I ask because 3-4 times a year I get this insane urge to totally clean my house. You know, like something out of Heloise or Martha Stewart. Usually, the phone rings or something really good comes on tv, and I forget about it for the next few months.
For some reason, the urge struck this morning and I did not resist. I started on the kitchen at about 9 am and I’m still working on it 6 hours later. Ugh! I decided to pull out the oven and found a petrified hotdog, lots of broken pieces of glass and several dried up poools of unidentified gloop. Then, I decided that the best way to get the floors good and clean would be to wash them on my hands and knees like my mom does. BIG MISTAKE! I am never, ever, ever going to look at anything lower than a foot ever again.
Is this normal? Or am I just a filthy slob who isn’t fit to live in polite society?
It is very normal. I do the very same thing. I think it comes from back when our moms used to do the ‘spring’ cleaning where you just literally tore the house apart cleaning.
** Sigh. So many men, so few who can afford me ** Original by Wally
I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.
Homepage: www.superlativeandsassy.com
Occupation: Temptress
Location: Ultra, California
Interests: surpluses, excesses, abundances, extras, lagniappes
profile by UncleBeer
I just thought of another question. Am I the only one with a morbid fear of someone outsite the immediate family looking into my fridge? I don’t even let my own Mother get her own glass of tea…I am hoping everyone just thinks I’m the uber-hostess, instead of knowing that I’m trying to hide the barely contained chaos that is my fridge.
I can honestly say that I haven’t inherited my mother’s urge to tear the place apart for spring cleaning.
Homepage: www.loosiegoosiemoosie.gov
Occupation: Taxidermist and hunt guide
Location: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
Interests: The Loyal Order of the Moose, Moosehead (and the beer).
Oh yeah? Well, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. Backwards. In high heels. - As per Wally
::looks around her apartment. Cough:: Um…your honor, I would like to take my fifth amendment right to not give self-incriminating evidence. I would also like the jury to note that I am working a 40 hour week while taking three difficult 100-level classes. While not an excuse, this is an explaination. Thank you.
A little persistance goes a long way. Announcing:
“I go on guilt trips a couple of time a year. Mom books them for me.” A custom made Wally .sig!
How clean is my house?
BWAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAA!
Does that answer the question?
Hey tatertot–no, you are definitely not alone on the fridge thing. My husband and I are the only people who can open the doors properly, without disturbing the delicate balance of nature inside my refrigerator.
Cristi, Slayer of Peeps
I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.
(title & sig courtesy of UncleBeer and WallyM7!)
Tatertot – the house is, um, okay. There are just two of us, so it’s easy to keep things picked up.
My kitchen and bathroom are the worst – they’re very out of date, the linoleum’s old, windows are bad, etc. – so even when they’re kept clean and tidy, they don’t look nice. (There’s a remodeling loan in my future.)
As for the fridge, I’m constantly amazed that food will grow mold even when it’s kept cold. Why is that?
I can understand the pot of chili that sat on the stove for three days developing its own culture, but cold stuff? Maybe I should ask Cecil. Or aha, he’s turning into kind of an expert on gross stuff.
How clean? Not very. I’m basically lazy, I procrastinate, and my s.o. is a slob – and I don’t mean just clothes on the floor – that I could handle – but his papers, books, mags, and other miscellany all over. You know, that’s the trouble with those sudden urges to clean – they snowball and before you know it you’re spending your whole day/weekend doing nothing but. Better to just not start. (Oh, yes, I do clean the bathrooms, run the vacuum, and wipe the dust off the t.v. screen occasionally.)
When it comes to Fridge Chaos, I have established a few simple rules:
- Fresh food is good;
- Overdue food is OK;
- Food that growls and slightly moves is rather disconserting;
- Food that jumps for your throat when you open up the fridge door is NOT your friend.
The Moral of the Story is of course: keep your fridge free of perishable goods. Hmmm… beer 
Defect borg:
“Refutile is sistance. Your ass will be simulated”.
WallyM7 on Coldfire:
"Yeah, he knows a little about everything because they have a good prison library."
Mine’s a lot better than my last place, which was so tiny and ancient that it was almost impossible to keep clean. I was also pretty depressed, so I let it get really bad.
After I finally got out of there, I decided I’d never let the new place get to where I was ashamed to have people over. So it’s almost always tolerable, if you don’t look too close 
Catrandom
Go to a vet that’s also a taxidermist. Either way, you’ll get your cat back. Sig courtesy of the amazing WallyM7
From the other side of the spectrum…
I am a confessed neat freak. It’s usually at least once a month that I pull out the stove, take it apart to clean the insides and from behind it, and reinstall.
I clean the windows and skylights weekly, and spend about 15 minutes a day dusting.
