Sunday, October 29, 2006

CLEANING HOUSE

Shannon Lush and Jennifer Fleming have a new book, Speedcleaning which is their follow up to Spotless neither of which is on my 'absolutely must read' list.

They have a theory that if you spend 15 minutes speed-cleaning one room of the house each weekday and four rooms on Saturday, you'll have conquered the dirt demon.

Is there a catch? Of course there's a catch because speed cleaning comes on top of the usual daily cleaning jobs. I don't do daily, I do twice monthly or yearly or more recently, not at all.

Miss Lush even includes handy hints and practical advice for men. Men clean!!!!

She shared a few of her tips today..........

Assemble a clean kit, brooms, buckets and dusters. (brooms, plural, only when I'm flying and need a spare)

Declutter the room and empty bin. Are you mad, woman! Declutter and I'd never find anything.

Dust ceiling and light fittings. Light fittings, that's why God invented down lights and anyone looking at my ceilings is likely to fall over the clutter.

Dust walls and tops of cupboards/bookshelves/wardrobes. I will be not be involved in the genocide of millions of dust fairies.

Dust paintings, hangings and other wall features. The spiders aren't keen on being flicked with a rag and one of life's truisms is that if you rub too hard on a wall, you'll leave a clean spot which will then stick out like dog's balls. I suppose she gives tips on dusting dog's balls too.

Clean light switches, door jambs and window sills. One can avoid dirty light switches by using one's elbow and the door jambs have been clean since the boys stopped using them as gymnastic equipment. The window sills are different, that's where the blowflies go to die and I don't do graveyards.

Clean furniture. Only if you come and move the cat, the books I'm reading and last night's dishes.

Clean floors. I can't do that, there's a Uni student doing a PhD on the flora and fauna of my kitchen tiles. In the bathroom, I followed my mummy's advice, get white tiles, you'll never see the powder. Forget the carpet, there's a cat on it.

Do refills, arrange fresh flowers, add fragrance and other items such as doillies. Hahahahahaha!
Artificial leaves with a coating of dust glitter like hoarfrost when you turn fairy lights on them and do you know how much REAL flowers cost and then they die. I'll go with the fragrance, nothing like the scent of illicit substances in the morning. I'm good for doillies, they make pretty patterns in the dust.

Empty the clutter bucket and put away clean kit. More work after the work. My vaccum cleaner hasn't seen it's cupboard since last Easter, it's a vagabond, laying it's little feet where I fall in exhaustion.

You know what kills me, the tarts are making a fortune.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who bothers cleaning what you can't see? I don't, unless something large has to be moved.

Ampersand Duck said...

I clean as little as possible, on the grounds that I'm helping my kid's immune system by giving him things to resist.

Blue said...

On the plus side, picking up doilies [sp] leaves pretty snowflake patterns in the dust.

R.H. said...

The social workers have given my pal Geoff a list of cleaning chores, and a day for each one, e.g: Monday: wash sheets. That's what it says. What a joke. He does none of it of course. And with my encouragement. Tomorrow I'll get the list and put it up here. Just to show you what paid busybodies can get up to. It's ridiculous -mothers who'll never have children.

Anonymous said...

"you know the thing that kills me, the tarts are making a fortune"

best sentence on teh interwebs for the whole day

JahTeh said...

Andrew I do like to vaccum under the bed sometimes, in case I've missed a bloke or two.

Duckie it's the cat that turns me off cleaning. You know how they run, stop dead on a clean floor and chuck. It's as though the brain yells, clean floor, quick regurgitate something, make it ours again.

Blue, pretty patterns are one thing, levering them off the table because the dust has turned to the depth of cement is another.

There's only one thing to do in that case RH, lie. My father was dying of cancer and the first thing the nurses would ask when they came in was 'Have you had a shower'. He used to look them straight in the eye and say 'yes'. His form guide was more important than wasting his strength on showering.

JahTeh said...

Thirdcat, would you really go out and buy a book on house cleaning? I bet they haven't got a chapter on sluicing up bat guano. Perhaps we could start up a collective blog called "Tips me muvver taught me". I can start with two on curtains.

