Dish the dirt

IT takes Jane Greenfield just one hour a week to clean her four-bedroom terraced home in Clifton, York. And by clean, I mean a proper clean. There's no cutting corners and leaving the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling or pushing piles of newspapers under the sofa. No, Jane's home is gleaming. The giant mirror sparkling above her marble fireplace looks like it took an hour to clean in itself. So, how does she do it?

Simple. She's a pro.

Cleaning is Jane's business. After 20 years working in housekeeping for a string of leading hotels including the Royal York, Jane has just gone solo and set up her own domestic cleaning company, called In Your Place.

Her business cards feature the following motto: 'When housework is in your face - let me do it in your place'. It has proved mantra-like in practice, attracting sufficient numbers of clients to enable Jane to employ a small team of staff, former colleagues from the Royal York housekeeping unit.

"I'm surprised how quickly it has taken off," admits Jane, 38. "There are so many people out there who want somebody else to do their housework for them."

Customers include couples who are just too busy to tackle the domestics, bachelors who live by themselves and well-off clients who just don't want to clean.

Jane believes the boom in TV home makeover shows has also encouraged people to take more pride in their homes. They may not have the time or inclination to turn their abode into a show home, but they can afford to pay someone who does.

"People are spending a lot more money on their homes and they want them to look nice," sums up Jane.

It's a trend not only sweeping Britain, but the States too, where two new books have been published on the subject of keeping house.

Linda Cobb is the tiara-wearing granny whose book, Talking Dirty With The Queen Of Clean, is a bestseller, shifting more than 800,000 copies.

She's big on natural ingredients and cheap environmentally-friendly solutions to cleaning problems. Her six key ingredients for a gleaming home are tea, onions, lemon juice (instead of chemical bleach), vinegar, baking soda and petroleum jelly.

Her rival is Cheryl Mendelson, a former hot-shot lawyer and academic now dubbed the High Priestess of Housework, whose encyclopaedic 884-page Home Comforts - The Art & Science Of Keeping House has sold more than 200,000 copies.

Compiled after eight years of research, the book is mind-bogglingly comprehensive, covering vacuuming, hazardous substances, fungi, fuses and even sewing, with pages devoted to electrical risks and germs.

You'll be relieved to hear Jane has no plans to bring out a book on the joys of housework - she's too busy getting her hands dirty.

As a housekeeping manager in a big hotel, rarely did Jane have to muck in. But it's back to basics now that she's set up her own business. Day to day she can be doing everything and anything from cleaning floors and washing dishes to wiping windows and scrubbing the loo.

"It does keep you fit," says Jane. "And I do enjoy it, honest."

That's one thing she definitely does share with the domestic goddesses from Stateside.

Linda Cobb confesses that laundry is her favourite chore. "I feel really fulfilled when I do it... it's instant gratification," she says.

For Cheryl Mendelson, her weakness is ironing. "I play music and... get my greatest insights while standing there," says the philosophy lecturer who even admits to ironing her knickers.

For Jane, like many women, housework is just one of those things that needs to be done when it needs to be done: like an itch that must be scratched.

"I can't stand it if the house gets dirty. It has to be done. I can't stand chaos all around me," says Jane.

Jane learned the tricks of her trade during her two decades in the hotel business.

Her best advice is to keep on top of things: otherwise, keeping your house in order can seem like an insurmountable task.

She likens housework to the Forth Rail Bridge: never ending and rather monotonous. But accepting it does need to be done, she has some tips for us all.

"There is a sequence to doing housework," she says. "Start at the top of a room and work your way down, so that the cobwebs and dust fall downwards. Also, start in one corner and go back to that corner, so you don't miss anything."

For laminate floors, don't bother with polish - just wash them down with a mop.

And did you know that cigarette ash will normally remove a burn mark from a table? Likewise a candle wax stain will be removed if you cover it with brown paper then iron over it.

Of course, if you can't be bothered with any of it there is one solution: you could always call in the professionals and let them do it in your place.

Charges for In Your Place are £10 per hour, York area only. For more details, contact Jane on 01904 655292, website: www.inyourplace.co.uk or email sales@inyourplace.co.uk

Talking Dirty With The Queen Of Clean by Linda Cobb is published by Pocket Books, price £6.99. Home Comforts - The Art & Science Of Keeping House, by Cheryl Mendelson, is published by Cassell, price £25.