All television screens must be 100% dust free at all times. Once a month, I tear my keyboard apart to swab between the keys, and dust the inner workings.
I vaccuum daily, including the sofa and the mattresses.
Help meeee!
My house is pretty clean, though, Mr. Cynical has me beat by several longshots!
It helps that I just plain * like to clean *. I can’t stay mad, or upset when I clean, so I’m using it as therapy!
Like my niece cheerfully reminds me, I’m a slob. At 9 years old, she loves my place because she doesn’t get yelled at if she spills things. I keep it moderately clean but now and then I have a girl friend who takes pity on me and comes over and forces me to help her shovel the place out, hose the inside of the refrigerator down, toss out all of those little disposable plastic boxes of mystery goo that have been lurking in there and steam clean the carpets.
One tried to heave out my sacred collection of old rocks, bits of glass, interesting dead insects and assorted battered colorful plastic bits that my niece and I collect on our walks, but I forbid that. After all, it’s a growing work of art designed by my niece!
CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)
Well, let’s just say I’m comfortable with reasonable clutter and co-exist with friendly layers of dust. (Ask Chris! She’s stayed over a few times Chez Veb and survived.)
Hey, it’s a 13 room house, and I have a 60-hr. a week job. So that means keeping stuff picked up reasonably (don’t judge by right now), frequently used rooms dusted and vacuumed and keeping the grass below ankle length.
But I’m a hellion about the fridge. My mom kept GROWTHS alive in the back reaches. So I de-accession the fridge weekly: partially used bottles, unremembered Gladware contents, dubious veggies, OUT. I’d rather spend a few more bucks, buy small and keep the inventory turned over.
Hey, it’s more (George) Carlinesque than Martha Stewart.
Veb
Why do cold foods develop mold? It’s natural selection at work … nature in all her beautiful diversity and ability to adapt to any environment. : )
My frig is cleaned periodically, because I buy lots of fresh vegetables that need to be refrigerated and I need the frig cleaned out so that I have somewhere to put them. The rest of my house is cluttered. Too much stuff. When I get the urge to clean I always go with it.
I toss a concussion grenade into my apartment every morning before work. Just to make sure it’s not tidy.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
My mum goes spastic with the vacuum cleaner every Sunday morning… often outside my bedroom door.
rrrrrRRRNNNNrrrrrRRRNNNNrrrrrRRRNNNN…
::shudder::
But yeah, I think I have inherited some of her freakishness. I have been ‘spring cleaning’ my room for three weeks now. I take my time, but I get the job done right. I even empty and vacuum the inside of all my drawers. I’m sick.
Homepage: www.idahospuds.com
Occupation: Side dish
Location: the oven, 400 degrees for 45 minutes
Interests: fine dining, sour cream and butter.
-custom profile by UncleBeer
I thought I was a neat freak until I got to college. I was packing for Easter weekend and was so disgusted by my floor that I was forced to sponge it clean on hands and knees, but it has been that disgusting for about three months! I also regularly go to Wal-Mart and by 88 cent plastic cups because mine tend to grow things in them, since I only do my dishes once a month. My frige is usually empty and not too bad, although the microwave is a mess, mainly because I bought those 5-for-$5 Mexican dinners (NOT A GOOD IDEA!!).
Growing up, I dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned the living room, dining room, and bedrooms (all of them-3 total-and mopped up the kitchen for $5 a week, with a $15 raise during Christmas so I could buy gifts. You’d think I be more of a clean freak, but nahhh.
Wanna hear something really gross that my college friends taught me? If you buy lots of underwear (I have 40 pairs) you can go a month without doing laundry. You just use febreeze and pop items in the laundry. Walking around campus on a windy day, I swear I can smell febreeze in the air.
What’s really odd is that first semester, I brought an ironing board, starch, and an iron. Needless to say, I left it home after the first trip back!!
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Edith Wharton
My rules: !) invite company in the evening. If forced to have people over in the daylight, adjust verticle blinds to keep the light dim. 2) clean telephone and bathroom with Lysol, put out a new roll of toilet paper. 3) pick up clutter in the room in which you are entertaining. 4) open up windows even in winter for a few minutes to air out the house. That’s the bare basics, if they want to look in the refrigerator or check for dust bunnies or snoop around in other rooms, well, they are on their own and get what they deserve.
I do my dishes on a biweekly basis at best. I have some recycling stuff that’s been accumulating since I moved in (going on two years ago). My boyfriend has been known to leave me messages written in the dust on my television screen. Laundry? I sometimes try to buy new clothes to put it off just a little longer. I could build a new cat using just the hair that’s built up under my bed…
Gamera is really neat, he is full of turtle meat, we’ve been eating Gam-er-aaaa…