Friday, October 4, 2013

A.P.D.--The Hideous Housework Edition

I am not a meticulous housekeeper. This is something I've accepted about myself. My house will never be spotless.

But it's not all my fault.

Not to pass the buck or anything, but old houses are a major pain in the ass to clean. They just are. They include features that present unique cleaning challenges. Probably because they were built with the assumption that servants would be doing the cleaning, and who cares about their convenience?

For instance, your average suburban house is unlikely to have an enormous brick fireplace with a woodstove in front of it. And if there is no enormous brick fireplace with a woodstove in front of it, there is no place for mildew to form in a wet summer, making the whole downstairs smell like an underground pit.

I, however, as the resident of a historic home, am the proud possesor of just such a fireplace, with just such mildew. It took me awhile to figure out WHY the whole downstairs smelled so mildewy, and then it took me awhile to clean the fireplace out. Because, you see, there is this huge, ungainly iron woodstove in the way, so I couldn't just crawl back into the fireplace to scrub it down.

Instead I had to move as much junk out of the way as I could--fireplace tools, andirons, chairs--so I could get a mop in around the sides of the woodstove and clean the bricks as best I could with water, vinegar, and borax on the mop. And now there's a big box fan roaring into the fireplace to dry it as quickly as possible.

It was incredibly gross behind the woodstove. Unsurprising, since I think I last cleaned back there about three years ago, other than cosmetic dusting for cobwebs or whatever. A lot of soot and filth can collect in three years. To say nothing of the mildew.

So gross.

And now it's your turn, my lovelies! What's the most hideous cleaning job you have ever been forced to do?

9 comments:

Sister’s Sailor said...

The CHT (collection, holding, and transfer) tank on a ship.....and if you sound out CHT-that is what goes in there!

Anonymous said...

When I moved back to the homeplace in the mid-80's, I got to clean out an old storage cabinet that had "canned goods" that my grandmother had canned. A grandmother I never met, because she died in the mid 40's, before I was born.
Some of the canned goods contents had actually eaten their way through the zinc lids and left only a hardened mass of we-know-not-what in the bottom. I threw out some potentially lovely antique canning jars because I could not get them clean. Thanks for bringing that memory back up for me. As for homestead tasks outside the home, I'm not sure what would beat cleaning out the chicken house. That's just nasty. timberdawn

Anonymous said...

I must move my heavy woodstove out of the way of MY large fireplace to see if THAT is where MY mildew smell is coming from....... :)
Nah....I just need to start throwing away a bunch of unused things..I keep thinking I may need it some time and then won't have to buy it.....I will probably die before I need most of it though..then I wont' need it , will I? Not looking forward to that. Beth

tu mere said...

Can't really compete on the home front. You win the prize all the time for both outside and inside, what with the human and dog hunting, old house, etc.

However, your dad's car problem with the momma mouse who died after giving birth to a bunch of babies, who didn't all die was a real challenge for your dad. The smell in the car was the first give away, and it just went downhill from there.

Fun times I didn't even let myself be in the garage for.

Drew @ Willpower Is For Fat People said...

At home? Someone knocked out the plug on the downstairs freezer just before we headed out for a weekend camping. The freezer that was just-filled from trout season. Think 40+ pounds of trout. We tied the door shut and carried the freezer out into the back yard before opening it.

Not at home? The restaurant I worked at in college. During the spring break lull, when everyone with money was out of town, we did a deep clean of the kitchen. We started with replacing all the missing or burned-out fluorescent tubes. Once it was actually bright in there we discovered how horrendously disgusting it was. Did you know cockroaches can colonize the inside of a 220V plug and socket?

Joan @ Debt of Gratitude said...

I'm ashamed to say it's my oven.

I'm 50 years old, have owned four houses, and cleaned my oven for the first time last year. Before that, I always had "people" to do it. (Okay, my people were my mother, who was my nanny, and my stay-at-home husband, but still.)

Ovens are really gross. Especially when you go long periods like me without cleaning them. But at least everything is incinerated mostly, as opposed to green and damp and growing.

Lindsey at NW Backyard Veggies said...

My vegetable drawer every, um, 3 months or so. Something always gets lost in the back and molds, leaks and gets heinously squishy. It's bad.

Anonymous said...

Here in Minnesota, where it snows and snows for six months, try picking up the buried dog poop in the spring!

flask said...

i'm not so much of a housekeeper.

and i have had no hideous home cleaning tasks.

i did, however, work for a time at the thuniversity of vermont, cleaning dorm rooms after the students left them for the year.

the two worst thing were that summer the department of residential life decided to lock up jeanne mance ( a large dorm) immediately after the students left and not bother to empty the trash pails for two months of summer heat.

the worst thing, though was that one room in CBW (a dorm complex) that stank of vomit.

only there was no vomit visible, not anywhere. so we pulled out all the furniture and aired out the room.

it still stank.

then we dammed up the door with plastic liners and threw in gallons of industrial solvent, stripped the floor down, hosed and pressure washed everything.

no dice.

i will not be surprised if nearly 30 years later it still stinks in there.