Is this a truly filthy province, or is everyone in dire need of therapy? How else to explain the cascade of cleaning aids being hustled at last week’s BC Home and Garden Show. It began as soon as you got inside B.C. Place Stadium, where a lineup of “spring clean” vignettes from the Bay took attendees past the laundry rooms of four hypothetical households, presumably neighbours. Sarah, read the signage, was “a young up and comer, she’s got her first job and her first place”¦laundry is not a high priority but looking great is.” And that job would be what? The Bay wasn’t saying, but visual hints included scarlet patent high heels and a surprising number of towels. Next door, “Philip and Tara have thriving careers, a beautiful house, four beautiful kids”, and a laundry room like the starship Enterprise where “sometimes great family moments just happen over separating the whites.” Their words, not mine. I couldn’t help thinking that if Philip ever got bored with his ultra-white life, he’d know where to go.

On the other side of the í¼berfamily lived Hannah and Sebastian, who had “just renovated their first house”¦they chose Tuesdays for laundry night—to spend more time together and reduce water usage by consolidating their wash loads.” Aaaaw, they share a mortgage, and their underwear commingles. Finally came Tyler, “a hotshot successful single stockbroker who takes care of himself”¦he chose top-end appliances [Merlot-coloured, vroom-vroom design] to take care of his “fashion currency”. The guy gets up at 5 a.m., makes six figures, and personally washes and irons his Calvin Klein shirts? Yeah, right.

Onward, past someone in a white towelling robe handing out free Royale rolls (now there’s a job, Sarah) and down into the show’s central area, which, while not quite as unintentionally funny, was more relevant if you were seeking ways to green your suburban pad. Installing roof tiles made from old car tires is a brilliant (and Canadian) idea that costs about the same as using good-quality cedar shakes. EcoRoof tiles carry a 50-year warranty, and an average roof keeps 500 of the nasty suckers out of the landfill. (They’re available from Penfolds Roofing, at www.penfoldsroofing.com/.) Eventually recycled into other plastic products, Rhinobag www.useitlikeabin.com/, a humongous yellow plastic bag was designed to hold those discarded shakes. Fill ’er up with building waste and, for a flat fee, the company takes it away when you’re ready, and sorts it out at the recycling centre.

A V-shaped show home by PreFabulous Homes www.prefabuloushomes.ca/   proved that a family of four could live comfortably in an energy-efficient 1,400 square feet. Elsewhere, showgoers crowded around a booth to learn about geothermal heating (www.nextenergy.ca/). No arguing with NextEnergy brochure’s contention that “burning fossil fuel is”¦a self-defeating proposition”. So is cutting down more trees. Rick Fast at Canadian Heritage Timber Company pointed out that the cost of flooring your home with first-growth fir reclaimed from an old sawmill or wood from areas ravaged by forest fires—or beetle-killed pine, “when you can only afford plastic laminate”—puts real wood floors within almost everyone’s reach (www.canadianheritagetimber.com/).

The show wasn’t all environmental feel-good stuff. If you wanted to, you could drop-kick the neighbours into permanent greenness with your enviable “open air culinary system” from Arcon Rock and Waterscapes, which includes the ultimate barbecue mounted in a chunk of realistic rock—for a mere 40 grand. The matching $65,000 James Bond–ish grotto hot tub (www.arconwaterdesigns.com/) could hold 10 men, the salesperson said.

My wandering thoughts about the 10 men I’d personally like to see in a hot tub were dragged back on topic by displays from the cities of Burnaby and Vancouver, both gold mines on how to grow a “green” garden. Vancouver park board staffer Sophie Dessureault said response had been great to a circular, waist-height display of ground cover plants like London Pride, purple carpet thyme, and beach strawberry that consumes far less water than the stereotypical lawn (see www.jeeperscreepers.info/ for details). (Instead of mowing, you could sit back in the handsome and affordable folding cedar chairs made by the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion’s woodshop [604-435-0508], which I first spotted at last summer’s folk festival.)

Perhaps because gardens were this year’s focus, I didn’t find the show strong on interior-design ideas, apart from stuffing mini tangerines in a clear-glass pitcher as a base for a bunch of orange gerberas. The best information came as I was leaving, when I caught a presentation by Janette Ewen, billed as the “fresh face of home design”. Her promise of a “quick and easy way to come up with a decorating palette” was too tempting to pass by, as was her reassurance that “each and every one of us is an interior decorator”. Her call to the audience for visually attractive movies as inspiration drew Marie Antoinette as a response, to which Ewen added Breakfast at Tiffany’s, “if you’re decorating on a dime”. She also threw out www.apartmenttherapy.com/, which promises many happy hours in front of the computer. Better than doing the laundry—leave that to Sarah, Philip, Tara, Tyler, Hannah, and Sebastian.