's not really that deep is it. But once you start unpacking the amount of messaging and cultural implications that come with cleaning, care tasks, gender roles, capitalism, patriarchy, I mean, the whole bit, in 1000 different ways, those messages subconsciously creep into our day to day lives, and tell us that we're either Okay, or we're not okay. And the accumulation of that, on top of any actual struggles, stressors, or barriers that you're dealing with, can be sometimes the tipping point of really drowning or, you know, feeling like you're at least able to function.
Ann Russell 38:00
Absolutely. And I know, with you, you deal with care tasks, while suffering from stress, degrees of melt, mental illness, or whatever. And, you know, even certainly, when I was a young woman, autism was something that was not really, you know, I mean, we knew what autism was, it was people who were nonverbal. And basically, it was some deep and obvious malfunction somewhere. Now, obviously, we recognize along with everything else about being human, it's a spectrum. But things like add ADHD, were just not recognized. And looking back mothers who had children who had were on the autistic spectrum who had these issues, were just considered to be bad mothers. And it was very easy while trying to get to grips with a child who they were always taught was behaving like that because it was their fault, or the child was bad, or both. couldn't keep up with basic care stuff. It caused a lot of long term lasting harm that people are still feeling today.
KC Davis 39:11
Yeah. And then you look at the things that that mother can't keep up with, because she's dealing with extra energy expenditures with children that need more help. Well, not only that, but then whatever she's not able to keep up with around the house as a result of having to spend extra energy with her kids that might have these legitimate barriers. That becomes the evidence of see that she's not a good parent. And that's what happens.
Ann Russell 39:34
And that chart grows up to believe that they are a bad person because they cannot do these things. And if they have children, this is then this cascades down the generations. It's not none of these subjects are small things. They cannot be dismissed. They need to be addressed and No doubt. Well, so
KC Davis 40:01
let me do I want to sort of wrap up with this, I have one question. And it's pertaining to your skill and knowledge about how to clean everything. And that is my kids have written on the walls with crayon, not a ton, just like a little bit here and there to where you don't notice it. But it's now been there for so long. That isn't it doesn't just come off with a wipe. And I'm not actually sure what you use to get like very old crayon off of walls.
Ann Russell 40:26
You can try melamine sponge which is what sold a stain on razors but don't buy them in boxes that cost a lot of money. I buy mine for 10 pence a pop because they as you wet the news and they disintegrate very quickly. white spirit I think it's sold as mineral spirit in America is the stuff you use to thin paint with and clean paint brushes with a little bit of that on a rag. It's the solvent for crayon, it removes crown just like that. If the wall is matte and porous, you may then find it leaves like a greasy mark and if that doesn't dry off, you then wash it with hot soapy water and get it off that way.
KC Davis 41:02
Thank you. I've always been too afraid to try anything because I'm afraid I'll take the paint off with whatever I'm trying to use to get the crayon off.
Ann Russell 41:09
Well that comes down to the you are trying to find the solvent for the mark without destroying the under sofa. However, when you are decorating, and you have got bits of paint left, you decant them into jars with screw top lids and label them with a broom because paint in a jet, you know, a jam jar with paint in it. The paint stays fresh, it doesn't stay fresh. If you've got two inches in the bottom of the big tub. Smart. You just repaint over.
KC Davis 41:36
Thank you so and where can people find you if they want to follow you online?
Ann Russell 41:41
I am on Tik Tok as @AnnRussell03, and @AnnRussell13 Is my backup account because if I get community validations they stopped me posting for a long time. However, I'm also on Instagram but to be honest, that's a site I'm mostly on Tik Tok. I'm technologically rubbish and I'm very lazy. Tik Tok suits me. There's only a couple of people on it. I just talked to phone. It's all good.
KC Davis 42:07
That's how I feel about Tiktok too. It's just I don't really know how to work. Anything else. All right, cool. Well, thank you. And and by the time you guys are listening to this, her book will be out, at least in the UK, how to clean everything a practical down to Earth Guide for anyone who doesn't know where to start. And if you're in the US, hang tight, because it'll be here soon. And it's
Ann Russell 42:25
on a Kindle. So if you want it on,
KC Davis 42:27
Oh, it's on Kindle.
Unknown Speaker 42:28
Get it on a Kindle or an audiobook or you do you read the audiobook? I do indeed.
KC Davis 42:34
Yes. I love that. Awesome. Well, I will be looking forward to consuming it as soon as I get my hands on it. And thank you again.
Ann Russell 42:43
Thank you for having me.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai