Clean Freak

Update July 30, 2022.

Just packed my Chic Simple clothing and home books, peaceful home book, from the 1990s and early aughts. Browsed through them before they went into moving box. Sigh. Decades ago but I still like simple style.

Getting house in order. It’s going really well and after being pretty sick (not, definately not, COVID or varients, or monkey pox, just in hospital, ER, tubes and such, then after, the most excellent home health care, for a while), now I’m, me, myself, doing it. How good that feels. Clean floors, clean shower (litter pan and toilet, yuck-oh but clean), clean refrigerator, clean freezer. Clean clothing, clean sheets (the best), smell good hair and body things. Superficial, I know.

The cat drool and pawprints across the cooktop, wiped up. (That’s OK, cool cat Oliver, calm as calm can be, lying now with paws tucked in his pod behind as I type). CSO (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), streaming Ave Maria and Ode To Joy, Oliver blisses out. (He naps well with George Harrison and, who knows why, Talking Heads also. Maybe David Byrne’s dancing.) Need to see how he does with my fan favorite, Stravinsky (thump, thump, stomp, stomp). Oliver does well with a quiet house, too.

My former husband, rest his soul, could not contain his clutter. He was messy. So in our apartments and houses we agreed he’d have his own room for his stuff. It worked.

Coming back to Austin, I stayed with someone I much valued (the person), in a small but in some ways charming house in an exquisite neighborhood. Mostly nice yet kind of chaotic housemate, but loads of his clutter, some off-the-street “furniture”, steel bookcases, used desks, some broken appliances, way disorganized kitchen-slash-utility space (ugly turquoise disorganized overstuffed cabinets full of way old food and spices in plastic bags, and gross, food storage containers thrown into a very dirty under sink cabinet) (weird rolly-thing middle of kitchen, kind of old gross tiled floor) (filthy microwave, which I cleaned, atop the non functional dryer in the utility room) (and the rotted produce, which I cleared out) and bathroom (broken tiles, closet stuffed with cardboard boxes of who knows what, who knows when it was last cleaned, I didn’t want to know, even toilet brush not put away, just sitting out there, even when guests came for dinner, uugh, I moved it so not right there with guests coming over), both which needed repair. I bought the cats new dishes to replace the old ones which actually had holes in them. Those white plastic dust-covered window blinds, yuck, and awful when-were-they-ever-washed sofa covers (nevermind sofa covers, just awful period, but that’s a question of taste), dining table covered with so much disorganized stuff and then…and then…housemate’s wayward vagrant middle aged unemployed poorly-dressed pudgy stompy rude son who showed up, planned to stay for months…my family doesn’t do things that way, get a hotel, geez…and took over center of this small place with his camping or hunting or whatever crap (there was even a hunting rifle, creepy and for sure not safe), making it difficult just to move around. (And I got lectures on “boundaries.” Physician, heal theyself.) Unkempt yard which made my allergies so worse. Get a yard service, geez. (And I write this as someone who mowed and weeded my own yards, me, myself, did it for years. Upkeep done and no allegy problems.) Literally dangerous broken outdoor stone stairs with no rails. I only fell once on those stairs and was OK, so I was OK. Broken down who-knows-how-old wooden garage to store junk and what once was a greenhouse then covered in concrete or something, can’t understand why anyone would do that. Once it was light-filled, now dark and smelly. And roaches on the bed (beds on the floor, just no…real beds better.) (Roaches on the bed on the floor, OMG, no, but it happpened, actually crawling on me while I was sleeping. Didn’t stay asleep for long after that. Geez, in a nice neighborhood (though messy house) in affluent Austin, Texas. I was told to “live with it” because it’s Texas. No. Pest control does exist, use it, for Pete’s sake.) While there, I learned from a long standing friend, and from my Mother, both from the South, about what are called “no-see-ums” which leave nasty bug bites (and they were biting me even inside the house). So bug spray minimum twice a day, even for inside house, for goodness sake. Oatmeal baths in the crappy broken-tiled tub, just to get the allergies and bug bites under some control.

And, because I write about economics, I was uncomfortable how this person underpaid his help, a woman who for $70 a month for two cleanings, each two or three hours long for maybe 1500 square feet. One time I just gave the housemate my own cash dollars to pay her, and it was way more than $35, for one, one, cleaner visit. Here in my much smaller space I do my own cleaning but would never expect anyone to accept so little ($70 monthly, just what-the-what). Just wrong, less than minimum wage even in, really, Texas. Anyone who can afford Christmas in the Caribbean and two months summer vacation in Europe can give this working class person, the cleaner, who serves him, a raise. $70 a month just staggers.

Could be a beautiful house, with some considerable work, but in present not the cleanest or most aesthetic place, and the relatives laying all around a comparatively small house for most part any given year making it worse. Can’t do that in 1500 square feet, two bedrooms, way tiny bath and kitchen (for that many visiting people…they end up sleeping on the sofas and floors). (I grew up in the big house that my parents designed and built, enough bedrooms and bathrooms, living spaces, with a five-acre yard, and the homes I’ve owned have been right-size roomy for my family. So maybe I just learned how to live.)

Coped as best I could. And I don’t stay there now anyway, so done and done. Some developer will buy it up and tear it down (nice corner lot) which is sad. There is history in that house but it’s a bit of a mess. For me, my clean, organized (minimalist mostly) home works.

And I do my own cleaning, even with lots on my work and family and health agenda.

So. While cleaning bathroom here in my clean freak place (no allegies, no bugs, clean food, clean shower, clean floors, clean cabinets, clean clothes, clean sheets) I just found a whole bunch of Body Shop Shea, Peppermint, and Green Tea in the bathroom cabinets. Rinsed and it’s all still good. Clean freak good. Peppermint foot scrub and lotion, how nice.

Next up, bedroom closet cleaning…clutter there being reduced, but I have a lot of clothing (all quite clean, just wow, the will I ever wear this again question) and too, too many shoes…in process. (In storage in Illinois I’ve got much more. Will be cleaning those lockers soon. Can’t wait to find again there my great grey warmest hooded coat and knee boots. Plus most important, my stored artwork.) Lots there to donate and gift, also, more cleaning out.

And. Kind of clean related. I really love the tiny luxury of scented candles. Use them all the time. Then. My delivery person brought those little wax cubes instead of candles. And so. I went on Amazon found a wax cube burner, smells so good, leaves just gorgeous bamboo patterns on the wall at night. And the scent. What a lucky little inexpensive accident. Clean related.

(Ha ha texting with my Mother about being reminded, as a teen, to clean my very nice, spacious, third floor corner room (with a view) (got to arrange any way I wanted) “once.” She wrote back back “just once?” Giggle.)

I get full well my privilege even to write a blog post, geez, an insignificant blog post, about my clean thing. I’m moving again soon, every day a little cleaning, a little packing, so, I guess, on my mind, thus post. Will miss my Austin nest but could be back after sabbatical.

And of privilege, the great maintenance staff in my building here to fix a shower clog, so I can lay down the shower mats, so I don’t slip on the wet floor. No mas hospital. I can do a lot of stuff on my own, but I wouldn’t know how to handle a shower clog. But these guys make things right every time.

I absolutely need to get back to work things. Juggle, juggle.

There are millions of people with such worse problems. I do know that.