Your correspondent Jenny Brook is right (Letters, 31 March), the article about cleaning was absurd (Have you washed your toothbrush lately? The surprising truth about how to keep your home truly clean, 30 March). The level of cleanliness described for some items is necessary only in an isolation room for a severely immunocompromised patient. So you have needlessly stoked the anxiety of many living with borderline OCD, to say nothing of the financial expense and the time taken to achieve such cleaning. Let’s have a more realistic take on housework.
Anne Dyas
Retired microbiologist, Solihull, West Midlands
As a biologist, I read this article with rising alarm, incredulity and disbelief. If we all do as it suggested, the environment will be destroyed and human immune systems will be nonexistent.
Jill Watkins
Long Ashton, Somerset
One of my aunts had a fridge magnet bearing the words: “A clean and tidy house is a wasted life.”
Suellen Pedley
Stanford-in-the-Vale, Oxfordshire
I agree with Jenny Brook’s letter (31 March) regarding the absurdity of the article on cleaning (30 March). The level of cleanliness suggested in the article is more suited to an isolation room for severely immunocompromised patients. It unnecessarily fuels anxiety for those living with borderline OCD, not to mention the financial expense and time required to achieve such a standard of cleaning. Let’s take a more realistic approach to housework.
Anne Dyas
Retired microbiologist, Solihull, West Midlands
As a biologist, I read the article with alarm and disbelief. Following its suggestions would be detrimental to the environment and human immune systems.
Jill Watkins
Long Ashton, Somerset
One of my aunts had a fridge magnet that said: “A clean and tidy house is a wasted life.”
Suellen Pedley
Stanford-in-the-Vale, Oxfordshire