Cleaning House

Decluttering: I’m a neat freak. My spouse is not. I put things away. He does not. I wipe down surfaces as I use them. He does not. I keep my bathroom clean and tidy, gleaming in fact. He does not.

This is why we searched for an apartment with two bathrooms. We each get our own private loo and of course we are each responsible for our space. My selection of bathroom focused on visitors. I wanted their visit to be pleasant so I chose the bathroom on the main hall. It is clean and shining and welcoming. I like the décor as well. You’d have to appreciate gay memes to understand but it is a nice space.

Not so his. I try to avoid entering his bathroom. I enter only to return fresh towels and bathmats to his loo. Just saying!

More on decluttering. When we moved to the apartment we had to rid our home of a ton of stuff. Extra kitchen gadgets, endless unused clothing, and boxes of untouched items we forgot we had. By the time we were settled in the new home we had less to tend and a lot less stuff. Still, stuff remained; now it was crammed into a much smaller space.

What this means is that the unobserved rule – if you bring in something, you have to toss something – is in need of enforcement. Food items is easy: buy it, prepare and eat it. It disappears and makes room for fresh viands.

But the rest of the house is plagued by an ever present mound of stuff placed on every horizontal surface imaginable. Dust accumulations actually push off stacks of unread material! Imagine our surprise when we learned the cause of the middle of the night noise! It wasn’t the dog, after all; it was stuff falling on its own dust power.

Gosh!

House Cleaning: Well that leads handily to the task of cleaning house. It needs to be done. But both of us have never met a vacuum cleaner we loved. So it sits idly by lusting after our carpeting wondering soulfully why it isn’t being used. But we know why. Using it is too much like work. Now with the Silver Sneakers program perhaps we will see it as exercise and take it up again. Weekly, you know; like a regimen of exercise.

Perhaps dusting would be the natural follow up with furniture polish a close second. But you see that leads us back to stuff and clutter. With all of that stuff observe how much has to be moved out of the way to polish and dust surfaces! No way can that be defined as an exercise routine!

We’ll just have to come up with another thought on this.

Wood Floors or Carpet? I’ve lived with carpeted homes for decades. Used to be wood floors were the standard. So were dust mops in those days. And that task was easy and pleasant, sort of like mowing the grass without the worry of bad weather. Somehow it was satisfying.

Today most hard surfaces – floors, that is – are carpeted. I’ve come to regret this trend. Although silent and muffled, carpeting is a chore to keep clean and presentable. Vacuuming regularly is a must if the surface is to be kept clean. Then at least an annual shampoo is needed to keep the carpet color pleasant and clean. More often cleaning is needed if you have pets or high traffic.

None of this cleaning routine was much of a concern when cleaning crews were a normal part of our budget. But in retirement there is no budget for such things and so it is done by us if it is done at all.

Of course the latter is the problem, you see. Quite naturally we tend to put off cleaning the carpet, vacuuming it or spot removing from pet accidents. So, the carpeting is loathsome. I yearn for the days of wood floors and area rugs. At least the latter could be rolled up and taken out for cleaning when needed. And the wood floors only needed an occasional swipe of a dust mop and maybe a little polish in traffic areas.

Well, there was a time when the family was young that I pined for an all concrete home capable of being hosed down from time to time. That isn’t a bad thought still!

I wonder…..

April 14, 2016