‘Cleanfluencers’ sweep TikTok, drawing millions

Marie Kondo may have admitted defeat, but a new generation of "cleanfluencers" is taking social media by storm, with millions watching them scour filthy homes and dole out cleaning hacks.

Digging through a mountain of trash, Auri Kananen uncovered a rotten piece of pizza on the floor of a Helsinki flat, with insects devouring it.

"I love cleaning, I love dirt," declared the 30-year-old Finn, who has far more social media followers than Kondo, the Japanese tidying guru who has admitted embracing the messier side of life since having her third child.

Kananen has quickly become one of the world's most successful "cleanfluencers," traveling the globe hunting for "the dirtiest homes possible."

"I remember when I had 19 followers. Even then it felt really cool to have 19 strangers wanting to see me clean," said Kananen, or aurikatariina as she is known to her 9 million followers on TikTok, with 2 million on YouTube.

In her upbeat videos, she dusts, scrubs and sorts, wearing her signature hot pink rubber gloves as zippy pop music plays in the background.

Her voiceovers often explain how the person she is helping ended up living in squalor.

"Usually people have some mental health problem or other tragedy that has happened in their lives," Kananen told AFP.

The flat in Helsinki is the home of a depressed young man whose brother suffers from multiple sclerosis, she explained.

She can relate to people living in miserable conditions because she went through a period of depression herself, she said.

"I know how overwhelming it is," she said.

But her experience has shown her that no situation is hopeless.

The comments sections of her videos are filled with people saying how her videos have...