TikTok's Cleaning Queen on how to get your children to tidy up, the  mistake we all make that actually encourages them to become messy adults and where girls, especially, keep getting it wrong

Published: 23:48, 9 August 2026 | Updated: 23:48, 9 August 2026 Don't punish your children with cleaning chores unless you want them to become messy adults, TikTok’s ‘Cleaning Queen’ Ann Russell has advised. Ms Russell is famous on social media as ‘that English cleaner lady’, posting tips on housework along with her own reasoned musings on current affairs. A professional cleaner for more than 20 years and the mother of four adult children, she has amassed a staggering three million followers and 100 million likes on TikTok alone. Described in the Washington Post as ‘a TikTok cleaning queen’, Ms Russell’s largely young fan base frequently compliment her non-judgemental style of issuing advice. And she told the Mail this week: ‘Cleaning is not a moral thing, and a lot of people – an awful lot of girls – have spent their childhood [believing otherwise]. My grandmother [who raised her] spent her time saying, “Oh, child, look at this mess! I don’t know how I’m going to tidy it.”  'And I felt awful, but I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t understand what she wanted, and I had to teach myself. Ms Russell is famous on social media as ‘that English cleaner lady’, posting tips on housework along with her own reasoned musings on current affairs ‘And I think there are so many people that walk into a room and they can just hear the voice of their mother or somebody in their background telling them that they’re useless.’ The social media sensation stressed that parents ‘shouldn’t punish children by making them do something that you want them to do’ like cleaning, which she says can be turned into a game or activity with younger children. ‘If my grandmother had said, “Oh look darling, all your toys are out.  'Can we put them in there?” I could have said, “No, I can’t make them fit”. ‘She could have showed me and I could have done it.  'You can encourage them and make them feel all warm and fuzzy when they’ve done it, because if you know that cleaning makes you feel all warm and fuzzy because your mummy made you feel all warm and fuzzy, then you’re going to want to do it. ‘But if they made you feel awful and they made you cry, why would you do something when in the back of your head is the memory that when you tried to do it, somebody shouted at you? It was a punishment. ‘That’s a really, really bad idea.  'I mean, you don’t train dogs by beating them when they do something – you train them by rewarding them when they do something good.’ Ms Russell’s videos are unusually unpolished for an influencer with her number of followers, and she insists that a house doesn’t need to be ‘immaculate’. ‘As long as you are clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy, it does not matter,’ Ms Russell said. ‘You deserve to live in a clean and tidy house. You deserve to be able to find your stuff.  'But ultimately, I find that so many people now are judging themselves by things they see online, and what they see online is not necessarily the reality.’ The cleaning guru was in Ireland for the first time recently as a guest on the debut episode of ‘absolute sweetheart’ Lucy Kennedy’s new chat show on Virgin Media, alongside Kerry Katona and comedian Shane Daniel Byrne The cleaning guru was in Ireland for the first time recently as a guest on the debut episode of ‘absolute sweetheart’ Lucy Kennedy’s new chat show on Virgin Media, alongside Kerry Katona and comedian Shane Daniel Byrne. ‘It was a bit like [when] you turn up at a dinner party and you don’t know people, and you’re just idly chatting,’ she said of the pre-recorded interview. Friends and family think her belatedly acquired fame is ‘the funniest thing’, with reactions being ‘a blend of incredulity and complete disbelief that somebody quite as boring and slightly shambolic as myself could be known by other people’. And she insisted her life ‘hasn’t really changed’ despite her newfound international profile.  Ms Russell said: ‘I get to do cool things like going to Ireland and being on Lucy’s show, but my daily life hasn’t changed at all. ‘I still live in the same house.  'I still see the same people, and then every now and again, I go and do something that’s kind of cool and interesting. ‘I mean, there’s absolutely no chance of me ever getting too big for my britches.’ Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.