(I might turn this into a series. We’ll see.)

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On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I clean houses on the lower section of Wenceslas Avenue- 190-220 on the right, 191-221 on the left.  And that means that I get to go into people’s houses while they’re away and see what strange things they keep in there.

Here’s one of them.

Number 209- The one with all the clowns

I know a lot of people are scared of clowns, but I mainly just find them untrustworthy.  Especially when they’re used as children’s toys- no matter how much effort the manufacturers put into making them seem cute and lovable, you can tell that under the makeup they’re middle-aged blokes with male-pattern baldness.  Normally you’d scream the house down if you found one of those in your children’s bedroom.  That shouldn’t change just because of some greasepaint and a red nose.

Anyway, the people in this house have a big pile of toy clowns on an ottoman in the hallway.  There’s china Pierrot dolls, plastic ones with plastic red hair, and knitted ones with plus signs for eyes, all arranged with the biggest ones at the back as if they’re posing for a photo.  The whole thing is just unseemly.

There’s some other odd decorating choices elsewhere in the house, but none of them are as disturbing as opening the front door to see a few dozen clowns staring at you.  There’s a big golden tree on the landing, with golden leaves and golden berries on the branches, that may or may not be made out of plastic.  There’s a statue of a rearing horse in the bathroom, luckily not actual size (unless it’s meant to be a very skinny Shetland pony), and luckily facing away from the toilet.  Over Christmas, they had an entire miniature Charles Dickens village on the table in the living room, which I really liked, but a couple of times I found used coasters next to it, which suggested that they were still using it as a table even though it was 90 percent covered.  All I could think about was how guilty they’d feel if they knocked a mug over and drowned all the delightful ice-skating urchins in PG Tips.  Some things just don’t bear thinking about.