Brogan Ingram isn’t a cleaner by trade. But never mind that. Her cleaning videos have landed her 7 million social media followers and lucrative partnerships with major companies such as Scrub Daddy.
The 31-year-old cleans in extreme environments: bathrooms so dirty they’ve become unusable, insect-infested kitchens full of trash, bedrooms piled to the ceiling because of hoarding. And she does it all free. Brogan Ingram, who is based in Canada, cleans homes for free.
Credit: TikTok @nottheworstcleaner Ingram’s popularity on TikTok and Instagram, where she posts as @nottheworstcleaner, stems from her videos discussing the connection between mental health and housekeeping. Research has found that a messy environment can significantly impact our wellbeing, leaving us stressed out and overwhelmed. Ingram has dealt with this firsthand.
She was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, then studied psychology in university, she says, “because I understood my brain wasn’t the same as everybody else’s, and I wanted to learn about it”. She had also struggled to keep her own space tidy while working three jobs to put herself through school. “My apartment looked like one of the houses that I clean in my videos,” she says.
“I had neglected it so bad, and it was to the point where it was affecting me so greatly. If you don’t keep things clean, it affects your mental health. But at the same time, if you’re experiencing poor mental health, it’s very hard to keep your environme.