A prime candidate for secular canonisation – and a personal hero of mine – is Frances Gabe. She was a visionary, a terrible neighbour (she antagonised hers with a succession of snarling great danes and a penchant for nude DIY) and the inventor of the self-cleaning home. Gabe, who died in 2016 at 101, transformed her Oregon bungalow into a “giant dishwasher”, with a system of sprinklers, air dryers and drains, plus self-cleaning sinks, bath and toilet. “Housework is a thankless, unending job,” Gabe said. “Who wants it? Nobody!”
I agree with Gabe – and with Lenin, who condemned housework as “barbarously unproductive, petty, nerve-racking, stultifying and crushing drudgery”. My own objections are mainly founded in sloth and a vague desire to stick it to the man, but for others housework can be difficult, or even impossible.
