Somehow -even though I don't watch much network tv - last year I got hooked on a BBC offering known as How Clean Is Your House? Hosted by British cleaning techs Kim and Aggie, they somehow find their way into the most filthy, grime infested homes I've ever seen, and you have to wonder how the inhabitants of these places haven't already died of some wonderful disease.
Watching this show is actually good for me, though unsettling and the the goodness comes along in stages, mixed with a vague fear.
First, as I watch these two proper ladies mince their way through the roach and slime covered kitchen and climb the debris covered stairs [ as though the Blitz only happened in this neighbourhood last week, maybe] I feel relieved - even a little smug. This house I'm seeing on the screen makes my place look like Windsor Castle. But as I watch them scrub and fumigate and scold the occupants, an uneasy feeling begins to creep in...see what a little sloth can become? A few too many times of 'putting it off 'til morning?' A little folding of the hands and suddenly your family is being carried away by the health department, leaving you to sit in a pile of garbage out in the front yard - a local pariah in uneven pink underwear and socks, roasting an expired date hotdog over an open fire...
Feeling chastised, I switch off the set and slink anxiously off to scrub a toilet, or snatch an unsuspecting animal and plunge it into a bubble bath.

Does anyone else watch this show on the BBC? I stay fascinated week after week, no matter how difficult it is to watch.

There have been a few series of that over here. Like most reality shows, they get more extreme with each series. In the last series most of the people involved struck me as being in need of some sort of therapy, rather than having their dirty linen washed in public (literally!).

However, I do enjoy them. I'm no Mrs Beaton but they do make me feel rather smug about my own house, which would no doubt give Kim and Aggie minor palpitations! And yes, I do usually rush off and clean something after the show!

Aggie appeared in "Dancing on Ice" a few months ago. She was pretty trim but not very good at skating. She stayed in rather a long time, I think mainly because of her fan base and because of ladies of a certain age thinking "good on her"!

I love that show. What I can't figure out is why anyone would call them in. It's one thing to live in your own filth but to open your door and let everyone know what a pig you are just blows my mind. I too have some off days, but if anyone would show up on those days I wouldn't invite them in with a camera crew so that the whole world could see how long it's been since I cleaned the toilet.

Just reality tv at its worst - Aggie is great but Kim, the fat blonde one, is dreadful.

I think Aggie used to work for Good Housekeeping as a journalist many moons ago...

Cannot imagine anyone wanting to appear on the show, but nowt so queer as folks, so they say.

The only motive I can figure ? The money. [Do they pay these people to be humiliated -possibly investigated by local authorites in the bargain] Or perhaps their desire to be famous for a little while has overcome any sense of shame and keeping up appearances. It's a mystery, really. And I have to wonder if, in order to be chosen, one tends to 'slack off' a bit extra right before the interview, slinging a bit of extra garbage at the walls to give the place just that 'special over the top' feeling.

Ewwww not so sure about that KT, some of encrusted bathrooms are just too horrible to imagine and must have been a few months in the making..lol

I just cannot imagine why these two women want to get stuck into cleaning other people's mucky houses - would need more than long rubber gloves and a spaceman suit for me to want to do this, however much money I was paid.

Perhaps there is a method at work here. Say a family decides that possibly -if all the family members pitch in and do their part- their place could be verminous and condemned -looking enough to make next year's audition cut. And if the neighbours are in on the plan, maybe they are actually cheering the slackers on in their quest to be the filthiest house on the block.
It could happen, I guess, assuming one has no self esteem whatsoever to begin with.

Well, you DO get your house cleaned for you. Sounds good to me!

Might be the same allure that going on Jerry Springer has....

I don't know if I could stand to watch a show like this - I'm picking up guilt just sitting here at the computer.

No need to feel guilty, Agony. You would have to see these places to believe them. Often the floor is so encrusted [ not a nice word, but accurate] that it's hard to tell what the actual colour is. Mounds of cast off, worn clothing [ with the occasional stray chicken bone thrown in] and literally just a narrow path is cleared through a room to get from place to place. I'm sure most of us would feel quite superior watching HCIYH - and with good reason...that is until the panic sets in. Suddenly one feels the unreasonable need to alphabetise the spice rack or bleach the cat. A bit like how listening to a raspy voiced person makes you want to clear your throat.

It's the ones with cats and dogs that get me. There was one where a woman had some cats and they just went everywhere, and it was never cleared up. How do people live like that?

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I feel cynical every time I watch, but I can't help thinking that there's no way someone who contently existed in such squalor will keep things neat after the show is over...

I've seen a few episodes. Not very many keep it up afterwards. though.

I just wanted to add. Don't let your kids watch this show. My son (12) uses this as a defence every time I tell him to get in his room and clean it up.

That's funny, Theresa! Serve him his next meal on a filthy plate with filthy silverware to eat it and tell him that's your defense for not cleaning the kitchen.

I can't watch it, though I know the outcome is always superb, I just can't stomach seeing the filth. My question is this, has anyone gotten any good cleaning tips from watching this show? I'd love to hear them, which would be the only reason I would tune in if I could get past the gross factor.

Kim and Aggie, as much as possible, try not to use chemical cleaners. One thing I remember them using was vinegar and a touch of lemon zest.

Let's face it, Kim and Aggie don't actually do much of the cleaning, although I am sure they have in the past. I found using vinegar made my house smell like a chip shop.

I suppose the best cleaning tip I've picked up is to do some from time to time!

Some of the people I've seen have let things go during a particularly difficult time in their lives, and then when they finally get round to considering cleaning, they are totally overwhelmed. I think they're more likely to keep their houses in reasonable condition after the show, though probably not to Kim and Aggie standards.

Hmm what channel is this show on? It looks worth watching!

We get it on a BBC America channel, FineTip.

Who the heck let the cameras in my house!

I've only seen the show a couple of times, but the 'homes' were disgusting.

I'm just wondering, are there ever kids involved? I mean do these people subject their children to this filth? If so, they would be investigated at the very least, right?