Overview

'Succeeds brilliantly in dismantling casual assumptions about the drudgery of cleaning - and about the kinds of people who do it for a living.' - THE GUARDIAN 'A jaw-dropping investigation' - THE BOOKSELLER 'A great book, well researched, funny and poignant. I loved it.' - KIT DE WAAL Dishing the Dirt tells the stories of Britain's house cleaners for the very first time. Drawing on extensive interviews, Nick Duerden hears from immigrants who clean suburban family homes to butlers who manage the homes of the super wealthy, from joyful cleaners and entrepreneurs to escaped victims of human trafficking, from women who dust nude and male cleaners who fear wandering hands. Discover what they really think of their clients and have all of your assumptions about cleaners turned upside down.

Full Product Details

Author:   Nick Duerden
Publisher:   Canbury Press
Imprint:   Canbury
Dimensions:   Width: 12.90cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 19.80cm
Weight:   0.230kg
ISBN:  

9781912454464

ISBN 10:   1912454467
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   17 September 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"AUTHOR'S NOTE. 'In the autumn of 2018, I set out to find out more about the individuals who [hoover, mop, polish, scrub and tidy] our homes. Over 15 months, I interviewed dozens of cleaners from all over the world who have settled, and now work, in London, and I asked them about their lives.' PROLOGUE: CLOCKING ON. We see the world through the eyes of a cleaner whose employer is having an extra-marital affair. Charts the history and rise of UK domestic help. Many cleaners come from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. 'Those that clean for Londoners are a silent army... What are their stories?' 1. THE ENTREPRENEUR. Yuliya arrived in Britain as a penniless cleaner from Bulgaria, speaking ""such bad English."" Now she drives a BMW and educates her children at a private school. She runs a cleaning agency in Surbiton, London, and has stories galore about the ""low status"" of foreign cleaners. 2. THE ACTRESS. Rosi is an actress from Spain - and wants to act again. But for now, she cleans. ""English people are not going to clean their own toilets, are they? I love English people. But, no, they wouldn’t do that. But then it’s the same in our country: it’s the immigrants that do certain jobs"" 3. SLAVE LABOUR. For most cleaning is a choice, but not for everybody. Amirah from Jakarta, Indonesia, was trafficked to London under the pretence she would earn £500 a month cleaning an embassy. She worked round the clock in a home in Acton, sleeping in a closet and eating on a doormat. 4. MIDLIFE CRISIS. Michele was a successful US music journalist, living a life of canapés, champagne and excess. At 49, she had kids, a husband and panic attacks. She moved into a bedsit and started cleaning. 'The ‘low status’ tag didn’t particularly bother her. She had learned a lot in rehab' 5. THE TRADE UNIONIST. 'Marissa is chief organiser here, the founder of The Voice of Domestic Workers. She is a 48-year-old Filipino who cleans during the week and arranges these classes at the weekend for her fellow cleaners to unwind. As well as dance, they are taught English, IT, and their rights' 6. THE LESSER-SPOTTED MALE. Many clients want a man to clean their home, says Mario, a lifelong Londoner whose family came from Malta. Perhaps they need the bed or sofa moved. Aged 60, Mario worked in the ticket office for London Underground for 27 years. He enjoys cleaning and his flat is spotless. 