Cleaning the house has always been my least favorite chore. When I do it, I often get downright depressed. To keep those feelings at bay, I clean in small manageable chunks, as quickly as possible.
I ask myself what it is about cleaning that makes me depressed. For one thing, the more I clean, the more dirt I find. I can never bring the surfaces of floors, walls, counter-tops, and appliances back to their original glow.
Cracks appear. Burnt-in food stains on the stove burners can’t be washed off. Nooks and crannies that I can’t reach fill with permanent grime. Paint chips and soaks up stains. The wooden floors get nicked. Screens tear and bend.
This house is like my body, showing ample signs of its aging.
I don’t mind doing laundry, even though clothes don’t stay clean. I don’t mind doing the dishes, even though dishes don’t stay clean.
But as I clean my house, I see it deteriorate before my eyes.
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I resisted house cleaning from the time I was a kid. Saturday was the day we were all supposed to pitch in and at least clean our rooms. That meant straightening and dusting, mostly. Bending down to get under the bed with a dust mop. Yuck.
I did my chores as quickly and superficially as possible.
We also had to help wash the dishes by hand every night, but I didn’t mind that. The hot sudsy water feels good. There is a satisfaction in rinsing off the soap. And when you dry each dish and put it in the cupboard, the dishes are like new, ready to be used again.
My siblings and I shared the dishwashing experience, so there was always someone to chat with while you worked.
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A younger friend of mine complained once that her boyfriend didn’t clean his apartment.
“Guys never care about cleaning,” I said. “I remember when I got my first apartment. I never cleaned it. When you’re young, you don’t care.”
“What do you mean,” she said. “I always cleaned. I can’t stand to live in a dirty place.”
“Really? I remember the black grime in the toilet bowl when John and I first got a place together.”
“That’s disgusting,” she said.
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It took me years to care about how clean my living space was. And now that I want to live in a clean place, I still don’t like to clean it. I’d rather move.
When I move to a new place, even though it's an old place that someone else has lived in, I’m motivated to clean it from top to bottom one time. Then when it is all sparkly, I move in.
The only other time I’m motivated to clean is when I’m selling a house. By keeping it clean and neat, you can get more money for your house, or find a buyer faster.
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There is a difference between neat and clean. I’ve always been pretty neat. I put stuff away. But that is not the same as cleaning. Of course, it is easier to clean a surface that has nothing on it, rather than one that is filled with knick-knacks. That’s one reason I have few knick-knacks in my home.
An appraiser came a few years ago to look over the house for a mortgage re-financing. His comment, when he saw my sparse furnishings, un-cluttered surfaces and knick-knack free shelves was, “Oh, this is in for-sale shape!”
People think my rooms are larger than they are because I have very little in them. I like it that way. Much easier to clean. Or to move out in a hurry if you get the urge.
What I really can’t stand is when people say to me, “Your house is always clean,” as if it just got that way by itself.
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I like living in a clean house. I like looking at a clean house. But I wish I could just push a button and have it happen, the way my garage door opens when I push a button.