You cannot eat off my floors
Perhaps the most pathetic thing about the state of my floors is that I desperately want to blog about it every single time I clean them. I don't mean every time I sweep the hardwoods or vacuum the carpets, which I do perhaps every week or two, depending on my tolerance for disgusting and the amount of cat hair and kitty litter tracked around. Rather, I mean that I want to blog about it every time I mop the floors. It is that much of an event in my life.
This urge is clearly so pathetic that I manage to restrain myself most of the time-- which amounts to the perhaps 2 other times this calendar year that I have had this urge. I think that's about it, though I honestly cannot recall the last time I did the task, so I can't be entirely sure.
I do sweep the kitchen pretty often, and I try to clean up spills as they happen (if of course I am present when they happen, which is not always the case). When I spill water, especially, I can be counted on to grab the dish drying towel to sop it up, then I will use the wet dishtowel to make a general swipe at any particularly repulsive areas, especially anything sticky. I think that this forestalls the need to actually mop, which is obviously delusional to anyone with actual standards about such things, but for the genuinely slovenly it works well enough.
For the bathroom, I sweep the kitty litter almost daily. There is a dust pan and brush in there for just that purpose. With the bathroom approximately the size of a very small broom closet and a small child and a small sink from which it is remarkably easy to spill water, well, the kitty litter simply cannot sit on the floor, ever, because it is mostly under the small overflow-prone sink. Let the clumping kitty litter get wet and it becomes an aggregation of concrete on the floor, and then it's just work work work.
However, I am imperfect, and no one else in the house seems to be capable of using the dustpan in the bathroom. The elves refuse to help (though I suspect that the rest of the family believe that they are the main sweepers of all the floors, really). Add to this that there appears to be a leak somewhere between the shower/ toilet/ wall containing the plumbing that feeds them both. This leak seems to get better and worse fairly randomly, which is disturbing in and of itself, and when it is particularly bad, the kitty litter ends out soaked and clumped onto the floor and the situation becomes intolerable.
At least to me.
Everyone else in the house seems fully able to ignore it, frankly. The elves refuse to clean, and I have not yet proved able to see what it takes to wait out my spouse or daughter on this one. Even I cannot manage that, and if you have not already figured this out, my standards are lower than those of perhaps everyone you know except for any people you know who live in fraternity houses.
So today was a banner day: both the bathroom and kitchen floors got cleaned. Swept, mopped, scrubbed, relieved of at least the topmost layer of disgusting crap that covers them.
I would not recommend eating off my floors, even now, but at least I think no one will call the health department on arrival in our home. Sad but true, but this is the best my housekeeping can hope for.
This urge is clearly so pathetic that I manage to restrain myself most of the time-- which amounts to the perhaps 2 other times this calendar year that I have had this urge. I think that's about it, though I honestly cannot recall the last time I did the task, so I can't be entirely sure.
I do sweep the kitchen pretty often, and I try to clean up spills as they happen (if of course I am present when they happen, which is not always the case). When I spill water, especially, I can be counted on to grab the dish drying towel to sop it up, then I will use the wet dishtowel to make a general swipe at any particularly repulsive areas, especially anything sticky. I think that this forestalls the need to actually mop, which is obviously delusional to anyone with actual standards about such things, but for the genuinely slovenly it works well enough.
For the bathroom, I sweep the kitty litter almost daily. There is a dust pan and brush in there for just that purpose. With the bathroom approximately the size of a very small broom closet and a small child and a small sink from which it is remarkably easy to spill water, well, the kitty litter simply cannot sit on the floor, ever, because it is mostly under the small overflow-prone sink. Let the clumping kitty litter get wet and it becomes an aggregation of concrete on the floor, and then it's just work work work.
However, I am imperfect, and no one else in the house seems to be capable of using the dustpan in the bathroom. The elves refuse to help (though I suspect that the rest of the family believe that they are the main sweepers of all the floors, really). Add to this that there appears to be a leak somewhere between the shower/ toilet/ wall containing the plumbing that feeds them both. This leak seems to get better and worse fairly randomly, which is disturbing in and of itself, and when it is particularly bad, the kitty litter ends out soaked and clumped onto the floor and the situation becomes intolerable.