7. THE CLEANER RETURNED HOME. Many Eastern European women arrive in the UK with the dream of one day returning home to Poland or Bulgaria. Zofia, a Pole, met her Polish husband in the UK. He wanted to stay; she wanted a new life. Back in Wrocław, they had children, bought land and plan to build a house 8. THE CRIME SCENE CLEANERS. A murder in a home can leave a lot of blood. Someone has to clean it up and the police employ specialist cleaning agencies. Say hello to Maxine and Jasmine who enter entering premises in Luton shortly after the Crime Scene Investigation team have removed their police tape 9. CLEANING FOR THE SUPER-RICH. When training butlers to look after the interests and whims of billionaires, Vincent Vermeulen must ensure they how to conduct themselves around money and moneyed individuals. 'He also trains his staff a trick most stage illusionists would love to perfect: invisibility' 10. THE NAKED CLEANER. Naked cleaning is a growth industry and Brandy is happy to waltz around the homes of clients in the nude, dusting and hoovering. It’s seemingly not about sex, though sex is somewhere in the mix. Brandy insists it is ‘nothing pervy.’ Some of her clients are naturists 11. CLEANING IN JAPANESE. While dusting, polishing and scrubbing, some cleaners like to spruce up their skills as well as their clients' homes. Middle class Natalie, 28, from Devon listens to a couple of hours of Japanese a day, through earphones while she runs a Henry hoover around a London townhouse 12. THE MODERN BUTLER. Only those who work with millionaires learn the true distinction between Old Money and New Money. Monika from Slovakia is a 'house manager' to wealthy individuals. Domestic staff entering this world can only do so successfully after intensive training. They become smart and suave 13. THE LISTENER. A Filipino, Jennifer cleans houses in Wimbledon, Hampstead, Golders Green and, she says, ‘anywhere there is a job’ – six days a week. Some clients are odd or lonely. ""These people, they don’t throw things away. They — what’s the word…? Hoarding. They hoard everything. So much clutter."" 14. THE GAY CLEANER. Felipe is aged 38 and a Colombian resident of London. He is slim and compact, with sharp cheekbones and a kind, mournful expression. He has been advertising himself online for a few months as a ‘gay-friendly cleaner,’ and is now living with the consequences EPILOGUE: CLOCKING OFF. 'She takes off her coat in the hallway, and her Nikes, and changes them for house shoes, then appraises the damage: three bedrooms, three unmade beds, a pile of breakfast dishes in the sink, cat hair on the sofa, the bathroom grimed with tidemarks the colour of nicotine.' AFTERWORD. The life of cleaners, janitors, housekeepers, house managers, butlers, domestic staff, domestic servants even, the life of a cleaner is not easy. Nor was finding interviewees for this book, but the author recorded the everyday working lives of cleaners in London. In all their variety. INDEX. Let's start with the As: abuse, acting, advertising, affairs, African workers, age, agencies, agoraphobia, Airbnb, airport security checks, alcohol issues, ambitions for the future, American workers, animal infestations, Antigona and Me (Clanchy), anxiety, Arabic language, asylum seekers"

