I’m a cleaner and I’ve tested out every hoover you can imagine - my go to is the most affordable, and I’m not a fan of Mrs Hinch one

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IF there’s one professional who can tell you where the dirtiest, grimiest hidden areas of your house are, it’s a cleaner.

They’ll have seen it all and some of the places they might tell you to watch out for will surprise you.

Professional cleaner @22cleanstreet posted a clip to TikTok, warning viewers about all the things they wouldn’t have in their home.

Toilet rim block

The first item on the list was a Bloo gel toilet rim block, which are placed inside your toilet to keep it fresh.

Although designed to keep your toilet clean, the TikTokker claims they are “very unhygienic” and says men “love to target these for fun, to watch the colour come out”.

Rugs and carpets

The second item on their list was surprising, and something many of us have around the house.

The cleaner said: “Rugs trap dirt and bacteria, however much you hoover them.

“You child’s last packet of crips [sic] from 2023 is still lingering in the crevices.”

Toilet Duck

Toilet Duck is an American brand of gel toilet cleaner, which many will recognise from it’s uniquely duck-shaped bottle neck, designed to reach properly under your toilet rim.

Although stocked in supermarkets all over the country, and bought by millions, the TikTok user said it leaves stains all around the flush and bowl, and recommended people use Harpic for limescale.

‘I’m impressed’ people say as cleaner shares 50p hack to make stainless steel sparkle in seconds

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Venetian blinds

Venetian blinds can be difficult to clean because of their intricate design and fiddly structure, their individual slats mean they attract dust easily and take a bit longer to clean.

One user in the comments asked: “How would you clean those blinds?”

To which the original poster replied: “With a lot of hard work. So you need to dry dust first. The Flash dusters are really good. Then it’s a case of a multipurpose in warm water and doing each blind individually.”

Matte black basin fittings

Commenting on the durability of the matte black design, the cleaner said: “Once it’s gone, it’s gone! If it’s not looked after you can’t turn it back.”

Other cleaners in the comments agreed that the matte black fittings were their ‘worst nightmare’.

Waterfall Taps

Usually found in bathrooms, Waterfall taps are popular for their minimalist and luxury look.

Clearly not a fan, the cleaner said they build up limescale quickly.

They warned that the waterfall taps require thorough cleaning and maintenance from day one.

Lego sets

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lego sets were also given a shout out on the list.

Although interesting to look at, the intricate designs build up dust quickly, and can be risky to clean due to their fragile nature.

The cleaner claims they “belong in the box” and said she’s thankful her Lego-obsessed client keeps his stored away securely.

Viewers reactions

Viewers in the comments were quick to agree on the list, with many of them having struggled to clean the items in their own house.

“Our entire downstairs is LEGOs it’s insane,” said one person.

“Hated my fountain tap, so hard to clean, always pink in the corners where it was difficult to scrub,” said another.

While someone else said: “Totally agree with you about Toilet Duck. Hate it.”

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As wildfires increasingly threaten American cities, people are being forced to rethink our relationship with fire. As historian Stephen J. Pyne writes, thinking about fire, in various changing ways, is something people have been doing since the beginning.

For the vast majority of human history, visible fires were a crucial part of daily life. “The first act of a day was to kindle a fire; the last act, to bank the coals,” Pyne writes. “And in between, fire was a constant companion.”

Naturally, the power of fire took on mythical meanings, often representing death and renewal. Cultures around the world told stories in which the possession of fire defined the beginnings of humanity. In some versions of the myth of Prometheus, for example, humans were denied the skills given to animals to help them survive, but the gift of fire allowed them to become technological creatures capable of dominating the earth.

Pyne suggests that these myths parallel a real evolutionary story. By learning to cook food, humans outsourced part of their digestive process, allowing their guts to shrink while providing them nutrients to support a large brain. Controlled fire also helped people shape the land to their advantage, and allowed for the creation of brick, cement, glass, and other crucial materials.

For ancient thinkers in Greece, China, and elsewhere, fire was a fundamental element. It was also almost universally connected with life—feeding, growing, and dying. Through the Enlightenment, scholars described plants and animals as having an “inner fire.”

Fire was also a staple in religion. It might be a weapon of a god, or a god itself. It might cleanse temples, produce burnt offerings, or sanctify an altar. But Pyne notes that, over time, religious fires became tamer. Where the story of Sodom and Gomorrah involved melting mountains and a rain of “fire and brimstone,” the Gospel of Matthew compares the Last Judgement to the burning of tares—weeds found in a grainfield. Increasingly urban people viewed fire less as an elemental force of creation and destruction than the stuff of candles and hearths.

By the nineteenth century, scientists viewed fire as a result of deeper forces of chemistry and physics rather than a foundational aspect of the universe. On a more mundane level, people in many places were hiding fire away in closed stoves, steam engines, and furnaces. And uncontrolled fire became a problem to solve.

“Once the manifestation of gods and the source of life… fire had become alien, a destroyer of cities, a savager of soil, a befowler of air, an emblem (in science as in agriculture) of the hopeless primitive,” Pyne writes.

Europeans increasingly tried to prevent the burning of forests and other landscapes, and they spread this practice across their colonial empires. The result was the disruption of ecosystems and economies built on relationships among human societies, fire, and living things. In an age of climate change, as fires become increasingly dangerous, that’s only beginning to shift in a different direction.

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