At least to me.
Everyone else in the house seems fully able to ignore it, frankly. The elves refuse to clean, and I have not yet proved able to see what it takes to wait out my spouse or daughter on this one. Even I cannot manage that, and if you have not already figured this out, my standards are lower than those of perhaps everyone you know except for any people you know who live in fraternity houses.
So today was a banner day: both the bathroom and kitchen floors got cleaned. Swept, mopped, scrubbed, relieved of at least the topmost layer of disgusting crap that covers them.
I would not recommend eating off my floors, even now, but at least I think no one will call the health department on arrival in our home. Sad but true, but this is the best my housekeeping can hope for.
Labels: cleaning, elves, housekeeping
posted by Lizard at 7:31 AM
8 Comments:
I've recently been reading a cleaning manual, the scope of which is eco-friendly cleaning, and was stunned to learn that floors should be mopped with only hot water. The author's rationale is that unless we want to disinfect our feet multiple times a day, it makes no sense to disinfect our flooring. I'll buy that!
I tend to procrastinate my floors until they get to the point that I wouldn't even eat the dogs eating off them. I have very low standards for my dogs :-)
Ah, a woman after my own heart. The elves don't visit my house, either, the bums.
Congratulations! You are still way ahead of me. I'm putting off mopping the kitchen til the last round of canning -just one more load of tomato juice, which I keep postponing. It exhausts me to clean all the tomato off the pans, stove, and walls. The floor can wait a little.
I decided to choose outrageously-patterned carpets when I had a baby. I would leave the vacuuming until, despite the patterning, you could see the bits of cotton, etc. So I'd vacuum. Finally. And in just a few days time, what would happen? My hubbie would vaccum. And then nothing would happen for months again. I found that very frustrating. He wasn't 'turn-taking', it was just in his mind cos he'd seen it happen whereas 'turn-taking' once a month would have been a GREAT idea! If I'd TOLD him to do it every week, I'm sure he would've.
These days, I'd get the vaccuum out and place it in a doorway. It'd get done!!
In the meantime, I solved my frustrations by enlisting the help of a cleaner!! That got too much - too much tidying before she came, and too intrusive : my house was forever 'host' to a cleaner. We have finally discovered a modus vivendi - she comes in once a fortnight to do the loos, bins, sinks and floors. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh. Bliss.
ah, if I could find someone decent whose price didn't choke me. I had a lovely woman, but she has moved away. Friends recommend their cleaners and thenI doscover that they want 3 hours to do my bathroom and floors and for that they want $100. When I finish choking, I do it myself. Sort of.
The floors still look surprisingly good today. though the carpets definitely need another go-round Yesterday E and a friend were eating Os (cheerio-like cereal) and they did some complicated game that involved spreading them (dry) sround one room. All over the floor. Friend insists that she had nothing to do with it, that it was all E's doing, but I told her that I do not believe her, and as she was in the room and playing, she gets half the blame.
I believe I do blog when I mop my floors. I try to vacuum once a week. Try being the operative. But mopping? Hmmm. I did get a nifty Hoover Floormate for Christmas last year. I love it. I don't use it all that often but it does work and I'm always sort of surprised that I don't do it more often.
When will they get smart and design a kitchen that can be cleaned by simply turning a high powered hose on it? Would it kill someone to do this already? What's one more drain in the floor, huh?
I had grey ceramic tiles - textured to look like slate laid in the kitchen / diner and in the hall. They didn't ever show the dirt and got cleaned about twice a year - swept about once a week to remove the crumbs and pet hair and stop the mess treading in to the rest of the house.
I love the wet room idea and a high powered hose, I imagined turning it on my 17 year old when he says he'll do the pitifully small task assigned to him ' in a while' ever again. It took him 6 days to take the recycling downstairs this week.
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