Reviews

'Succeeds brilliantly in dismantling casual assumptions about the drudgery of cleaning - and about the kinds of people who do it for a living. - HELEN MCCARTHY, THE GUARDIAN It's a remarkable, myth-busting piece of social commentary, which really does dish the dirt on some of the untold stories, lifestyles, hopes, dreams and aspirations of house cleaners. - COLOUR PR 'A great book, well researched, funny and poignant. I loved it.' - KIT DE WAAL 'A jaw-dropping investigation.' - CAROLINE SANDERSON, THE BOOKSELLER

'A jaw-dropping investigation.' - CAROLINE SANDERSON, THE BOOKSELLER 'My mother was a cleaner - launderette, big house, school and then back home to clean again. I recognise so much in these stories, the boss, the hard work, the boredom, the relentlessness but there are new things here too, new immigrants and their stories, the slaves, the crime scene cleaners and then there's the naked cleaners... truly eye-opening. A great book, well researched, funny and poignant. I loved it.' - KIT DE WAAL It's estimated that almost one in three London households employ cleaners or rely on some form domestic labour, yet very little is known about the mysterious lives of those who keep our homes spotless, and the relationships they forge with those who pay their wages. In Dishing the Dirt, journalist Nick Duerden lifts the lid, quite probably for the first time ever, on what it is really like to be a house cleaner in modern day Britain. He interviews a range of diverse protagonists from mainly migrant backgrounds, including those who have made a successful business out of the profession, those who have been brutally enslaved, those who clean the houses of the mega rich, and even those who are paid premium rates to clean in the nude. It's a remarkable, myth-busting piece of social commentary, which really does dish the dirt on some of the untold stories, lifestyles, hopes, dreams and aspirations of house cleaners. But perhaps the most fascinating thing about this book is its neat exploration of the relationship between client and cleaner, how they interact and build up a rapport and trust over time, and what these dynamics might tell us about the realities of modern society. - COLOUR PR Nick Duerden sets out to discover what it is like to clean houses for a living by talking to migrant workers who service the homes of contemporary Londoners. His eclectic cast of informants belong to this transitory workforce, men and women (but mostly women) who hold the key to our real identities, to the people we really are, behind closed doors . The result is an elegant portrait of the strained intimacies that grow up between cleaner and employer in 21st-century Britain. Dishing the Dirt is not a deeply researched tract, nor a tub-thumping polemic about precarious employment. Instead, driving Duerden's inquiry is a fascination for the complex interior lives of people who usually play an off-stage role in our personal dramas. Despite the size of the industry, with perhaps as many as one in three UK households employing a cleaner, the realities of waged domestic labour are little known beyond those who actually do it. Duerden offers the people who vacuum carpets a chance to speak freely and at length about their hopes and dreams, anxieties and disappointments. It is less an exercise in titillating gossip than a study in what makes all of us painfully human. Many of the book's voices describe the classic migrant experiences of transience and culture shock, a feeling of existing between two worlds accompanied by a powerful compulsion to improve one's economic situation. He meets young mothers sending remittances to children back home, school-leavers driven abroad by sluggish economies and corrupt governments, drifters and chancers of all ages answering internet ads and sofa-surfing in the bedsits of friends already earning good money in London. For some, the gamble has paid off. Yuliya left Bulgaria for Britain in 2007, speaking little English and knowing no one except for a handful of fellow migrants in Surbiton, where she started cleaning the smart houses of its resident professional classes. Today, she owns a flat, drives a Mercedes and runs her own successful cleaning business. Others tell darker stories, such as Amirah, a victim of human trafficking, who left Indonesia and her two daughters having been told she'd take up a well-paid, live-in post as housemaid to a diplomat in central London. Instead, she found herself cooking, cleaning and nannying seven days a week for a large Saudi family in East Acton. Her passport was confiscated, her salary never appeared, and her bedroom was a closet containing the household boiler which clanked through the night. Befriended by a cleaner in the neighbouring house, Amirah managed to escape but to an uncertain future. Duerden leaves her awaiting the Home Office's verdict on her request to remain in the UK. Other interviewees have quirkier backstories, like the pill-popping former journalist who discovered a strange kind of peace cleaning houses, or the young woman who is housekeeping for an older couple to finance her artistic hobbies. Strangest of all are those serving the niche market for naked cleaners. Duerden meets Brandy, a mother in her late 30s who earns GBP45 an hour dusting, ironing and making beds in the nude while her clients (all male) gaze on, similarly unclad. The rules are strict: you can look, but not touch. Most surprising is Brandy's enthusiasm for her unusual line of work: It got me out of a dark period, she tells Duerden, and it's been liberating. From this composite picture emerge two types of employers, those who prefer their cleaners to be invisible and those seeking a human connection. Duerden's informants often slip unseen in and out of empty houses, removing soiled bedsheets, disposing of decomposing foodstuffs, making all things new again. Monika, 35 years old and from Slovakia, worked for a princess in Dubai whom she never met: I entered the room to clean it after she had left it. When she returned, the room was clean - as if by magic. We are so accustomed to the shadowy non-presence of cleaners in our homes that it is startling to read of the job's intensely sociable side. Some employers enjoy nothing more than to sit down with their cleaning lady for a cuppa and heart-to-heart chat. Yuliya worked for a heavy smoker who put on the kettle and lined up cigarettes at the start of her shift. The arty housekeeper-millennial eats regularly with her employers, who have almost become surrogate parents. Duerden wonders whether these efforts at befriending are driven by middle-class guilt. In the afterword, he reveals his own decision to stop employing cleaners, believing it important to teach our teenage children how to clean up after themselves, before it was too late . His book succeeds brilliantly in dismantling casual assumptions about the drudgery of cleaning - and about the kinds of people who do it for a living. - HELEN MCCARTHY, THE GUARDIAN

