The Dog Got Clean Too

Frances Gabe graduated high school at sixteen, having compressed six years into two. Her father was an architect. She held thirty-six patents. She could build or fix essentially anything.

She hated cleaning.

In the late 1960s, her children smeared fig jam on a wall. Gabe dragged a garden hose into the kitchen, blasted the jam off, and stood in the dripping room with what can only be described as a revelation. What if the entire house could do this?

She spent the next forty years finding out. Every room in her Newberg, Oregon prototype got a ten-inch cleaning unit mounted to the ceiling. Press a button: soapy water, rinse, blow dry. Floors were coated in marine varnish and sloped to corner drains. Curtains were eliminated. Rugs were eliminated. Paintings went behind sealed plastic. Books wore custom waterproof jackets. Dresser drawers had honeycomb bottoms so dust fell through. Dishes sat on mesh shelves inside cabinets and were washed in place, never unloaded. Clothes hung on a chain system that washed and dried them on their hangers. She never folded anything again.

One has to admire the sheer completeness of the vendetta.

The runoff water from the whole system channeled outside through the doghouse, washing the dog on its way to the garden. Sixty-eight patented devices. The house needed a full cleaning cycle only twice a year.

Gabe lived to 101. The house still stands in Newberg. It is now cleaned by hand.