Cleaning

honey & bunny
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cleaning
A Cultural Technique
Sonja Stummerer and Martin Hablesreiter
contributions by:
Zoë Ryan
May Rosenthal Sloan
Richard van der Laken
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contents
20 Introduction
24 Dirt and Cleanliness
60 Products and Tools
94 Culture and Politics
138 Cleaning and Design
156 Health and Environment
192 Conclusion
206 Bibliography
213 Photo Index
215 Acknowledgments
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Culture and Politics
Cleaning is no simple task. It demands knowledge and social competence;
it calls for familiarity with cultural traditions, customs, and techniques.
Cleaning follows rules for which people feel a sense of belonging.
Choices like whether to clean a surface with a brush or a cloth, whether to
use or reject overly aggressive chemical cleaners, or how long the maximum
interval between two cleaning days should be all have strong cultural
connotations. Opinions as to whether a toilet bowl should be disinfected
daily or not can drive a wedge between people and cultures. How often and
how intensively people clean and how much cleaning product is necessary
to achieve the desired effect are not only practical but above all cultural
considerations.
Cleaning techniques are relative and vary depending on culture, age,
gender, and social status. People who use brooms instead of vacuum cleaners
can be considered old-fashioned and unclean, while others who disinfect
their kitchen counter or doorknobs daily may be perceived as pedantic.
Differences in opinions about how something should be cleaned can by all
means lead to conflicts with the people one lives with – partners, family,
or housemates – or the cleaning lady, especially if they come from different
families or cultures. A German survey found that people who employ
cleaners from Poland or Mexico think these people use too many cleaning
agents, that the products they use are too concentrated and too chemically
aggressive, and that they use the cleaning tools for the “wrong” surfaces. 1
And yet the removal of dirt can never be absolutely right or wrong because
cleaning is a cultural act.
Cleanliness is a social construct that varies greatly from one culture
to the next. Historically, it has gone through numerous changes and in
the process been influenced as much by religious notions as by scientific
discoveries and the prevailing worldview. What, how, when, and how often
we clean does not only depend on our notions of cleanliness and order but
also on our lifestyles and how we conduct our everyday lives. Over the past
200 years cleaning habits in Europe and North America have changed drastically,
primarily because industrialization and technological advances have
fundamentally altered people’s lifestyles as well as the available products
and tools.
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Cleaning as a Relatively New Phenomenon
Cleaning is seen today as a historically constant duty of women that
goes back to the beginning of humankind. Wherever and however humans
lived, someone had to clean, at least according to our current understanding
of cleanliness and hygiene. In fact, however, cleaning as a discrete activity
is a rather young phenomenon that, depending on region and social
class, didn’t arise until roughly 100 to 200 years ago. The notion of housework
as such came about in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in
connection with the middle-class concept of the family. It is, therefore, an
“invention” of the European middle class.
For the general population, housework only became an end in itself
as a result of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, when today’s conventional notion of family, which had originated
within the small, urban middle class, spread to the working class. 2
Little is known about the cleaning techniques and habits of the Middle
Ages and early modern period. Since cleanliness was not seen in connection
with health, it was not regarded as very important. For centuries, a
common living arrangement among peasants and craftsmen brought multiple
generations and social classes together under one roof. Within these
extended family communities, or family economy households, the entire
workload was divided up between the husband and wife, farmhands, and
children. Since there were no opportunities for earning additional income
beyond the family work on the farm or in the craftsman’s workshop, there
was no distinction between paid work outside the home and unpaid work
within the home. All work was equally necessary to ensure the (prosperous)
survival of the community.
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For the general population, housework only became
an end in itself as a result of the Industrial
Revolution, when today’s conventional notion of
family spread from the urban middle class to the
working class.

