Dust And Dash -- It's A Dirty Job, But Book Says You Can Speed Clean In No - Uh . . . Less - Time

The promise had always intrigued me: "Clean your home in half the time or less!"

I wondered about the book that promised to reveal such wondrous cleaning secrets. It had to be a scam, didn't it? Or - did it?

One day recently, I spied the new "completed revised and updated for the 1990s" edition of "Speed Cleaning," by Jeff Campbell and The Clean Team ($6, Dell Trade Paperback).

The Clean Team are professional cleaners in San Francisco. They claim their three-person crews can clean an average house in 42 minutes; a one-bedroom apartment in 18 minutes.

Their premise: Most of us detest housework, so we should use time-motion principles to help us who-o-o-sh through the house in as little time as possible.

Why not try this out, I decided, and let readers know the results?

By the time I was geared up, I waddled like a duck. Nobody who values their own dignity is going to be fond of "speed cleaning." But with the promise of gaining what the book's authors call more VLT (valuable leisure time), I figured I could tolerate looking stupid.

You have to wear a multipocketed apron crammed with an awesome cleaning arsenal: odd tools, soaps, scrubbing implements galore. Your carryall, with more cleaning stuff crammed in, is to follow you like a faithful dog.

Dangling off my hips like guns in a holster were squirt bottles of "red juice" (the generic name for a heavy-duty liquid cleaner such as Formula 409) and "blue juice" (the generic name for a lighter-duty cleaner for mirrors and glass such as Windex).

Ready for battle, I went to the kitchen, as instructed, and proceeded clockwise. I must confess that the book had me cleaning places I would be more likely to hit in a heavy-duty "spring" cleaning.

Dust along the top of a doorway? Hmm, what an interesting idea. Whisk those refrigerator vents? How clever! Clean the lamp fixtures and venetian blinds weekly?

I periodically glanced at the clock as I moved to other rooms. I was not keeping pace. Instead of whizzing through the motions, I'd get fascinated by things like the way that red-juice-soaked toothbrush nipped around the stove buttons, and the cute little dance you do to keep dust from flying - stop at the end of each stroke, tap the duster against your heel at floor level.

Tick, tick, tick.

Six hours later, with 2 1/2 rooms to go, I collapsed and gave up for the day, pooped. Which is not to say the Clean Team's methods don't work. Half the cleaning time? I wouldn't go that far. But with practice, you wouldn't have to keep referring to the book; you'd get that dust-tap, dust-tap motion down, and you might even learn to draw and reholster those red and blue juice bottles with a gunfighter's speed.

For Clean Team methods that worked best for me, see page G 2.