We found our happiness at home!
Meet the women who have turned everyday chores around the home into ways to boost their wellbeing. Could their ideas work for you?
Women who harnessed the power of chores
A shock discovery left Lynsey Crombie,
40, from Peterborough, suffering a terrible trauma, until cleaning helped pull her out of the darkness…
‘Whenever I clean my kitchen – when the sink and hob are shining and all the surfaces are clear – I feel a huge sense of pride. I look around, breathe in the fresh citrus scent and it fills me with joy. Cleaning gives me a great sense of accomplishment, but I am also proud of how far I have come.
I’d always been a clean and tidy person, but things really changed in 2003 following the most shocking discovery. At the time, I was working in marketing, living in Newcastle with my new husband and pregnant with twins. Life seemed pretty much perfect until, at 28 weeks pregnant, I was woken one morning at 5am by a loud knocking on the front door. It was the police. They told me they were there to arrest my husband and had a search warrant. While they ransacked the house looking for his laptop, I stared on in disbelief and begged to know what was going on. As they took him away in handcuffs, they told me he was being arrested for gross indecency. I couldn’t believe it, but over the next few days and weeks, the terrible truth unfolded – my husband was a paedophile.
The distress sent me into an early labour. A few days later, I was rushed to hospital where I gave birth to twin girls, Olivia and Mollie, each weighing little more than 2lbs. They were taken into special care, where the nurses taught me the importance of everything being sterile so they wouldn’t catch infections. I felt so dirty and tainted by my husband’s crimes, that I became obsessed by germs.
Although he was in prison, I wanted to throw bleach at everything and anything he’d touched. When my girls finally came home at nine weeks old, I kept cleaning and re-cleaning the house. Somehow,
scrubbing at surfaces, continually hoovering and dusting seemed the only way I could cope.
I moved back to my hometown of Peterborough to start afresh. Two years later, I met my partner, Rob, while I was working as a receptionist in a GP’S surgery. I found it hard to trust men, but Rob was so kind and patient, and wonderful with the girls, that I soon learned I could rely on him. Together, we had a son called Jake.
CHANNELLING A PASSION
When Jake was a baby, I got a new job cleaning at a retirement complex. It was here that my obsession with cleaning became much healthier. I realised I had been using too many harmful chemicals, and the elderly residents taught me the power of lemons to clean almost anything. I started to really enjoy cleaning, rather than using it as a coping mechanism.
In 2012, I joined the cast of a new TV show called Obsessive Compulsive
Cleaners, where cleaning fanatics help sort out some of the UK’S dirtiest homes. Being on TV led to other amazing opportunities, such as being a presenter on shopping channels.
A friend bought me a pink apron with the name “Queen of Clean” on it – and it stuck! I used this to set up an Instagram account, where I post my favourite cleaning tips. I now have more than 179,000 followers and a slot on ITV’S This Morning.
Rob is so supportive, and so are the girls, now aged 16, and Jake, now 12. I still love cleaning my home and I’ve just published my third book, The Easy
Life, which is all about simple cleaning tips to help make your life easier. I’m so proud of how far I’ve come. When I found out the shocking truth about my ex-husband, it nearly broke me. Instead, I channelled a passion for cleaning into a platform to try to inspire others. Cleaning can make you feel productive, calm and happy every day. Who wouldn’t want that?’
• The Easy Life: Quick Ways To Clean And Manage Your Home All Year Round by Lynsey Crombie (Welbeck) is out now. Follow Lynsey on Instagram: @lynsey_queenofclean