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Fewer Dishes, No Dishwashing
People owned so few furnishings and household items that cleaning
them – if this was done at all – took hardly any time. 3 Cooking and eating
utensils, for example, were so expensive in preindustrial times that “normal”
families only owned a few such items. A family’s household effects often
consisted of nothing more than one or two pots and a few bowls, from
which everyone ate together. If plates were used, they were not washed
afterwards but only wiped clean, sometimes with bread at the end of the
meal. Hygienic standards were not only low because of the modest technical
possibilities for cleaning but also because the table customs of the
time did not necessarily call for cleanliness. If everyone used his or her own
eating utensils, which were afterwards returned to their carrying cases worn
on the owner’s belt or to the cutlery drawer of the dining table, disinfection
in today’s sense was not necessary. It wasn’t until affordable (industrially
manufactured) tableware became available that dishwashing joined the
long list of daily household chores. In many regions and social classes this
did not occur until after WWII. 4
The family economy household called for other types of work besides
cleaning. These ranged from the production and preservation of food to
the processing of wool and textiles to the making of candles, butter, cheese,
beer, soap, and much more. The cleaning required to accomplish these
activities – for instance, the sterilization of utensils to prevent butter and
other foods from spoiling – was regarded as part of these tasks and performed
as such. 5
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The family economy household called for other
types of work besides cleaning. These ranged
from the production and preservation of food to
the processing of wool and textiles to the making
of candles, butter, cheese, beer, soap, and much
more.

Cleaning in today’s sense, in other words, cleaning
the living spaces, was not considered work that
would ensure the survival of a family, and thus it
was hardly deemed meaningful.
What Has to be Removed from the Home
Another aspect that was less strict in former times was the distinction
between a clean “inside” and a dirty “outside.” Much of what is
considered dirt today was not seen as something that had to be removed
from the home but rather as a part of natural cycles or even as a valuable
raw material. In former times, almost all kinds of (today’s) garbage were
salvaged and used in some form or another. Excrement from humans and
animals was sought-after fertilizer and was collected and recycled.
Cleaning in today’s sense, in other words, cleaning the living spaces,
was not considered work that would ensure the survival of a family, and
thus it was hardly deemed meaningful. Moreover, the impact of dust and
dirt was different back then, since the bulk of dirt as we know it today is
produced by internal-combustion engines and the industrial burning of
fossil fuels. Though typical today, these causes of dust and dirt didn’t exist
before industrialization.
Instead, there were other sources of dirt, directly inside or around
the home, which is why cleaning priorities and techniques were different
than they are now. As long as people still cooked over an open kitchen fire
– depending on social status and region this practice continued well into
the twentieth century – one of the main household tasks was the removal
of soot and coal dust. Soot settled on pots, pans, in the chimney, and on everything
in the kitchen. Those who could, stored eating utensils and plates
not in the kitchen but in the living room or dining room. Keeping the chimney
free of soot was considered one of the dirtiest, arduous, and dangerous
household jobs. 6 Children or people low in the household hierarchy were
often tasked with this activity, as can be seen in the fairy tale “Cinderella.” 7
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Cleaning as a discrete activity is a rather young
phenomenon and didn’t start to spread until the
mid-nineteenth century.
Cleanliness as a Status Symbol
Cleaning as a discrete activity is a rather young phenomenon and
didn’t start to spread until the mid-nineteenth century. As the influence of
the enlightened middle class grew during the Victorian era, the notion of
cleanliness as a vital element of its attitude to life gradually permeated the
financially strong circles. Cleanliness became a sign of affluence, after all it
showed that one had enough money to afford servants and to keep one’s
own home clean. In the course of the nineteenth century, cleaning – to
be precise: the resulting cleanliness – became more and more a symbol
of prestige and status in the upper classes. Whether or not the silver vases
were polished till they shined or chandeliers, windows, and floorboards
wiped spotlessly clean became a sign of style and luxury. Cleaning served
the purpose of representation, however, only if it was done by hired help.
Having large bright rooms, expensive fixtures and furniture along with their
impeccable shine and the necessary servants to go with it became a status
symbol. Those who could afford it, employed hordes of domestics to maintain
the cleanliness of the myriad decorative objects, whose detailed and
delicate design made them difficult and tedious to care for and keep clean.
