A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home Audiobook By Melissa Dilkes Pateras, Carla Sosenko cover art

A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home

Housekeeping Hacks You Can't Live Without

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A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home

By: Melissa Dilkes Pateras, Carla Sosenko
Narrated by: Melissa Dilkes Pateras
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Buy for $15.75

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Everything you need to know about laundry, cleaning, and basic home repairs—from the TikTok star who made bluing a thing, showed you how to fold a fitted sheet, and taught you to properly use your (caulk) gun.

“[Melissa Pateras] makes chores enjoyable in her bawdy debut. . . . Doing laundry has never sounded so fun.”—Publishers Weekly

Melissa Dilkes Pateras is the most competent housekeeper, DIY-project master, and home repair genius that you’ve ever fantasized about becoming. When she followed her kids on to TikTok, she discovered a community hungry for her approachable, tongue-in-cheek advice on everything from balls—dryer balls, that is—to why color-coded closets are a spiritual experience. She doesn’t expect you to know what you were never taught, and she doesn’t care about transforming your home into a minimal, beige Instagram post; she simply wants to help make your life easier.

Can housekeeping be fun? Whether you’re terrified of your laundry pile or have an inner handyperson who’s been longing for their moment, A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home is a joyful all-purpose guide to organizing, cleaning, laundry, repairs, and beyond. As Melissa says, “Your home shouldn’t be your adversary.”


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF with helpful instructions, lists, and charts from the book House & Home Personal Development Personal Success

Critic reviews

“Pateras, who dispenses housekeeping tips on TikTok, makes chores enjoyable in her bawdy debut. . . . The plentiful tips are often surprising. . . . Other ‘hacks’ are simple yet clever. . . . Throughout, Pateras’s ribald humor animates the advice (‘I love balls . . . in my dryer,’ she writes on preferring dryer balls to dryer sheets). Doing laundry has never sounded so fun.”—Publishers Weekly
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Great book for anyone interested in taking good care of themselves as well as the environment they surround themselves in.

So much insight

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Super helpful for keeping (a better) house, and plenty of little snickers and giggles along the way.

Humorous and Helpful

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I love Melissa and have followed her on Tik Tok for years. I enjoyed the book from start to finish! I checked to make sure she was the narrator before I made the audible purchase; I love a Canadian accent and find hers to be very soothing. I also learned A LOT of things that I can be doing to elevate my regular cleaning routine. I appreciate Melissa’s expertise and loved learning that she paid attention to her Nan. Thank you, Melissa!

That sweet, soothing Canadian accent

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I'm not even kidding. I was so sad to start listening to the book only to hear so much judgment from someone I really liked prior to this.

The author is talking about those cheesy signs people have in their homes, and starts talking sh!t about the one that says "Please excuse the mess, we're making memories." She says "I hate that sign. It's the worst quote ever. 'Please excuse the mess, we're making memories?' No you're not, at least not good ones. You're living in chaos and those are the memories you're making. I hate the idea that you can't be making memories while also keeping a neat home."

I quit listening right there. I hate the idea that anything other than her definition of neat and tidy is considered by her to be "chaos." I've followed this writer for a few years now, and I was SHOCKED at how judgmental that is. For every child she claims is living in "chaos," there are kids who are living in "neat" homes and the parents are more obsessed with keeping things clean than being there for their kid. That doesn't mean I think that everyone who keeps a neat home is that way.

Someone living in a home that isn't perfectly neat and clean every second isn't "chaos" and I'm sad that this author decided to start her book this way.

I'm really sad that this is how she decided to start her book. So judgmental and just flat inaccurate.

Melissa, people can have a little bit of mess and not have it be "chaos" and creating "bad memories."

Couldn't get past the judgmental introduction

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