'Create a new sequence by stripping whitespace from start
and end of each value of each pair'

def cleanSeq(self, seq):

    clean = []
    for (k, v) in self.seq:
        if (type(k) is str):
            k = k.decode('utf8')
        if (type(v) is str):
            v = v.decode('utf8')
        clean.append((k.strip(), v.strip()))
    return clean