Ornate furniture, large mirrors, and windows were not only ostentatious
because of the time and skill it took to produce them but also because they
were time consuming to maintain. It was only during the modern era from
the early twentieth century on that we began producing everyday objects
that could be manufactured and cleaned quickly and easily.
Dirt as the Midwife of Modern Culture
The nineteenth and twentieth century brought profound changes to
Europe and North America. The Industrial Revolution not only ushered in
the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society, but it led to a mass
exodus to the USA and to rural flight in Europe, which in turn resulted in
rapid urban growth. Since the cities didn’t have nearly enough (living) space
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to accommodate the arriving masses, many of these people were forced
to live in slums or shantytowns. These poor urban neighborhoods were
cramped, dark, and dirty. Feces, garbage, and mud were everywhere, making
them breeding grounds for deadly epidemics like cholera.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, when medical science
discovered that disease is spread through bacteria and thus through feces
and contaminated water, the way people lived together changed forever.
The extremely cramped living conditions, poor water supply, and lack of
sanitary facilities called for an even higher degree of cleanliness to prevent
the spread of dangerous epidemics. Laundry, dishes, and other household
articles, as well as one’s own body had to be washed regularly. In crowded
urban tenement houses, cleaning was even more critical than in rural areas,
in part due to emissions from factory smokestacks, which spewed soot and
smoke, causing a heavier accumulation of dirt and dust. 8
Hygiene as a Social Project
In the USA a new profession was even created, the so-called social
housekeepers. These early social workers taught women in poor neighborhoods
about such household matters as personal hygiene, laundry care,
cleaning, and cooking. The ulterior motives for doing this were to introduce
immigrants to the American way of life, convey American values, and
exert social control. Companies had their own “sociological departments”
too; they visited workers in their homes with the aim of improving cleanliness,
morale, job satisfaction, and efficiency in families. At the Ford Motor
Company, in fact, these criteria were a prerequisite for receiving the famous
five-dollar wage. 9
With the development of hygiene and the new medical knowledge
about the spread of disease, the idea of regular housecleaning gradually
gained importance among people of all walks of life. Cleanliness was correlated
more and more with health and became recognized (initially by the
elite) as a social value. In Europe, sanitary movements gained momentum,
organizing exhibitions, lectures, and workshops, and even founding sanitary
museums (e.g., in Dresden) in order to convey the necessity of cleanliness
to the general public. Gradually, the idea of cleaning as its own, regular
household chore seeped into the consciousness of all social classes. Cleanliness
became the symbol of progress and civilization. In the “modern” value
system of the Industrial Age, cleanliness and cleaning played a vital role;
cleaning became an indispensable part of our lifestyle.
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The Rationalization of Housework
With the Industrial Revolution came the automatization of the
household, a trend that had started in the USA. Machines, devices, and
appliances of all kinds, initially mechanical, later electric, became more and
more important, transferring the ideology of industrialization, mechanization,
and efficiency from the factory to the private home. In keeping with
the motto of saving money, time, and energy, the rationalization of housework
became the order of day, laying the foundation for modern housekeeping
in today’s sense.
Chemical products and industrial materials found their way into the
private home, the private sphere, and housework became more and more
scientific 10 and cleaning more and more reliant on store-bought appliances
and products. The home was thought of as a small-scale model of a factory,
in which the aim was to perform all arising tasks as efficiently as possible.
Taylorism and the principle of rationalization were reflected in the household,
among other things, in countless household appliances. 11
The home was thought of as a small-scale model
of a factory, in which the aim was to perform all
arising tasks as efficiently as possible.
Initially, the new appliances and machines only made work easier
for the employees. This was because in the wealthy families, who were the
ones who could afford these products, the lady of the house was concerned
only with coordinating the housework and supervising the servants. As a result
of the “servant problem” 12 that arose in the USA and Europe in the late
nineteenth century and continued well into the 1920s, it became difficult
to find domestic help, which left the housewife little choice but to begin
doing the housework herself.
