Spray starching your shirts and waxing the furniture might not be your idea of a fun afternoon, but believe it or not there can be pleasure in housework. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge lawyer Cheryl Mendelson will reveal her secret passion for cleaning. And just in time for the holidays, the story of the houseguest from Hell.

Cheryl Mendelson is the author of the 900 page "Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House." She tells Steve Paulson that household chores are manageable if you group them into systems and stay on schedule. Also, Shirley Wajda explains to Judith Strasser why Martha Stewart is such a phenomenon and why there are academics who devote their careers to studying her impact.

Leann Klein is the Executive Producer of the BBC Channel Four production "The 1900 House" (coming to PBS in the Spring.) She tells Jim Fleming what it was like for a contemporary family to actually live in a house restored to its original turn of the century condition — boiling laundry, shaving with a cut-throat razor, and wearing tight corsets all the time. Also, David Macauley, author and illustrator of "The Way Things Work," tells Steve Paulson that kids love his books because the information in them (and being taken seriously as readers) gives children a sense of power, and that he is drawn to explaining the technology of the Industrial Revolution because it's big enough to see.

Miranda Seymour tells Jim Fleming about the real life incident behind her novel "Summer of 39." Poet Laura Riding stole her hostess' husband, convinced everyone that the poor woman was a witch and drove her insane. Seymour says Riding had a cult-figure hold over people, no matter how mad her actions appeared.

Distribution dates:

• week of 12/12/99 - hour 2