Meet the Mini-Marthas! Suddenly, Hipster Homemakers Are Cleaning Up

One of my roommates periodically gets a very crafty idea when it comes to the maintenance of our apartment-he'll stay up all night and bleach the counters, then pull old wine bottles out of the recycling bin and fill them with olive oil or tap water. The sparkling counters or the shiny glass bottles are refreshing additions to the space; they are also ironic reminders that the floor is covered with little pieces of … something, and the baseboards are grimy, and the sink is full of dishes. The one way to regain control of our lives, given our overall apathy, was through performing a chore that was fun.

That roommate was a frequent reader of Jolie Kerr's "Ask a Clean Person" column on the women’s interest site The Hairpin, which provides advice to novice homemakers. The advice is, at once, delightfully voicey ("Bleachie," Ms. Kerr's term for her favorite cleaning solvent, is a recurring character to whom the author and readers express their "

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