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4. Some people say that spiders bring happiness to homes. Do you sweep cobwebs in your house?
5. Do you wash clothes by hand or use a washing machine?
6. Do you do the dishes by hand or use a dishwasher?
7. Do you dry the dishes with a dishcloth/dishtowel or leave them on the drying board?
8. Is it necessary to scrub the floor in your house/ flat?
9. Does each member of your family polish his/her own shoes or is there one person responsible for it?
10. Do you prefer to beat the carpets or hoover them?
11. Some people enjoy cleaning the windows. Do you? Why? Why not?
12. Do you mop the floor or clean it without a mop?
: Read the story and discuss the questions after it.
Who Needs a Clean House?
My neighbours, Mr and Mrs Smith, both hated housework. They were very untidy people who never put things away in their places. When they went to bed, for example, they always left their clothes in a mess on the floor. Their kitchen was in great disorder, too. Even though they had a dishwasher, they always left the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, and only did the washing-up when there was not a single plate in the house. It was just the same with their clothes. They never put them into the washing machine until there was nothing else left to wear. Their living room didn't look better! There was thick dust on every piece of furniture and the carpets hadn't been cleaned for weeks. And the bathroom!
So the day came when Mr Smith couldn't find one of his socks and Mrs Smith couldn't see her face in the bathroom mirror. They looked around and decided that it was time to get the house cleaned. And they found Marie, a foreign student at a local university who needed some extra money.
Marie came to their house and worked all day long. She washed, dried and ironed all the clothes and put them away where they belonged — into the wardrobe and chest of drawers. She swept the floor with a large broom. She took a wet cloth and wiped the dust off the furniture, and polished it until it was shining. She cleaned all the carpets with a vacuum cleaner. In the kitchen, the floors were too dirty to wash with a mop, so Marie got on her hands and knees and scrubbed the dirt off with a scrubbing brush. Finally, she made the beds. Now the house looked spotless.
When Mr and Mrs Smith came home that evening, everything was clean, neat and tidy. "Well, what do you think?" Mrs Smith asked her husband. "It looks very nice," he said. "But how are we ever going to find anything?"
1. Where is it easier to find things — in a clean room or in a dirty one?
2. Can you easily find some things you need in your room?
3. Do your parents and friends think you are a tidy person?
4. What kind of housework do you most hate doing?
5. What kind of housework do you least mind doing?
6. Do you share housework with all the other members of your family? Who usually does what?
7. Who does most of the housework in your house?
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