by 
A Basingstoke family welcomed visitors to their barbecue this weekend while secretly hoping that everyone thinks their house is always like this.
The Williams family hosted a few close friends and relatives for an impromptu get-together due to the hot weather, after treating the house to the sort of deep-clean one would expect if they were planning to perform open heart surgery in the lounge.
“At my wife’s polite suggestion, we spent two full days cleaning and tidying every single inch of the house, ‘just in case’,” explained father of two, Simon Williams.
“Not just the normal tidying and cleaning you would do for yourself, because everyone knows that you can live surrounded by a bit of your own filth – this was proper hardcore stuff. I literally cleaned down the back of radiators. Who knew that was even a thing?”
“The place was like a show home, apart from all the scribbling on the walls that we didn’t have time to paint over. We just moved the sofa slightly to hide them.
“The good thing is I think that everyone now believes this is how we live, all of the time.”
Guests of the family spoke in glowing terms of their home and the barbecue itself.
One told us, “I don’t know how they do it, what with having two kids and both being in full-time employment. Everything was so immaculate. I envy their life.”
However, neighbour Dave Smith said, “I popped round on Tuesday to pick up a hat I’d left at theirs. They looked a bit shocked when I turned up announced – and no wonder. Looking behind them I think they’d been burgled.”
