Two bottles of bleach, a tin of spray on bathroom cleaner, a bottle of cif oxy action gel, one electrical steamer and a slightly twisted ankle....

We have a clean house! It took four days of scrubbing, bleaching and steaming with our brand new turbo power steam cleaner - I even took a toothbrush to the cooker at one point and finally we are unpacked and the house is clean.

We moved in to a new flat on Friday, with the landlords' promise that the place would be spic and span. It was nothing of the sort. I opened a cupboard, and with the shocking realisation that I sound exactly like my mother, yelped, 'This place is stinking. That is so filthy, have you seen all the dirty, shameful filthy things in this cupboard!'

It didn't look dirty when we saw it, but when we started opening the cupboards and moving the furniture around, I almost considered calling channel 4 to see how quickly they could send Kim and Aggie round.

You would not believe the filth. I spent about 6 hours on the cooker alone. The oven - oh my goodness. I have cleaned some manky ovens in my time, but I've never seen Mr. Muscle foam turn brown on contact!!! I didn't break down until I found the big pile of rodent excrement underneath the landlords' family heirloom (a singer streddle sewing machine which they keep in our house for some utterly bizarre reason - WHY???).

Anyway, it is clean now after four solid days of housework. Thank goodness partner dude has a stronger stomach than I do with that crap (and I mean that literally). Although I should say - I did the toilet all by myself, but I will spare you all the details. It would appear that I am very lucky with partner dude. Other female friends have told me their male partners are not quite so willing to don the marigolds and get scrubbing.

Gross.

However, I would like to assure any potential visitors that the place is now spotless, excrement free and very nice. I'd even challenge Kim and Aggie to do a better job! We even have a basil plant and a mint plant in the window. (This isn't the first basil plant I had - but I've managed to kill the others - any tips from more green fingered types for keeping herb plants alive would be much appreciated).

Can I just say a big thankyou to the makers of Cif. Between Cif bathroom mousse, cif oxy-action gel, and cif action gel with baking soda (that stuff is absolusely A M A Z I N G)...our house is just cif central at the moment. We've bought so much of the stuff over the past few days, I think they should be giving us shares in the company.