This entry was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under By the Numbers, Let's Get Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Everything I know about house cleaning could fit in a small mop bucket. Not that I own one, but I’ve seen them, so I have a general sense of the dimensions.
- Host everything. Sometimes a little incentive’s necessary, which is why an impending audience is handy for motivating the terminally messy to pick up the pace and get the place clean.
- Tackle the bathroom first. Nothing says I need a good scrubbing like toothpaste bits and water spots on the mirror. Plus it’s the easiest room in the house to sparklefy, especially if you employ the shower curtain in the manner in which it was intended: to hide a bathtub rim cluttered with shampoos, soaps, razors, and three types of conditioner.
- Marry well. My husband is more sensitive to mess than I am, which means that he’s more than willing to pitch in and shovel out the clutter whenever necessary. His latest project? Mucking out both of our sheds. I came out one evening last week to find him vacuuming the rafters in the carport shed. When he noticed me watching him in astonishment, he cheerfully pointed out that he had “vacuumed up enough spider silk to make a blouse”. Although I kindly turned down his offer, I can see how cleaning can have other advantages I haven’t yet foreseen.
- Squirt, leave, return. Household chemicals work so much better when left to settle for a while. A toilet bowl soaked in bleach-infused cleanser for an hour doesn’t even require a good scrubbing — a flush will do. Plus the lovely chemical smell adds to the illusion of a germ-free environment.
- Mess is obvious; cleanliness is not. No one notices a nice, neat house. It’s not fair. Get used to it.
- Learn how to apologize for the mess. I’ve honed this one to a fine art, asking people to excuse the mess, even if I’ve spent the last three hours tidying and the visitor in question is selling something and therefore won’t make it through the half-closed front door.
- Hire someone. If only! Still, one can dream.
As I said — a small mop bucket of info. Other suggestions for the cleaning-impaired?
December 7th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Fluff the couch pillows and put a smell-good envelope in your vacuum cleaner bag and vacuum moments before someone will walk in the door – it will seem like you’ve been cleaning all day.
December 7th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Nice suggestions! I like the “host everything” one the best
December 7th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Some say that marrying well involves a royal title, or at least money, but I am sooooo with you. Marry someone who cleans better than you do, and you’re set for life.
Some might consider it a problem when her husband is considered the messiest in his office, but me? No way! (And probably you too.) He’s still way neater than me, so win-win!
December 7th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Mrs. Lemon, that sounds like something I think I saw in a movie once, where the character said that she always puts in toast before someone comes over, because she thinks that toast smells so homey.
Thanks PJ! I discovered the hosting bit when I was still in college. I volunteered to have every study group, gathering, etc. at my place — as long as it wasn’t going to leave it any messier than it was to begin with! Which meant no huge parties.
LOL, Jenifer! So true. Only problem is, I do feel guilty sometimes about being messy. Ah, well.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I totally do #4, plus I married well! I try not to feel guilty, because I bake and cook extra stuff for my cutie as a preventive measure!
December 8th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Love this.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I seriously thought about #7, but my skinny wallet always had this way of convincing me otherwise. Oh well.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I’ll clean when the spirit moves me, but here’s a great way to make your house look spic and span: visit someone whose home looks like the local landfill. When you return home all the dust bunnies miraculously disappear.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Mari, I totally think good baking skills can make up for any lack of housecleaning. But then, I’m a sucker for delicious baking.
Thanks, Keri!
Marcia, we’ve done this in the past, but it’s hard to keep people, and once the last ones quit, oh, ages ago, we just haven’t made the money a priority, and I don’t know when or if we’ll be able to do that again. I do miss it, though.
LOL! So true, Kath!
December 8th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I like the idea of #7, but lack of funds will do that and besides I only need them to do the rooms I hate the most, the bathroom and kitchen as well as the windows.
Baking chocolate chip cookies will have people concentrating on the baked goods than how your place looks.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:05 am
#7!!!!– someday . . .
December 8th, 2008 at 11:39 am
You’re so funny. I frequently use #1 so I have no choice but to clean.
#4 is one I use a lot too.
I need #3.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:42 am
LOL! I thought I was the ONLY person to do the “host everything” bit.
E
December 8th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
@Dru — So true! Plus baking cookies make your house smell good! They’re a natural deodorizer.
@Alyson — No kidding!
@Stacy & Erica — It does help, doesn’t it? As long as the visitors don’t leave it messier afterward than it was before! I’m lucky and have nice friends who don’t trash the place. One of the benefits of getting older, I think.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Number One works like a charm for me too! And you’ve married very well! Vacuuming the rafter beams is amazing.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hey Caryn, I see we use many of the same “special effects.” LOL. I love candles too, since they give the illusion of baking and a clean house. Also, the grandkids are great clutter locaters since they love crawling in closets and hidey holes. They leave a path to areas I need to focus on.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Ohhh, LOL about marrying well! I didn’t even know this was one of my hubby’s wonderful traits until I realized one day that I hadn’t dusted in a decade! I HATE dusting and–while he seems averse to doing dishes, um, ever–he will happily attack bookshelves and other dust-covered surfaces with surprising enthusiasm.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I do host everything. Theory being that by the time all the bodies roll in, the house will be so full no one notices a mess.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Ha! #1 is one of the biggest tricks at my place! When we know someone is going to be coming over we can get the house cleaned in under an hour. We hustle. But otherwise, we’re quite content to clean on an as needed basis. Our house is clean just not always organized. Lol.
