A sparkling legacy

Don Aslett may be more than a half century into his fight against dirt and clutter, but he still can't take a stroll without bending to pick up litter from the sidewalk.

As a child, he can remember cringing at the site of spilled coffee grounds and in high school, finding it strange the other boys didn't like to clean their rooms. Even now at the age of 76, his battle against grit and grime has yet to relent.

Those who may not understand his devotion, he reasons, have likely never felt the satisfaction of making a toilet bowl shine.

"I'll tell you, clean is a hard sell," said Aslett, who has written 37 books on the topic and founded a janitorial business with branches in most states and Canada.

While mothers may threaten their kids with having to clean their rooms as punishment, Aslett knew he was different from an early age.

"I love to clean," he said with a shrug.

And now he has a six-story shrine dedicated to his craft - the Museum of Clean - that recently opened to the public in southeastern Idaho.

Among the exhibits: A horse-drawn vacuum dating back to 1902; a collection of several hundred pre-electric vacuum cleaners; a Civil War-era operating table; a 1,600-year-old bronze pick that was used to clean teeth and an antique Amish foot bath.

If visitors grow weary while touring the building with its estimated 6,000 historical cleaning devices, they can take a seat on chairs fashioned out of garbage bins, a claw-foot bathtub and a washing machine from 1945.

There's also an 88-seat theater, an art gallery and a gift shop with cleaning kits for kids priced at $9.95 and plush toys in the shape of germs. Aslett's most prized possession - a 2,000 year old terra cotta water vessel used by the Romans to wash up- is not quite ready for display and kept locked in a filing cabinet.

The idea for the project came several years ago, when Aslett came upon an old pre-electric sweeper vacuum at a Detroit museum.

"I thought, well there's horse museums, cow museums, train museums, plane museums. Why not a clean museum?" Aslett said.

He started his collection with an old pump vacuum he purchased for about $250 and tracked down more items at antique stores, while others were donated. He soon had enough for a display at his office in downtown Pocatello, Idaho.

"I found out something interesting: people are into cars and food and sports," Aslett said. "Cleaning is way down on the list. But If you took something as dull as cleaning and made it humorous, then cleaning goes to the top."

Aslett started public speaking and writing cleaning handbooks with titles such as: Is there Life after Housework? and Clutter's Last Stand. His personal monikers have included the Dean of Clean, the Sultan of Shine and, who could ever forget, Don Juan of the John.

He was featured in People magazine. He's also been on Oprah. At one point, he started carrying a fiberglass toilet as a suitcase because he felt that was the symbol of his trade. He also enjoyed the suspense of his fellow travelers as they waited by the baggage carousel to see who would claim it.

As his cleaning business thrived, so did the cleaning tool collection. Things got serious when he found a Boston collector with 230 pre-electric vacuums he was willing to sell for $300,000.

"After I got that collection, I found out that I needed a lot more room," Aslett said. "I thought, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to leave a real legacy."

Over the years the museum missed several expected starts, but Aslett stood firm in his belief: "When you hear Pocatello, you're going to think clean."

He was quick to dismiss a website survey this year that ranked Pocatello among the dirtiest cities in the United States based on online sales of cleaning products. (next page »)