Ampersand Duck said...

Yeah, my cats do that too. That's why we had the floors 'deliberately distressed', to match the mistress of the house.

Anonymous said...

Is it really necessary to buy books about cleaning? All useful ideas could be found via Google :)

I found an excellent site Carpet cleaning tips in two minutes only for example.

Roman

Anonymous said...

OH My God! Your a funny ol'girl, arent you!

Zoe xx

R.H. said...

Darlings, you will always love a man who keeps his promises. The biggest complaint is about men who don't. But that never occurs with RH. Because romance is very important to women. It's the number one thing in fact. They'll never stop looking for it, right to the end. I have said that I love you. That's my promise, and I have proof. The proof is that typing is very hard for me. Yet I'm doing all this. So there now, you may be assured. Relax. And just givvus a little smile. Okay? Come on now, you can do it, ha ha ha! Do it, you can do it. That's right. And off we go! ha ha ha! Yes!- with RH! -WHAT? (Oh my goodness) ha ha ha!

GEOFF W. HOUSECHORES. WEEKLY ROSTER

MONDAY: VACUUMING. lounge, hall and dining room. [Dining room? He don't got one]

TUESDAY: KITCHEN. sweeping, and mop floor, wipe benches, clean out fridge. [You must be joking!]

WEDNESDAY: BATHROOM. clean vanity basin and shower recess, clean toilet bowl, sweep and mop floor.
[What? Are you crazy? ha ha ha!]

THURSDAY: LAUNDRY. clean laundry tubs,sweep and mop floor, empty dryer lint filter. {Wooh!]

FRIDAY: change bed linen. [What do they think his joint is, a twenty buck brothel? ha ha ha.]

SUNDAY: [Scribbled at the bottom, by RH] ATTEND CHURCH. YOU DIRTY DOG!

Well there it is, a social worker catechism; the whole scripture, reflecting melodious doorbells in Glen Iris. Yes, and proving that cleanliness is next to Brunswick Street. Goodness me.
Well I was skipping down the stairs tonight to dump some used turps into the lane and there she was; THE TEAM LEADER!- of the MAGNIFICENT SOCIAL WORKER SEVEN. Well darlings I really think that if you hate someone to shreds you should have a go at DISGUISING IT, especially when that's part of your training, but there she was, at the foot of the stairs, and I tell you what, the way she glared at me got her a big zero. Mind you, she does her best, tries hard to pull on a poker face, which gives her a funny look: somewhere between chewing a brick and busting for a piss. But I do have to say she's not bad looking, in a severe sort of way, and there's no bloke on earth who wouldn't put aside logic for a bit of heave-ho. The truth is I'd go the works with her; the entire sutra. What upsets her most is I haven't tried. Yet.

JahTeh said...

RH, I need a holiday after reading that list and half the things I don't do except clean the lint filter otherwise the dryer catches on fire. Why doesn't the social team arrange council help once a fortnight? I bet they're being paid a fortune for their 'advice'.

Roman, any carpet cleaning tips must include cat fur/vomit/dirt/dead things/removal of. I am going to check it out and if it's good I might use it in a month or three.

JahTeh said...

Thank you Roman, quite a good site for stain removal tips so I'll bookmark it. The cat does get fed up being used as a wiper and it's a pain brushing the carpet fibres and the cat back the right way.

I recomend it Duckie and Thirdcat.

R.H. said...

