A Year's Worth of Housework in Three Days

I am a lousy housekeeper. There's no other way to put it: I suck. Additionally, I have serious arm injuries that render my dominant arm almost useless yet horribly painful, and I have a bunch of interesting diseases that make me really, really exhausted. On top of that, I have a kidney infection which not only makes me feel like crap, it makes my bad arm hurt even worse (one of my interesting diseases is early stage kidney failure, so I'm limited in what I can take for pain, too).

So I've gotten really behind in the housework. And my heater-thing has gone out...so when we all got a note Friday night saying that the electrician would be here Monday morning at 9 fucking am, I had mixed reactions. Heat would be nice- it's been getting down to the mid-30s at night...but that left me little time to do an assload of housework.

Friday night I thought well, maybe I can get the place actually clean; after all, it's mostly books and clothes and electronics and cat hair and more books and a few years worth of magazines I keep meaning to take to the hospital and more books and holy crap what is this shit. Now I'm hoping I can whip it into untidy (still a big step up).

I'm to the point at which I can see the floor and there's an array of odds and ends that need homes. At lot of those odds and ends new home has been the dumpster, but some of this is crap I need but have no place to put. I have 2.5 hours. I still have to vacuum (good news - I know where the vaccum *is*).

Maybe I can just burn down the building. No, bad idea. Back to work.

and keeping house is awfully complicated for me, too. I feel your pain, my friend. I had to pull an emergency clean this weekend too, fortunately, himself and I were able to manage it.

I'm not supposed to exert myself, but I figure if I spend the rest of the week in a coma, it should all even out.

they are always commenting on their pain throughout the day. i can't imagine living with constant pain.

need it.

Life is so much easier without clutter... it's hard to keep a handle on it.

Any possibility you can have a housekeeper come in once a month to keep up with things for you? It's truly worth doing. Think of foregoing a few magazines or books a month to have someone come in & keep things tidy and clean. It makes a TREMENDOUS difference.

I live in the SF Bay area, so I have the regulation microscopic apartment. I spent most of my life in the midwest, so I'm used to living with furniture *and* books.

I'm on disability leave, so I've given up a lot just to be able to live indoors!

inclined to continue to buy buy buy things I truly just don't need.

I look at the few books I have left, and realize I honestly just don't NEED them. I'll not read them again, and they gather dust. They're not valuable, so there is no point in keeping them.

I realize that our possessions represent security. It's nice to have our things around us; those things that we cherish. But sometimes that insecurity gets out of hand... just make sure that doesn't happen to you!

Also, don't fret too much. You don't know this electrician person and you're paying them, not the reverse, so you owe him little more than safe passage and easy access.

A good cleaning changes the outlook once its done so good luck!

on your heroic efforts. It sounds as though you were successful. Put the remaining odds and ends in shopping bags, and put them in the closet until you can sort through them and find places to keep them.

After the electrician leaves, sit around admiring your newly cleaned apartment.

How could you expose us to it?

But if you're in the SF Bay are,let me give you my address...

DVDs, books and clothes lying about...what did you do to neaten it up. I look at what needs done and feel overwhelmed.

Plastic storage bins for the out-of-season clothes, threw lots of stuff away.

corner or section at a time.

Take each area as a victory. One table, one desk, one shelf.

Handle each object just ONCE.

Everything has a place. When you use that thing, return it to its place after each use...

Hard, hard habits to learn, trust me.. it's taken me years!

My house is a mess because I'm a lazy ass.

You know how much laundry is waiting for me to fold while I cruise DU instead? Four bags! It's been there for days.

and since my husband is here, and we have been watching lots of movies, there are DVD cases all over the place, water bottles, etc. I have today off and plan to do some of this, especially laundry since I need some clean clothes for work rest of the week.

But I totally suck at house keeping too. Great cook though, and my kid and her friends all say I am the coolest mom ...they actually wanted to do things with me even in their teen years and even more now that they are all out of their teens. I always would rather do something with her than clean anyway. Guess that part paid off, hope so anyway.

My other excuses: bad back and knees. Also anything which requires bending over makes my head hurt for some strange reason. So anything which can be done at eye level is ok, so dishwasher gets loaded, laundry gets done eventually, and every couple of days or so I organize the table tops and desk. If I don't do it that often, just the mail alone will make my desk look like a dumpster was opened up over it.

And I really do need to box up some books that I KNOW I will never read again and take them to the Kitty Kat Book store and trade them in for points (or more books LOL) Old clothes are going to go too.

I think laundry is the house hold equivalent of the song that never ends.

Is the never ending battle, I'm always losing.

for my family. AND he loves to cook! Am I blessed or what? :bounce:

The landlord announced that he was having the duplex appraised two evenings before the event. Because of prior committments, I couldn't do much until the afternoon before. My husband was out of town so I had no help. There was more at stake than being embarassed. I was afraid that we would be evicted if I didn't get the place into shape. I started after work at 3 pm. I took a 2 hour nap at 9pm. Other than that I cleaned from 3pm until 9am. I was sure to do a thorough job because I "knew" that appraisers checked everything. This was hard work especially since I had just started taking a strong antibiotic, which caused me digestive problems while I was trying to clean. When the apprasier came, I was shocked that she spent less than 5 minutes in the place. At least I got the house cleaner than my husband thought would be possible until we moved. The cleanliness lasted maybe 2 days.

I spent Saturday and Sunday doing hard-core cleaning (closets included!) and trust me, I HATE to clean. I was supposed to tackle the bedroom yesterday, but just couldn't force myself to do it. Next weekend, I guess. All the other rooms look fabulous, though. Good luck!

gather all your cleaning supplies you'll need; rags, duster, glass cleaner, furniture polish, decreaser, etc and put them all in a bucket or caddie. You'll need to keep it at your side when cleaning. Have PLENTY of hefty bags available to throw out the clutter.

Start at a point in the room, working top-to-bottom, section-to-section, clockwise around the room. Don't start on another area until the section your working on is complete. Carry the bucket of supplies and hefty bags with you everywhere to prevent going back and forth. If you're working in an area and you see garbage/clutter that you want to throw out, toss it in the hefty bag. If you don't want to throw it out, make a "neat pile" of it, sort through it later and move on. The goal right now is to make the room look neat and clean. The last thing to do is vacuum. Vacuum out the door and your FINISHED with that room.

We used this technique to clean cluttered/dirty apartments in about an hour with 2 people. Hope it helps.