My other tip would be to divide and conquer. I have Andy do the dishes, Jas picks up laundry and puts it in baskets, while I organize and put things away.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I have come to accept that I am a writer and all of my free time (or most of it, anyway) is devoted to that craft or other things that make me happy. The house can and will suffer for it. The hubs, also a writer, is on board with the philosophy.
But, when we do clean or need to have people over (ex: in-laws for Thanksgiving), we clean and then think of who else we can invite over while the house is in its unnatural state–clean.
December 8th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
@Robin – And that’s only one of his talents!
@LaDonna – Oh, yes. Candles. I nearly forgot. I use them all the time. And fabric softener on the towels makes the bathroom smell nice, too.
@Marilyn – Sounds like you’re well-matched.
@Lainey – I’ve thought that, too, but I always worry about the first few who trickle in at the beginning. People know they’re my friends when I let them see my mess!
@Erin – Ah, yes. We do the divide and conquer method, too. I’d forgotten. Also works well for grocery runs, which are also a necessary evil.
@Pam – LOL! That’s what I do when I cook something other than the usual. If I’m going to the work of making manicotti, including homemade pasta sauce, it darn well better be consumed by more than just the two of us!
December 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
All perfect suggestions/solutions. I am also house-work-challenged (we have dustballs that rival our dog in size). Kudos for the use of the word ‘sparklefy’!
December 10th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Can I borrow your #3, please? Mine is rubbish.
While he was whizzing round with the vac, I’d whip up something pretty from the spider puke.
Just an idea :0o
December 10th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
you couldn’t be more right. the only time our house is really clean is when we’re having people over. i can be messy (leaving dishes and stuff out) but my husband is a packrat. we drive each other crazy with both of these habits. sometimes i wish i married an anal retentive clean freak but then…that might not go over well.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
My husband won’t let me hire somebody to do our bathroom and kitchen. It can’t cost THAT much to have someone come in twice a month. Sheesh.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Oh my Caryn, I also have parties to set myself cleaning! This may be the curse of the writer-working-at-home.
A couple of cleaning tips that work for me:
Vinegar is fabulous, non-toxic, cheap and works on everything. So is baking soda.
Set a small pan on the stove with spices of your choice (plain vanilla works) in water and let it simmer for a while. Cheap, non-toxic air freshener!
December 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I, too, work at home and can’t seem to bring myself to clean things up until someone is coming over. Tomorrow, for instance, a plumber is coming, so that made me do the laundry to get it off the laundry room floor where he will be working on the pipe under the sink.
But I had a friend who gave me a piece of cleaning advice that made me laugh out loud: She said when it comes to cleaning for company, the only thing you really need to clean are the areas that friends can stare at while they’re sitting on your toilet. You don’t want them sitting there studying your cobwebs and your brown tile grout and mildewed shower curtain. The rest, she said, you can just forget. Give ‘em plenty of wine.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:35 am
@Katie — I beg to differ. Any time I’ve seen your place, it has looked great! As for ‘sparklefy’, I originally had ‘clean’ in there, but I used it too many times, so I went through looking for words to replace it with. That seemed a fun one.
@Kit — Sorry! Not giving him up. I know a good thing when I have one.
@Robin — Neat freaks have their own sets of problems. For example, then you’d worry about leaving anything out ever, and that can be tough when you’re naturally messy and in a hurry. Sounds like you have a good thing going.
@Conda — I love those tips! I knew you’d have good ones. You always do.
@Sandi — Oh, no! Good luck with your plumbing. And I LOVE your friend’s advice. It made me laugh out loud. It’s true, too; that’s why I always clean the bathroom first when company’s coming over. I can just dim the lights and distract people with food and music elsewhere, but that doesn’t work so well in a bathroom.
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Chiming in a bit late here. Just wanted to add that I’m a huge fan of anything Swiffer (and disposable). No messy buckets, etc.
My apartment is usually messy, except during NaNo when I can’t write unless my floors are sparkling. Sigh.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:56 am
You and your repliers are so right on. I have never been what I would call “organized” or even “neat”, but since my husband and I have retired; we have picked up a terrible condition often named clutter. Clutter happens. And if it is left alone it happens again, only faster.
We don’t refer to our solution as “hosting” everything; we refer to it as the “third party catalyst”. We have one of those events coming in one month and we have a house that will need all that time.
Love your articles; you are a great writer.