Renee soon drifts away to carry on rummaging through our cupboards. She lets out a little shriek. Oh God, has she found one of the mice that seem to have signed a new tenancy agreement on the space behind the kitchen sink? But no, she lifts up a bottle of bleach she's found under the sink.
"Look," she says. "There's also Cif cream, limescale remover, Bold laundry liquid, Sainsvury's dishwasher tablets and Milton sterilizing tablets for "complete protection from germs". Here's proof that as a nation we're obsessed with completely eradicating germs from our lives."
Now all three of them are looking through our cleaning products.
"Why keep so many poisons in a room where you prepare food, Leo?" asks Hannah, holding up a can of oven cleaner. The auditors are all in agreement- this cupboard is highly toxic and its contents need an urgent ethical overhaul.
Bleach is a particularly evil substance to be releasing into our sewers, states Mike. "You evidently use a bleach product to clean the floors are the loo. Bleach contains some very effective toxic chemicals, which is why it kills germs. It's powerful stuff and should be used sparingly."
From A Life Stripped Bare by Leo Hickman
How do you deal with germs?
