What) “I’m trying to give clean its rightful place in society,” said Don Aslett, whose name graces the Museum of Clean in Pocatello. Aslett, who owns a multinational cleaning business, has spent six years and $6 million of his own money to open the museum in an 80,000-square-foot, six story building in his hometown.
It began, he said, in 1984, when he noticed an old hand-pumped vacuum cleaner at The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan. “I thought, you know, there’s cow museums and hammer museums and button museums, but what is more important on the face of the earth than clean?” Aslett started collecting cleaning items and he estimates that he now has 500 to 600 vacuums and more than 6,500 artifacts.
Aslett, however, wants everyone to know that the Museum of Clean is not a vacuum museum even though it does display dozens of his favorites. “The whole thing is designed to sell the value of clean,” Aslett said, explaining that cleanliness has, for too long, been portrayed as unpleasant. “We punish our kids by making them clean their room,” he said. “We tell them, ‘You’d better study, or you’ll grow up to be a janitor.’”
The Museum
of Clean counters this with exhibits showing the benefits of
learning to sweep, clean windows, and clean ourselves. A
gallery of Cleaning Art (statues, sculptures, paintings,
photographs) conveys Aslett’s belief that, “clean is the most
beautiful thing on the earth.” “If you clean up after people,
you reinforce bad behavior,” he said. “The most important
thing you can teach someone is to be responsible for their own
mess.” (1)
Where) 711 South 2nd Avenue The current Cleaning Museum is at Don Aslett's Cleaning Center at 311 South 5th Avenue. It is open Fri-Sat from 10am - 7pm 1-208-236-6906
Why) As Pam
has owned a cleaning company for 30 years and as I was
planning to start working for one in four months; it seemed
natural to stop in at this museum. 
I suspect that we missed out on something interesting and the internet confirms that we could have seen ... (3)