It's estimated that almost one in three London households employ cleaners or rely on some form domestic labour, yet very little is known about the mysterious lives of those who keep our homes spotless, and the relationships they forge with those who pay their wages. In Dishing the Dirt, journalist Nick Duerden lifts the lid, quite probably for the first time ever, on what it is really like to be a house cleaner in modern day Britain. He interviews a range of diverse protagonists from mainly migrant backgrounds, including those who have made a successful business out of the profession, those who have been brutally enslaved, those who clean the houses of the mega rich, and even those who are paid premium rates to clean in the nude. It's a remarkable, myth-busting piece of social commentary, which really does dish the dirt on some of the untold stories, lifestyles, hopes, dreams and aspirations of house cleaners. But perhaps the most fascinating thing about this book is its neat exploration of the relationship between client and cleaner, how they interact and build up a rapport and trust over time, and what these dynamics might tell us about the realities of modern society. -- Colour PR Helen McCarthy Thu 15 Oct 2020 Nick Duerden sets out to discover what it is like to clean houses for a living by talking to migrant workers who service the homes of contemporary Londoners. His eclectic cast of informants belong to this transitory workforce, men and women (but mostly women) who hold the key to our real identities, to the people we really are, behind closed doors . The result is an elegant portrait of the strained intimacies that grow up between cleaner and employer in 21st-century Britain. Dishing the Dirt is not a deeply researched tract, nor a tub-thumping polemic about precarious employment. Instead, driving Duerden's inquiry is a fascination for the complex interior lives of people who usually play an off-stage role in our personal dramas. Despite the size of the industry, with perhaps as many as one in three UK households employing a cleaner, the realities of waged domestic labour are little known beyond those who actually do it. Duerden offers the people who vacuum carpets a chance to speak freely and at length about their hopes and dreams, anxieties and disappointments. It is less an exercise in titillating gossip than a study in what makes all of us painfully human. Many of the book's voices describe the classic migrant experiences of transience and culture shock, a feeling of existing between two worlds accompanied by a powerful compulsion to improve one's economic situation. He meets young mothers sending remittances to children back home, school-leavers driven abroad by sluggish economies and corrupt governments, drifters and chancers of all ages answering internet ads and sofa-surfing in the bedsits of friends already earning good money in London. For some, the gamble has paid off. Yuliya left Bulgaria for Britain in 2007, speaking little English and knowing no one except for a handful of fellow migrants in Surbiton, where she started cleaning the smart houses of its resident professional classes. Today, she owns a flat, drives a Mercedes and runs her own successful cleaning business. Others tell darker stories, such as Amirah, a victim of human trafficking, who left Indonesia and her two daughters having been told she'd take up a well-paid, live-in post as housemaid to a diplomat in central London. Instead, she found herself cooking, cleaning and nannying seven days a week for a large Saudi family in East Acton. Her passport was confiscated, her salary never appeared, and her bedroom was a closet containing the household boiler which clanked through the night. Befriended by a cleaner in the neighbouring house, Amirah managed to escape but to an uncertain future. Duerden leaves her awaiting the Home Office's verdict on her request to remain in the UK. Other interviewees have quirkier backstories, like the pill-popping former journalist who discovered a strange kind of peace cleaning houses, or the young woman who is housekeeping for an older couple to finance her artistic hobbies. Strangest of all are those serving the niche market for naked cleaners. Duerden meets Brandy, a mother in her late 30s who earns GBP45 an hour dusting, ironing and making beds in the nude while her clients (all male) gaze on, similarly unclad. The rules are strict: you can look, but not touch. Most surprising is Brandy's enthusiasm for her unusual line of work: It got me out of a dark period, she tells Duerden, and it's been liberating. From this composite picture emerge two types of employers, those who prefer their cleaners to be invisible and those seeking a human connection. Duerden's informants often slip unseen in and out of empty houses, removing soiled bedsheets, disposing of decomposing foodstuffs, making all things new again. Monika, 35 years old and from Slovakia, worked for a princess in Dubai whom she never met: I entered the room to clean it after she had left it. When she returned, the room was clean - as if by magic. We are so accustomed to the shadowy non-presence of cleaners in our homes that it is startling to read of the job's intensely sociable side. Some employers enjoy nothing more than to sit down with their cleaning lady for a cuppa and heart-to-heart chat. Yuliya worked for a heavy smoker who put on the kettle and lined up cigarettes at the start of her shift. The arty housekeeper-millennial eats regularly with her employers, who have almost become surrogate parents. Duerden wonders whether these efforts at befriending are driven by middle-class guilt. In the afterword, he reveals his own decision to stop employing cleaners, believing it important to teach our teenage children how to clean up after themselves, before it was too late . His book succeeds brilliantly in dismantling casual assumptions about the drudgery of cleaning - and about the kinds of people who do it for a living. -- Helen McCarthy * The Guardian *

Author Information

Nick Duerden is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, the i paper, GQ, Esquire and Elle. His books include Exit Stage Left, Get Well Soon: Adventures in Alternative Healthcare, A Life Less Lonely, and The Smallest Things: On the Enduring Power of Family. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters.

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