Good news for everyone with PMR who feels any degree of guilt about the cleaning...

[PMRpro]

theguardian.com/environment...

Best read of the week!!!! Like my natural gardening technique to support bees and all the other creepy-crawlies threatened with extinction ...

[Louisepenygraig]

Thank you for sharing that. My house must be a veritable nature reserve!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Louisepenygraig]

Mine too!!!!

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

A little bit too much information maybe - but willing to go along with most of it. Just glad I don’t live in the tropics - UK beasties ok! 🕸🕷

My garden is “lively” too! 🐝🐛🦋🦟

[Ranchero]

Fantastic article PMRPro! If only people would toss out all the chemical cleaners how much more naturally healthy we all would be. Thanks for the link.

[scats]

Loved it. It makes my house sound positively clean.

Having spent much of my life with biologists, they do get excited over the small things.

Here we all are, saving the planet! Good can come from bad.

[SheffieldJane]

Drat! I have just vacuumed the whole house. Sorry beesties!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to SheffieldJane]

[fmkkm]

If I did have any cleaning angst GCA took care of it! Personally, I have always made spiders welcome but I do draw the line on armies of ants moving in. Borax and powdered sugar on their trail takes care of that. fm

[patriciawhite in reply to fmkkm]

Oh ants eurghhh I hate them ,I will try the Borax didn't know that one .

[Retailmonkey]

Really pleased to have an excuse. Having stone floors on the ground floor and wooden ones elsewhere does reduce the hiding places. On the other had there are many that follow me around in my fur!!

[karools16]

What an eye opener....esp that a shower head could be linked to lung disease in people with weak immune systems...reason for my COPD/? I don't want any creepy-crawlies around.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to karools16]

The point is though that when you clean you may be getting rid of the good stuff that keeps the bad bugs under control - much the same as in the body.

[karools16 in reply to PMRpro]

Probably, but the only good spider is a dead one, esp if you live alone.My late Mother had a spider in the kitchen. It hovered around the kitchen clock, and she called it Frederick. I always said I'd kill it, and she wouldn't let any of us go near it. Can't remember what happened to it...I might have even killed it myself>?

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to karools16]

You're like my daughter - she rang me once standing on her bed, starkers and soaking wet because one was under the shampoo bottle in the shower! Since she was in the north of England and I was in Italy ...

[karools16 in reply to PMRpro]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hollyseden in reply to PMRpro]

Many years ago, my daughter saw a spider in our downstairs loo. She came out and closed the door and kept it shut till we came back from holiday 2 weeks later. She would get on well with your daughter 😂🤣😂

[Noosat in reply to karools16]

There are so many "good" spiders in this world, be careful. You may be killing a friend.

[karools16 in reply to Noosat]

No. Not any good ones in my book. I come from SA and the spiders there, are the size of a hand! Will pass on that friend, thanks.

[Soraya_PMR in reply to karools16]

Yes, that one bit worried me. Maybe a shower-head soak in something non chlorinated is called for.

Otherwise I’m happy to share my house and garden. Spiders are safe here, bees are positively encouraged and saved if they come indoors. I did have to draw the line at flour-beetles a few years back. And I’m sorry but I can’t invite the cockroaches to this particular ugly bug ball; saw enough of them working in hospitals, and I don’t care if we’re ‘tinder-matched’, they’re not coming in. Oh and woodworm! Need to preserve the house for me and the spiders 🕷

But I’m not sure I can truly blame PMR for being lackadaisical with housework! It’s never been top of my list. Bathrooms and kitchen, the rest can wait.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Soraya_PMR]

Trouble is, by the time you have the woodworm holes it is too late - they are gone!

[patriciawhite]

I grew up in the country side and I can remember sitting in the middle of Stacked hay in the field watching mice ,Sitting in our really damp''at the time '' outhouse catching lizards ,every one says noooo there are no lizards in this area ,Well there were ,tiny little ones in the out house .There were currants in the cereal lol we had to throw out ,Harvesting time . Mice oops ,Stoats to watch and rats to sit at the end of the pond watching,bees in the garden and beetles and hares in the field in the early spring .I miss all that . Now I live in the same area and I have to admit whilst the latch rattling with the draft is a distant memory so are all the other things that I miss courtesy of a huge Redrow estate and plastic mice free containers Pet Hates as an adult ,of course, because I use bleach and cleaning fluids too just rats and ants . I miss all the rest and I grew up fine.

[Jan_Noack in reply to patriciawhite]

My Dad (87)grew up like that. I just gave him some rolled oats for brekkie and added some currants. He carefully removed all the currants before eating. He didn't have his glasses on and assumed they were "bugs". he was happily eating the rest though.... I had to laugh. I told him he was missing out on his protein then I explained they were currants

[patriciawhite in reply to Jan_Noack]

Ha ha ha oops currants errrr memories of mice errr he may not have been too impressed with the currants either No better place to grow up though .

[CT-5012]

There was a saying around when I was a child.. “if you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive “ My excuse for putting cleaning well down my to do list. I’m with the bathroom and kitchen people, the rest just doesn’t matter.

[vnett]

Loved the article and was actually able to focus long enough to read it or reread it in several places.....thanks!

[Hollyseden]

Enjoyed reading that till I got to crustaceans in the water 😨

[Hellyowl]

I had a cleaning lady years before I had GCA. I love her and would live on beans to afford her. I can't use the excuse of GCA or Pred. I just don't do housework

[borednow in reply to Hellyowl]

Thinking maybe my lovely cleaner should get a pay increase. I had no idea she faced such horrors every time she calls!!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Hellyowl]

My cleaner at one time was my best friend. She wanted to work part time for some pocket money but finding childcare posed problems. So she came with the kids and cleaned while I got on with translating. She cleaned like I would clean if I could be bothered - but I can't ...

[Jackoh]

As my husband is a bit OCD on the dust/ clean front I went to share this with him but then decided against it!!

[Noosat]

Thoroughly enjoyed this article ! I cannot remember if it were on this site, or another I frequent, where one person asked me ( I am a Master Naturalist and conservationist) if digging in the dirt in a ditch could have brought on his PMR. I told him, at 91 years of age, if it were possible, I would have had it many, many years ago. In fact we have become so super clean that there is more evidence than not, that we have made ourselves subject to illnesses, that our forefathers evaded by becoming immune as children. I don't suggest living in a pig sty but gardening etc has helped more people than hurt them.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Noosat]

There is certainly little likelihood that my daughters' asthma is anything to do with being brought up in too clean an environment!!! Farms, gardens, almost no antibacterial products ever...

[patriciawhite]

I have a steam cleaner now and I use lemons boiled left over from cooking as a surface cleaner when I have them ,I do bleach occasionally ,What else can you do with a stained stainless steel sink .bleach the toilet too . Cant not really can we .