This book is for our 'inner housewife', desperate to learn what housewives everywhere used to know instinctively - how to look after our home well and efficiently, with minimum fuss. Housewifery may be a dying vocation, but generations of wifely wisdom must not be allowed to disappear with it. We need to redefine what it means to be a housewife, for the sake of our homes and for the sake of our sanity. We have become dependent on those 5-in-1 chemical cleaners; we can't seem to wield a Hoover any more; doing the laundry takes days out of our week. We are too busy! We think housework is boring! We are at crisis point! Determined to help us to regain control, Rachel Simhon has compiled this manual on everything we need to know about looking after the home. She reveals how to descale a kettle, polish silver, get scratches off glasses, minimise ironing, store food in the fridge, protect photographs from fading and fold a fitted sheet, and explains how to choose a tumble dryer, manage a room full of children's belongings, sort a week's worth of family laundry and even organise a stress-free spring clean. And she answers, once and for all, countless questions such as what really gets red wine out of a carpet, why mattresses become lumpy over time and how to put an end to bathroom mould. Quarter-bound with an elegant Fifties-inspired two-colour design and illustrations, The Housewife's Handbook is the definitive guide to caring for the home.