As a result of the servant problem more and more wealthy households
had to get by without hired help. Luckily, the new mechanical appliances
came just in time. The servant problem heralded two lasting twentieth-century
developments: scientific-technological advances in the private
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Health and
Environment
“We do all we can to keep our own four walls clean and in doing so, we are
polluting nature.” 1
What people regard as dirt and what they consider to be clean are
determined by their culture and their living conditions and are therefore
relative. Strictly speaking, cleaning produces a lot of dirt because cleaning
only creates cleanliness within our own private living space. Many cleaning
agents harm or endanger our health, contaminate the water, soil, and
air, and contribute to the loss of biodiversity. While we do all we can to
keep our homes clean and sanitary, we are at the same time polluting
the groundwater, acidifying the soil, and destroying natural habitats right
outside our front door. By cleaning, we harm our health and the environment
because what we consider “clean” inside our homes is not necessarily
“clean” to nature.
In Western culture “cleanliness” contrasts with “nature,” which is in
many ways perceived as “dirty.” Soil or insects in the home, for example, are
seen as dirty or as the cause of dirt. The aim of cleaning is to dispel nature
from indoor space or to keep it in “neat” categories and control it: Soil has
no place on the floor but belongs in designated flowerpots; plants must be
in pots or vases; animals are only tolerated as pets or cut up in pieces in the
refrigerator. In the living space, nature is the “enemy”; the task of cleaning
and creating order is to keep foreign life outside our own four walls. This
is achieved by means of control: At home, we want to have the power of
knowing and determining what happens. Foreign life like spiders, pill bugs,
or ants interfere with this claim to power. Cleaning is not only a matter of
cleanliness and order but also of power and control.
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Health
“The increase in allergies is also attributed to the massive use of
cleaning chemicals. Considering the fact that people in industrial societies
spend around 80–90 percent of their time indoors, it is important not to
contaminate this space unnecessarily with chemicals.” 2
Our fear of nature and of threats like diseases and epidemics has
led to the development of products and methods for minimizing these
dangers. Cleanliness and order are an important part of this effort and are,
without a doubt, very useful for ensuring health. In this sense, cleaning is a
basic necessity of life and, in extreme cases – for example during an epidemic
such as COVID-19 – can even be a matter of survival.
Our fear of nature and of threats like diseases and
epidemics has led to the development of products
and methods for minimizing these dangers.
Since the discovery that microorganisms can cause disease, the
notion of cleanliness has been influenced by hygiene. The germ theory and
the sanitary revolution that followed on its heels led to the development
and marketing of detergents and cleaning agents, which were intended
primarily to protect human health. The synthetic production of soda from
cooking salt, sulfuric acid, and lime using the Leblanc process (1791) gradually
turned soap, which had until then been a precious luxury item, into a
cheap mass-produced commodity. The industrial production of soda made
it possible to synthetically manufacture detergents, which later formed the
basis of chemical cleaning agents. 3 Synthetic surfactants have meanwhile almost
completely replaced traditional surfactants, like soap, which remained
the most important cleaning agent up until the mid-twentieth century.
Today, industrially produced cleaning agents have become an integral part
of our cleaning culture.
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Our fear of nature and of threats like diseases and
epidemics has led to the development of products
and methods for minimizing these dangers.
“Clean” became more and more associated with “sterile.” The desire
to clean better and better and more and more thoroughly led to the belief
that the more a product disinfected and killed germs, the better it cleaned.
But according to today’s state of scientific knowledge, using antibacterial
products or disinfectants to clean is generally not beneficial because these
agents also kill bacteria and microorganisms that have a positive effect on
human health and nature.
But according to today’s state of scientific
knowledge, using antibacterial products or
disinfectants to clean is generally not beneficial
because these agents also kill bacteria and
microorganisms that have a positive effect on
human health and nature.
