Other People's Dirt: A Housecleaner's Curious Adventures [Hardcover]

Louise Rafkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 1998

What do housecleaners know? Everything. Everything about what makes life a messy affair. And in her quirky, irreverent book Louise Rafkin shows that a housecleaner finds a lot more than dust bunnies under the bed. Armed with a battery of housekeys, Rafkin takes us on an intimate tour of people's lives, introducing us to unsuspecting clients and to a diverse group of housecleaners who have seen their fair share of dirt. Whether she's piecing together stories from the evidence she finds in her clients' homes or talking to other cleaners who have their own stories to tell, Rafkin debunks the stereotype of the humble housemaid. From a brief stint with the Happy Maids agency to an undercover attendance at a Messies Anonymous meeting, Rafkin's encounters in the cleaning trade come in many guises--the humorous, the odd, and the insightful. OTHER PEOPLE'S DIRT takes a look at a side of life readers may never again take for granted. "Rafkin's book is sassy. . . her essay on Messies Anonymous is worth the price of admission."--Booklist; "An amusing, touching memoir of Ms. Rafkin's experiences on the job. Think: female Don Quixote in the cleaning products aisle."--The New York Observer. A BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB and QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK CLUB SELECTION

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Housecleaner extraordinaire Louise Rafkin reads her own work as efficiently as she cleans bathtubs and snoops through the letter pile. Rafkin's voice is pleasantly modulated and well suited to her dry humor in Other People's Dirt, a parallel tale of her cleaning habits and socio-spiritual explorations. Vacuum-cleaner sound effects demarcate chapters in this nearly unabridged version, whose brief chapters are punchy and well suited to audio. (Running time: three hours, two cassettes) --Barrie Trinkle --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Into this life a chance for liberating creativity fell, when Rafkin narrowly escaped a straight-on march into the literary world of academia and headed into the trenches of ``other people's dirt.'' This book documents her experiences as seen from the underbelly of day-to-day life through anecdote and wry observation: dust balls and food stains, what laundry reveals and conceals, the nature of the need to clean, and the strange idiosyncrasies of those who will pay others to put order in their disorderly lives. Brief chapters cover stints in the homes of hoarders, the simply overworked, the impersonal nit-pickers, perverts, and even a suicide. In a final chapter, Rafkin travels to Japan to live with the Ittoen community, a group of homeless individuals committed to cleaning up the immediate world. Her thoughts on the need for order hint at the author's underlying belief: She would like to share the Ittoen ``nonattachment to worldly goods.'' But her comments on Japan are banal, and her search for any philosophy in what a house cleaner knows remains lifeless as long as she poses questions such as, If a forest is swept and no one sees it, was it ever really swept? . . . would I ever stop trying to achieve Home-Ec Student of the Year?'' Rafkin's breezy matter-of-factness only barely obscures a lot of cynical ranting about people, places, and things. Only at the very end does she confide her personal take on what her meanderings have meant in a final homeward gaze, the long-lost San Francisco girl at last getting real: ``It was time to clean house.'' More adventure than memoir, this book is odd and not all that entertaining. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (January 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965059219
• ISBN-13: 978-1565121621
• ASIN: 1565121627
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,596,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good quick read, March 29, 2000

By 

David M. Chess (Mohegan Lake, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Other People's Dirt: A Housecleaner's Curious Adventures (Paperback)

A quirkily interesting book, worth at least the couple of hours it'll take you to read it. The author, a thoroughly educated sometime-writer, works as a cleaner, cleaning people's houses. She tells us something of what that's like, and she also pokes into other corners of the cleaning world, talking to someone who cleans up after murders, talking to folks who get paid extra to clean in the nude, and spending a week in a spiritual community in Japan that finds sustenance in service, including cleaning.

The book is a somewhat uneven read; now and then we get close to an insight into the human condition, or a lovely bit of prose. More often, though, the text reminds me of Paul Theroux or William Least Heat Moon at their grumpiest: going to interesting places and having a lousy time, meeting interesting people and disliking them. The author of "Other People's Dirt" doesn't really seem to like anybody very much, and her dislike keeps her at a distance that prevents most real insight. On the other hand, she doesn't give in to the dislike enough to really get nasty; while she constantly claims to know lots of little intimate secrets about her clients, and apparently shares them with fellow cleaners, she doesn't share many with us, so we don't even get that naughty illicit fun.

Anyway, the book is worth the read. You may get a laugh, or an interesting wince, or learn something about cleaners and their clients. But don't expect it to change your life.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting topic; tiresome attitude, May 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Other People's Dirt: A Housecleaner's Curious Adventures (Hardcover)

Although the notion of life as seen by a housecleaner is interesting--how much do our homes reveal about our "secrets"?--and the style is mildly entertaining, the chip on the author's shoulder detracts from the book. An example--she freely admits that she "overcharges" a lot of clients for various services, but then counsels those who use housecleaners to leave little uplifting notes like "you're amazing!" She wants top pay *and* ego-stroking for doing her job? Nice work if you can get it.

In one nearly repellant episode, while cleaning for a commercial service she considers exploitive, she notices that the home's owner has many books on his shelves about the exploitation of labor. Interrupting him as he works, she waves one of the titles at him and expects him to join her in a discussion of the plight of certain workers, especially those in the cleaning business. The poor man is, understandably, less than enthused at this prospect....he was hoping for clean floors; instead he's being harangued about social issues by some woman he's never seen before, one who's being paid to dust the books, not wave them at him.

The book is breezy and mildly entertaining, but the author's attitude is tiresome, and her manners are appalling (inviting your boyfriend over to make use of a client's bed when no one is home, and then charging someone for the privilege?). It's enough to make you scrub your own bathroom.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Such uproar over a little cleaning book., February 15, 2000

By 

J.B. (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Other People's Dirt: A Housecleaner's Curious Adventures (Paperback)

Amusing, especially in the beginning, but can't decide where it wants to go. Uneven execution of a clever topic. I appreciate the acecdotes, however, because I too am a cleaner. My clients have nicknames such as "Hair House" (too many dogs,) and "Witness Protection Program" (generic decor.) Therefore, I find her rantings funny much in the way a server finds commentary on the restaurant business a hoot. This book is not going to appeal to everyone, but doesn't warrent the outrage it generated. My main gripe with this book, and I have a few, is her half-attempt to explore the role of minorities in domestic employment. Search as she does, she never seems to find why, as an educated, white woman she fits so neatly into the cleaning business. Could it be that ultimately she sees herself as an outsider, perhaps even a minority? Maybe the answer lies in her lesbianism. We that are gay often fall into the non-traditional job role. It would have been interesting to see her explore this issue instead of conspicuously dance around it. In closing, to those finding it unreasonable/unacceptable for domestic help to ridicule employers I must ask: what planet are you from?