you know you're a lousy housekeeper when there's spiders living in your mop handle

[ugly ripe tomato]

I'm kind of a neat freak in that I can't stand clutter, dishes in the sink, or stuff being where it just doesn't belong, but I have a bad habit of letting dirt and dust pile up until the dust elephants (they're way too big to be mere dust BUNNIES) start complaining about the food.

Today, however, after ironing a pair of black pants which then fell on the kitchen floor and became gray pants, I realized it was time to cave in and clean the damn floor already. So I moved everything out of the way, swept up the pre-Christmas crumbs and enough cat hair to make a whole 'nother cat. Free of the top stratum, all the splats and spots were visible and so it was time to break out the Mr. Clean and wet mop the place as well. So I got out the sponge mop and bucket from the basement, mixed up a bucket of cleaning solution, and was just about to start mopping when I noticed a peachy-colored tuft of fuzz at the top of the mop handle where there is a plastic hanging loop thingy.

Since the Sheddiest Cat in the Universe is an orange tabby, his undercoat is more or less the same color, so I assumed it was a nugget of cat hair. I picked it off and threw it away, then saw a spider crawling up the handle. As I hate insects of all types, I respect spiders as nature's bug zappers and merely flicked it aside.

When I dunked the mop in the bucket of nice hot Mr. Clean, however, at least a dozen more spiders were fleeing for their lives through a small hole in the mop handle located just above the slider for the wringer thingy. they headed onwards and upwards, hell bent on getting as far away from the noxious chemical flood as they could.

After a moment of I realized the fuzz must have been a spider nest, ran the whole mop out to the front porch, popped off the hanging loop, and the poor arachnids who had avoided the Mr. Clean perished instead as I knocked them into the giant piles of crunchy snow heaped up on my front lawn.

I then mopped the floor, vaccuumed the living room, and dry-mopped the upstairs hallway.

And only 5 more months until summer and my annual invasion of the carpenter ants

[loshan]

My mop stays on the back porch.

Last winter I had double pneumonia and was hospitalized for two weeks I didn't much care if the floors were mopped or not for a good two months after. The floors were swept to get the Big Chunks™ up, but not mopped.

At the end of March, I finally mix up the cleaning solution in a bucket and go to retrieve my mop (string mop) from the back porch.

I pick it up and all I have is a handle in my hand. The mop head had been chewed off and turned into a very nice, very warm and cozy mouse nest.

Of course, I had to go back to find that out, as all I knew as I ran for the back door is that a smallish mouse was clinging to my pant leg.

While I am not afraid of mice, the sudden appearance of a whole herd (gaggle, flock, ?) of them stampeding me was enough to get me moving pretty fast.

I also learned that, yes, even two months later, that rescue inhaler can come in pretty handy.


ETA: I'll take mice over spiders anyday though. I also had a few runins recently with Hobo spiders that have me totally freaked out.

[Claverhouse]

I hate vacuuming. Three months later and you have to do it all over again.

[loshan]

Originally Posted by Claverhouse

I hate vacuuming. Three months later and you have to do it all over again.

Yeah. What's up with that?

[faithfool]

Originally Posted by Claverhouse

I hate vacuuming. Three months later and you have to do it all over again.

Agreed. I do it for every major holiday whether I need to or not.