‘Clients want us to clean the air’: how the pandemic took hygiene to a whole new level

The past year has turbo-charged our relationship with cleanliness, raising expectations and turning many into germophobes. Has it gone too far?

Before Lynsey Crombie sits on a train, or outside a cafe, she takes out her antibacterial wipes and cleans the table, the arms of her seat – anywhere she might touch or put her phone down. “I’ve always done it,” says the bestselling author of The 15-Minute Clean and How To Clean Your House And Tidy Up Your Life. “Until last year I used to get some funny looks.”

These days there are no funny looks, the pandemic having made germophobes of many of us. Between March and May of 2020, UK sales of liquid disinfectant were 74.9% higher, and bleach 32% higher, than the year before. Until the vaccine came along, hygiene seemed to be our best defence against a deadly enemy that threatened our entire way of life, and we diligently held that line. What did you do in the war effort, Mummy? I triple-sanitised the door handle, darling.

Clients care about the kind of cleaning you can’t see. We get requests for surface bacterial readings

There has been a spike in searches for ‘white kitchen’. People want second sinks for hand-washing

As soon as people walk into a workplace or commercial space now, they are thinking about hygiene