Looks like a regular weekend to me.
Anyway, you’re getting a housekeeper, good idea. Congratulations on the new digs!
Remind me to never eat at your house. I can just imagine what your refrigerator looks like!
~VOW
Which part? Cleaning pee and poop from the toilet? Throwing out rotten food?
If the first, you definitely want to hire a house cleaner. If the second… Well, keep your fridge closed and eat out, i guess.
OMG, when I was a kid we went on vacation for almost a month. My mom cleaned the kitchen of any perishable (or they was eaten before we left), but she forgot the potatoes under the sink. When we got home it smelled like there were a couple of corpses decaying in there.
Rotten potatoes are really really bad.
I, too, had a very unpleasant run in with rotten potatoes.
Something I do want to do, that is different to how I’ve lived in the past, is be more organised and systematic with looking after the place. Having plenty of cleaning items, stored in tidy locations, and easily accessible for repetitious use. It should lead it to become second nature, instead of either the sparse or cluttered approaches of my past.
There are two main principles to follow here, and you don’t have to bother with the second one if you’re getting a housecleaner:
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Never Let Dirty Dishes Accumulate for longer than a day, and
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Fifteen Minutes a Day on all other tasks.
It is remarkable how non-dirty a house can stay if you just allocate one daily quarter-hour to tidying and cleaning whatever needs it most. Also good for stress insomnia: get out of bed and go do that fifteen minutes, and just that one minor accomplishment can help ease the agonizing fretting.
You can still do some daily cleaning even if you have a cleaner coming in weekly, but the house probably won’t really need it.
Story time:
In college a friend of mine rented a duplex with a friend of hers. Any time I’d go over to visit them, there was always a somewhat funky smell. It wasn’t over powering by any means and after you were there for more then 2 minutes it wasn’t even noticeable anymore. At the end of the school year her roommate moved out and she asked me to move in. I was initially hesitant because of that weird smell, but eventually accepted. A few weeks after I moved in, I’m watching TV and she yells from the kitchen “I found the smell, there’s a bag of potatoes in a [otherwise unused] cupboard”. Her being completely grossed out, I said “I’ll get it, it’s what I do*”, I was about halfway to the kitchen when she said “the bag’s moving”.
Turns out it may have been a 5 pound bag of potatoes a year ago, but it was a 5 pound bag of maggots now. Not only did that finally provide an explanation for the smell, it provided an explanation for the fly problem we had as well.
*I’ve worked in produce my entire life. Rotten potatoes give off an absolutely putrid smell that I’ve seen make many employees gag to the point where they can’t, or shouldn’t be around them because no one wants to see them doing an involuntary Dee Reynolds impression.
I’m usually fine around that specific smell. It’s not pleasant, but I’m not gonna start dry heaving because of it. Until that day. That was horrific. Luckily, the cabinet had a shelf on tracks that could be pulled out, so we took the entire shelf out and threw it away. All the putrified potato juice had soaked into the wood so I don’t think it would have mattered how well we cleaned it, the shelf itself was probably always going to stink.
This is why my husband removes any rotten potatoes from our house.
I had a lemon that somehow hid in my refrigerator until it turned white and it took my husband and I a week to find it. It stunk to high heaven.
It’s a very nasty smell.
@Joey_P , that story is horrific.
I am now in my new place. It currently smells like mustering old boxes.
You mean, your own packing boxes? Yeah, unpack as soon as you can and dispose of the boxes.
Or do you mean that your clean stuff is now moved into your apparently clean residence and you’re still having a persistent musty-box smell and you don’t know why?
If so, spring for a reasonably high-end cleaning company or maintenance consultant or whatever to come in and figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it. (A decaying rug pad under a carpet somewhere, some mildew in a cupboard, something else?) You are not going to be happy just constantly living with a smell you don’t like in your new place, even if you try to cover it up with other scents.
Yes. I had a lot of stuff in storage that is now back out in the open, and they is old. I’ll get onto emptying those this weekend, and dump them all. The newer packing boxes I’ll likely keep, at least for a while.
A few other posters have mentioned these tips but, as a single guy living alone, this is the best advice. You don’t need to take out the trash every day if it’s only filled with junk mail, but you need to keep the smelly stuff outside.
It helps if your indoor trash can and recycling bin have closable lids but you will need to do a little bit of work. Containers, wrappers, and scraps from fish/produce/meat need to be disposed of daily. Just bag them up and take them to your outside trash cans or dumpsters every day. This will significantly decrease the odor from your trash.
Rinse out all finished beverage containers and keep your recyclables in a closed container. If your recycling bin is half full then you should just take it out. I take out the recycling more frequently than I take out the trash because my rinsing process only reduces some of the smells.