Antibacterial and disinfectant cleaning components can therefore
impact all living organisms and their habitats; that goes for humans, their
health, and their basic necessities like clean water or contaminant-free food
as well as for animals and plants.
Antibacterial and antimicrobial products (certain cleaning agents,
disinfectant sprays, hand sanitizers, and kitchen items impregnated with
disinfectants) usually contain biocidal active ingredients that are potentially
harmful to the environment or human health. These ingredients include
chlorine compounds, for example sodium hypochlorite, aldehydes, alcohols,
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silver compounds, quaternary ammonium compounds, and other biocidal
substances. 4 One problem of antibacterial substances (e.g., disinfectants
contained in laundry detergents and cleaning agents) is that they also kill
bacteria that are beneficial to the human organism. By damaging the beneficial
bacteria in our skin, disinfectant agents like the biocide triclosan 5 can
affect human skin flora, which plays a crucial role in protecting the skin and
fending off pathogens. 6 Another argument is that antibacterial substances
or fungicides used against mold can trigger allergies. Moreover, all antibacterial
agents can potentially promote resistance development. Disinfectant
cleaners can therefore also contribute to antibiotic resistance. 7
Disinfectant cleaners can therefore also
contribute to antibiotic resistance.
Scientists advise against the routine use of antibacterial detergents
and cleaning agents. 8 Cleaning products with any of the following on the
label: “germ-killing,” “disinfecting,” “bactericidal,” “antibacterial,” “contains
active chlorine,” “cleans hygienically,” “eliminates 99.9 percent of bacteria,
germs, and viruses” contain biocidal substances and should be avoided
because almost all household bacteria are harmless anyway. It is not even
necessary to use disinfectants for the toilet bowl because our hands hardly
ever actually come in contact with it. Disinfectants heavily contaminate
wastewater and sewage treatment plants. 9 Besides, most germs are not
found in the bathroom or toilet but rather in smelly old kitchen cleaning
rags and sponges. 10
Antibacterial cleaners and wipes or disinfectants are not to be used
on a regular basis but only under special circumstances and as a last resort.
Cleaning agents that contain disinfectants or chlorine should only be used
for specific purposes, like if someone in the family has a contagious infection,
or if ordered by a doctor. Normally, in households where no one has
an infectious disease, disinfectant cleaners are not only unnecessary, but
they also place an unnecessary strain on people’s health and the environment.
Any leftover cleaning products should not simply be thrown in the
trash can but properly disposed of at a municipal collection site. 11
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Synthetic Fragrances, Colors, and Preservatives
Many modern cleaning agents contain not only germ-killing substances
but other substances that are also potentially harmful to human
health. It is estimated that about three thousand different fragrances are
used in cleaning and cosmetic care products, despite the fact that there is
currently insufficient knowledge about the health risks of these additives.
Fragrances and preservatives can harm our health, 12 some have been proven
to frequently cause allergies. 13 According to the experts, we should limit our
use of room fragrances, toilet fresheners, fabric softeners, fabric fresheners,
room sprays, or air fresheners to what is absolutely necessary, 14 but of
course the question arises: How much is absolutely necessary?
Cleaning as a Health Hazard
People who clean are exposed to health hazards. While people in
other sectors – such as agriculture or industry – are often critical of the use
of chemical substances and make sure they have access to appropriate protective
equipment at work, we often underestimate the health risk posed
by cleaning agents. People who clean regularly may have decreased lung
function and a higher risk of developing asthma. 15 16 Working regularly with
cleaning sprays for twenty years can decrease lung function as drastically as
smoking twenty cigarettes a day. 17
Working regularly with cleaning sprays for twenty
years can decrease lung function as drastically as
smoking twenty cigarettes a day.
In our own homes we often pay little attention to the dangers
of substances that can harm our health. In fact, within our own four
walls we tend to regard biocides such as antibacterial agents, that is to
say, substances that kill bacteria, as helpful rather than dangerous. The
modernist slogan that cleanliness leads to health is actually only true if
we use cleaning agents with hazard warnings as rarely and as sparingly as
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