To die for

Domestic blitz

Declutterers are the self-help gurus of the noughties. Where once we swore by Dr David Burns and his 10 Days To Self-Esteem, now we're wondering how clean is our house. Bryn C Collins's Emotional Unavailability: Recognising It, Understanding It And Avoiding Its Trap has been superseded by Rita Konig's Domestic Bliss. Whether you think ill or well of this shift depends on whether you believe that untidy drawers are the result of depression, or something to get depressed about.

Yvonne Surrey is necessarily of the latter persuasion. She is a Mess Therapist. "Ask yourself, what is the clutter doing to you personally?" she opines. "Is it affecting your creativity, making you depressed, causing rows?" While a psychotherapist would have a fine time with Yvonne and her emotional denial, I, on the other hand, once shared a house with someone who ate cheese by pulling small lumps straight from the block, and crumbling it across the kitchen. It's true, such untidiness does cause rows. And depression. Especially when the cheese sticks to the soles of your feet.

If you're slightly suspicious of the new cleaning/home maintenance zealotry, and are not among the curious millions who warm to those drag queens with J-Cloths, Kim and Aggie, then you can join the fringes of the movement with Collins' Handy Home Tips (£9.99), and its rather more neutral attitude. It's all information - often banal (always replace the lids on felt-tip pens), but sometimes inspiring - and runs the gamut from cleaning to mortgages.

Glycerine, it turns out, is a key housekeeping substance. Put it on red wine stains before washing and they will vanish. Rub it on the inside of your (newly cleaned) freezer compartment, and it will defrost effortlessly next time around. How to get blood out of clothing warrants a full two pages (you'll need milk, ammonia and borax), which gives Handy Home Tips just the sort of edge I look for in a home care manual.

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