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Felonious kleptosquaters: a plea for help

I have a message for our kleptosquaters - the hidden, uninvited residents of our home, who creep about in the dark helping themselves to odd socks; kitchen scissors; and every working pen or sharpened pencil - why not convert from felonious acts to ones of a more charitable hue?

For example, there are certain irritations I would love someone - other than the usual downtrodden and exhausted, clearing fairy - to deal with:

  • the hair that blocks the shower drain and makes it smell
  •  dog hairs everywhere
  • the long hairs, knotted into elastic hair-ties, that are draped over the edge of the bath (if you don't have long-haired girls, you won't have a clue what I mean!)
  • perhaps one of you could even be enticed to lick up the toothpaste that looks as if the ghost of Jack the Dripper has practised modern art in the sink
  • spiders' webs
  • the detritus of Littlest's latest "making" project - piles of pencil sharpenings, confetti-like bits of paper, sticky ends of sellotape, and glue sticks (never married to their lids)
  • biscuit wrappers
  • loo roll cylinders
  • tangerine/satsuma/mandarin peelings down the side of sofa cushions, on bedside tables, and on the floor and yoghurt pot lids on the desk
  • fairy dust - whose daft idea was that: to give little girls tubes of coloured sand and glitter to scatter all over the house as they make wishes and practice casting spells?


With New Year just around the corner, perhaps your kleptomania could be redirected and I could have a tidier house - all be it one with missing socks.

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