Their object is to snoop on him. Constantly. To interfere, and totally control his life. The ten years he served in the Thomas Embling are nothing compared to this, the real penalty has just begun. And with no end. Every night there's bang bang bang on the door as they arrive with his medication, and then stand around to watch him take it. During the day they pop in just any old time, for a how-de-do, and a good look around. And to eye-ball any visitors as well. Last Friday the 'team leader' strolled in, expecting to see him alone, and hit the roof to find RH there, renovating the kitchen. She just stood there, in the passage, all speechless and outraged. And Mr Geoff, the dork, stood there too, terrified -and apologetic. "I'm sorry," he told her. But it wasn't enough. "Well I don't think you are!" she growled, and stormed straight out.
Apart from the housework schedule there's daily 'programs' he must attend: tennis (-Frankenstein trying to run), bowls, a movie group, and sitting in a gym on an exercise bike like a trained monkey. Last week he was scolded for dodging the regular movie outing. A dreadful crime, and the fact that the movie didn't interest him was no excuse. But with all this, the stupidest part for me was when they objected to him getting the gas stove he wanted -because it was "too large" for him. That's what they said. Well it wouldn't be too large for them of course, whose lives are larger scale, and which justify having a big wok in the centre, because they have entitlements it seems, which he does not, the main one being control of his own life. Social workers from here on will decide every detail of it, or so they think. Well after ten years in the Embling, followed by two years in social-worker units, learning how to dust shelves, the courts have allowed him to live in his own ap-a-a-rtment. But the courts have no idea what he has to put up with, and his 'Mental health Legal Service' lawyer is a latte lapdog herself, not even concerned about threats made to him by these bums -threats of being slung back into the Embling if he doesn't play tennis and sit on an exercise bike. (And change his bed linen every Friday, of course.) And not talk back, or complain, about anything. And especially not about having his head thrust into a cage full of twittering social work canaries.

Sure, he did a mad thing, many years ago. But he's paid for it. He's done his time. When does he get his life back?

R.H. said...

Well there's an ap-a-a-artment up on the third floor with a nice view of the city from the living room and of the Dandenongs from the kitchen and there's Croxton Park station and trams up and down High street and there's this poor wretched man Mr Mad Geoff W and I'm trying to tell him my philosophy as an artist but he can't stop laughing and there's all these bureaucrats coming in and out and saying, "When will this kitchen be finished -by Christmas?"

ha ha ha. But I'm going slow because it begins to interest him, this renovation. Suddenly he's around all the stores, firing questions, taking notes, buying stuff and returning it, and then buying it all over again. We rip out his old cracked dunny bowl, buy a new one, and he returns it. Then he ponders some more, and starts all over again. We go back to Bunnings and he rummages among the bins. I find somewhere to sit because it'll take a while. And I'm amused, but also impressed, as he frowns, ponders, with all the concentration of an archeologist. In the end he selects every dunny connecter they have; about seven, and most of them clearly not suitable. But no bother, we have to be sure, he says, and he'll take the rest back. At the checkout there's a pause, as he drags out his huge wallet, and in the silence I point at him, and say, just on the quiet, "That's Mr Lector." And the poor dear little thing, a curly-haired blonde who should be in school, takes one look at his brutish mug, then folds her arms and starts laughing. And eventually, on about our sixth occasion of returning stuff to IKEA, I do my block in the place and grab hold of him, slinging him about. And it's a spectacle, a store entertainment. And amazing how unshockable people are nowadays. Well I tell you, this is a long trip, a journey, full of conflict and yelling from RH. It's a perfomance, my best. My greatest and most strenuous. Ever.

R.H.

JahTeh said...

It's keeping you off the streets, RH but I'd hate being made to do those sorts of things. Like being in hospital when they want you to have a shower at 7 in the morning when you've had a bad night and only got to sleep at 6.

R.H. said...

I was in the Alfred for a while after an accident and was eventually attached to a pole on wheels with the drip up top, which made me mobile. And the nurses would see me creeping down the corridor trundling this thing and would say (In their snootiest tone), "Off to socialise, Mr Hayden?" And yes, I was, because all the good conversationalists happened to be smokers, and that's where I was heading: to the 'smoking room'. Our best raconteur was a big Maori bloke who had to be wheeled down there on a sort of stretcher, and I saw him one day trying to light up as they took him along the corridor, and they were struggling like mad to stop him but he had the smoke in his mouth and in the wrestle of arms he got it lit.
So funny, golly. Well I think laughing at that got me out of hospital about four days early.

JahTeh said...

Not being a smoker, I couldn't think of anything worse than lighting up in a hospital but I used to see them all the time dragging the drip stands outside to smoke in the cold.

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