Not long ago, I opened my door to the horror of an unexpected visitor. A university friend was passing through Bristol on the way to a conference; she thought she’d look me up.‘Oh hi!’ I beamed, in a voice that said: ‘Oh no!’ While it was nice to see my old pal, what was not nice was the prospect of her seeing inside my home.Some abodes are always ready for their close-up; mine is not. I need a week’s notice to ensure that the smears of Nutella are scrubbed off the walls and the sinks cleansed of toothpaste glubs.I stood blocking the doorway like a criminal whose fingerprints are all over the scene inside. ‘Come in!’ I trilled. In stepped my smartly-dressed friend, her face soon dropping as though she had just been parachuted into a slum rife with contagious diseases. Which she had.I have children aged eight, six, five and two who are atrociously messy. I am a terrible sloven, too busy chasing my own tail to hoover thrice daily. The result is a house that frequently looks like a crack den. If a burglar were to break in, they’d think the place had already been done over.After a few minutes of small talk, my friend’s brow furrowed. ‘Clare, seems like you’ve got a lot on… do you… have any help? A cleaner?’ When I told her I don’t – and don’t plan to get one – she was aghast. ‘But you’ve got four children! And…’ she looked around my living room-cum-bomb site. No further words necessary. A recent survey found that 40 per cent of under-35s now use a cleaner. 'This is the generation, remember, that is said to be suffering financially like none before', says our columnist No, I do not have a cleaner. I do not have a Bev or Barb or Bogdana from Bulgaria to toil in my domestic hellscape – and among friends and family this is increasingly unusual. One friend has hers round three times a week, not only to spruce the place up, but to do the laundry, too: a skivvy to wash the skivvies.I’m astonished that so many can afford it. My husband and I have decent incomes – he is a consultant surgeon – but still, once these have been ravaged by the mortgage, bills, food shops and so on, the idea of spending £60 a week on a three-hour clean that will soon be obliterated by a tsunami of fresh dirt seems ridiculous.We’re talking about over £3,000 a year, people! Who aside from the really wealthy can afford this? Well, lots of people, apparently. Demand for domestic cleaning services has soared by 142 per cent since 2023. The biggest customers: under 35s. A recent survey found that a whopping 40 per cent of them now has a cleaner.This is the generation, remember, that is said to be suffering financially like none before; the generation which bemoans their lot in comparison to the pampered and indulged Boomers.Given that just under a third of under-35s live with their parents, my rudimentary maths tells me about half of those not living with their mum and dad now have a cleaner.How can there be a cost-of-living crisis pinching at all levels of society while a sizeable chunk of under-35s can afford to pay for someone else to mop their floors? What’s going on? Maybe it’s the influence of social media stars like Molly-Mae Hague and Michelle Keegan, whose homes – with their acres of stain-free pale grey upholstery – depict what ‘making it’ looks like in 2026: having a gaff that looks like a chain hotel.Maybe it’s the ‘cleanfluencers’ such as Mrs Hinch, with her five million followers, who have turned a well-organised utility room into the ultimate aspiration. Maybe it’s that under-35s live in a world more uncertain than ever before and thus crave order. World War 3 about to erupt? AI going to steal your job? Turn your home into a haven of sparkling surfaces.Or maybe there’s something else going on; something less comfortable to admit, which is that a lot of young people find the idea of doing their own cleaning a bit demeaning these days. Having a cleaner is not just a convenience, it’s a status symbol, showing that someone like you doesn’t have to get on your knees to wipe the skirting boards. You’ve earned your way out of such chores.So having a cleaner has leapt from indulgence to necessity for many – and the sector is booming. In many ways this is a great thing. It’s getting money into the pockets of those who’d like to earn it. It’s boosting around 75,000 taxpaying businesses.But I can’t help noting a disconnect between the highly attuned – and loudly declared – social conscience of many under-35s and their increasing use of cleaners. An image springs to mind of a 20-something busily writing a social media post on inequality, while next door a migrant is giving their lavvy a good scrubbing.Doubtless most would recoil at the word ‘servant’, with its Upstairs Downstairs overtones, but a servant is what they have.On the odd occasion I have used a cleaner – on the insistence of my clean-freak husband, who sometimes declares our house to be a public health emergency – I am left feeling sheepish, as if I am taking advantage of hardworking women who, through twists of fate, geography and circumstance, are doing my dirty work, rather than the other way around.‘The marigolds are under the sink, dear – please ensure the oven door is so clean and grease-free that I can see my face in it…’ Please crack on with the work that we are too lazy/inept/important to do!For now, though my home falls far below Mrs Hinch standards, I will maintain my cleaner-free existence – and enjoy the glow of superiority that comes with it.Don’t let George board, KateIn a recent interview, Prince William mentioned that his eldest, George, 12, is already boarding at school. Boarding seems archaic – and sad for both children and parents, writes Clare Foges. Why don't William and Kate break with tradition? (Pictured outside St Georges Chapel, Windsor)I know tradition dictates that he’s packed off with a trunk and tuck box, but isn’t boarding archaic – and sad for both children and parents? I’d hate it if mine spent their teen years living away. Kate and William seem like very loving parents – perhaps they should be the ones to break this particular royal convention and keep their boy home.Day Jemima ‘stole’ my picture... It turns out that Clare Foges and Jemima Goldsmith have similar taste in decor. Our columnist recalls that they were both after the same vintage Marmite posterReading that Jemima Goldsmith is moving reminded me of a purchase she thwarted many years ago. I was in a Notting Hill shop to buy a vintage Marmite poster to be the centrepiece in my living room when in wafted Jemima and said she’d take it ‘for the boot room’. If she’s downsizing and it’s not too mud splattered, I’ll happily buy it from her.Is Katie Price in a marriage or an episode of 24? First we hear Lee Andrews has been kidnapped, then he’s banged up in jail. I fear this could be an epic ghosting of poor Katie. One of her friends should utter the immortal words: ‘He’s just not that into you.’Am I wrong to fancy Noel, too?Pictures of Noel Gallagher, 58, on a date with a woman three decades his junior has prompted catty comments about her motivation along the lines of: ‘What first attracted you to the multimillionaire?’ This is unfair. 58-year-old Oasis star Noel Gallagher, pictured leaving a pub in London with a brunette woman 30 years his juniorYes, he bears a passing resemblance to the chauffeur in Thunderbirds but isn’t Noel rather attractive? Or have I got my 90s indie kid goggles on?Most think it crazy that Nicola Sturgeon didn’t notice her husband’s spending on pricey salt grinders. Not me. After we have paid into our joint account, my husband and I are free to spend our own earnings as we wish – and mystery parcels arrive for him all the time. Do they contain pens worth thousands, like Sturgeon’s ex? Goodness only knows.