Please do your dishes frequently. I cook 2-3 meals a day and, like you, I live alone. I spent many years in the service industry and I’ve learned two crucial things: cook what you love and clean as you go. There is no reason to have a sink full of dishes when you live alone. My regular rotation of dishes involves 1 mug, 1 cup, 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 knives, 2 small plates, 1 dinner plate, 2 bowls. That’s it. I haven’t had a dishwasher in over a decade and I never fill my sink. I also own a ridiculous amount of glassware, but I only bring those out for guests and occasions. I have enough matching dishes in my cupboards to serve 8 even though I have settings for 10-14 additional folks if I get creative 
Do you work out or go for runs/walks? If so, make sure you dry out your clothes before you bundle them up in your hamper. I live in Texas and sweaty clothes will absolutely stink even if you only go out for a light stroll. If you have a laundry room that isn’t in the middle of your apartment then you can dry your workout clothes there before dropping them into a closable hamper. If you don’t, then you will need to dry them out on your porch or in the backyard. Keep your workout clothes (and dirty clothes) away from places that people regularly walk through or visit. Invest in a clothes hamper with a lid if you don’t have one already.
Clean your bathroom thoroughly because our aim isn’t as good as we think it is. Use a swiffer wet jet (or mop or squeegee) on the floor and don’t forget to wipe down the entire toilet (sides, back, front, etc). Scrub the tub (inside AND out) and don’t forget to clean the shower curtain and doors. If you have a shower curtain, make sure you buy a liner and just be prepared to toss it every 6 months. I grew up watching my mom bleach and clean the shower curtain but I feel like you’re similar to me. We both know that’s more work than we want to put in so don’t feel bad tossing and replacing something that’s $20 every 6 months.
Don’t forget to change your towels frequently. Once again, this isn’t necessarily a weekly thing unless they’re getting a lot of use, but twice a month should do the trick. Don’t let your towel hang out in your bathroom for more than two weeks. If you don’t have enough towels to change them twice a month then you should start tracking companies that have linen sales and pick up towels (and sheets) on sale when you can. Macy’s runs a lot of sales throughout the year and so do companies like Wayfair and Target. I’m sure other Dopers can provide a few more suggestions for bath products on sale.
Airflow is very important so open your windows. I live in Austin and the high was 102 °F today but I had the windows and door open this morning when it was in the 80s. Airflow helps keep your place smelling clean so take advantage of any windows and doors that aren’t facing direct sunlight. Plants are also a great option. I don’t have the best interior sunlight but the Internet is lousy with options for low light plants that smell great.
Don’t use plug-ins the way Jr High boys use Axe because it won’t cover up anything. Instead, you can use plug-ins and candles as a way to neutralize harsh cleaning smells after you tidy up your apartment. Clean up with chemicals and then plug it in for an hour and remove it. Your place will smell great, it will be subtle, and you can use again the next time you clean.
Diffusers are great for entryways and places like the bathroom because they tend to be more subtle. Don’t be afraid to ask your close friends what they think when you invite them over for games, beer, or TV shows.
You sound like an advanced kind of man…MARRY ME
If your workout clothes are quick-drying performance fabrics and such, you can give them a quick rinse in water (even wearing them into the shower and soaping and rinsing a bit BEFORE undressing will work) before squeezing them out and hanging them to dry.
Bonus: you can often reuse the same workout gear three or four times before running it through the laundry, if you do the quick-rinse thing after every wearing. Less wear and tear on the fabric and they stay cleaner longer.
Your post was very nicely done. Not judgemental but very informational in a friendly way which is much more effective. I give it 10 out of 10.
To the OP, how is your search for a housekeeper going? Now is a great time to get started with someone, even very neat people make a mess unpacking and old boxes tend to shed.
It is so much easier to take care of a few little things like trash and dishes when the big things like floors and toilets are being handled.
If you choose to hire a local person, don’t be afraid to interview several until you find one you feel you can trust. When you do find the right one, treat them like the treasure they are. Remember that they are cleaning your toilet and tip them appropriately. (Ours used to get a nice card with a 50 tucked inside but she has been with us for over 5 years and we bought a pain in the ass kitten last year so she started getting a 100 in her card last year.)
Jeepers I haven’t even had time to empty any of my boxes yet, that’s this weekend’s task. I’ll not be looking for any kind of outside help for quite a while yet.
My workplace is relocating at the end of July (it’s one reason why I chose to move to the area I did, shorter travel time) and I’ll get a week or two off while that happens. That’s when I hope to make the big changes to my situation, like arranging furniture, buying stuff I’m missing, and making everything just to my liking. Until then it’s just going to be incremental unpacking.
Ask all your neighbors if they have a housekeeper they recommend.
You will be SO much happier after you find someone.