Good Housekeeping

It’s great to be able to title these posts again. After a little exploring, I figured out that Blogger "lets" me choose to have a title bar in my composition window. (Of course, I’d rather that be a standard, but I guess enough of their users don’t avail themselves of it, so they might as well make it optional.) That solves that, but the better question would be why I was able to do it for my first posting, and then it disappeared.

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, I’ll discuss the upkeep of my condo. ("Nice blend, Fozzie. Thank you, Fozzie.")

Before I hosted my housewarming back in October, I decided to wash my windows. There was so much desert dirt and dairy dust, it seemed as if the previous owners had never done it (and they probably hadn’t). Of course, it’s naturally dusty here, so I can’t fault them completely. I used a blend of vinegar and water (all-natural, and less expensive than store-bought chemical brands) and newspaper. I washed the windows again in May, before I had my first houseguest, and it seemed as if I hadn’t washed them just seven months previously (but there was less dirt than the previous owners had left me, so there!).

Speaking of the previous owners, they had a cat. The obvious way I found out was that the office chair they left behind was black fabric covered in white cat hairs. I had to go over it twice with duct tape, and there are still hairs stuck to it. The second way was the B&B owners telling me about the cat. The third way, and the most creative, was when I dusted my ceiling fans. I figured that they had never been dusted, since 1) most people forget about them and 2) most people can’t reach like I can and figure dragging out the ladder or stepstool is too much of a hassle. The fans were surprisingly clean -- except for the one in the study (where the office chair was, too). That fan was loaded with cat hair. I’m guessing the cat liked to hang out in that room particularly (or they confined it in there).

The floors are easy to clean. They are a laminate wood product, so all they require is periodic sweeping and occasional mopping. Among the several items the previous owners left for me was a case of the specialized mopping spritz. (Thank heavens they left that for me, instead of the cat!) All I do is spray the floor then swab it with a flat, terrycloth-like pad and let it dry. The pad attaches to the pole with velcro, so I can detach it, wash it out, and reuse it when it’s dry. Nifty.

I put down a rug in my study. It’s the rug from my bedroom back in N.J. More recently, it was in my parents’ basement in Albuquerque. I’m glad to have it, and it shows me that my study is just about the same size as my childhood bedroom. It takes an occasional vacuuming, which is much easier than sweeping, spritzing, mopping, then rinsing the mop pad. (I’m still looking for a rug suitable for my living room.)

The bedroom has an oatmeal-colored, shag-like carpet in the center of the room and a perimeter of the wood laminate. I’d never before seen carpet that wasn’t wall-to-wall, but its edges are affixed beneath the laminate, so it can’t be called a rug. (With just two, small areas to do, that vacuum cleaner bag is going to last me nigh on forever.)

The two bathrooms are tiled (floor and walls, all the way to the ceiling, and even the ceiling above the shower in the master bath). I have to clean the hard water stains off the shower tiles frequently, but that’s what happens when you live in N.M. My gripe in this room is that the drain plug in the sink can’t be removed. The sink in my apartment was the same way. How am I supposed to keep the drain free of my increasingly falling (or jumping) hair, if I can’t pull out the plug? None of our sinks back in N.J. was like this. When did sink manufacturers decide that being user-friendly was a bad thing? Does anyone know how I can remedy this?

I keep my kitchen counters clean with more vinegar and water. The refrigerator/freezer, stove/oven, and dishwasher panels occasionally receive an application of the aerosol, stainless steel cleaner (lemon scented!) I found under the sink.

Speaking of sinks (thanks again, Fozzie), they’re easy to clean with baking soda sprinkled on when damp and then sponged off -- another all-natural, inexpensive cleaner. (Yes, I recycle, too.) It’s even cheaper if you wait until after it has completed its tour of duty in your refrigerator or freezer. Plus, you have the good feeling of using it twice, instead of just throwing it away.

The veranda and stairs are surfaced in Mexican-style clay tiles which are easy to sweep off. Our infrequent rains seemed to be enough to keep them clean for the first six months. Then, I discovered that my neighbor’s Mulberry tree was a fruiting type, so I was on my knees with a scrub brush to get the tiles clean. Now, I have salt deposits (from the water) and tannins (from my potting media) on the tiles and grout. Let’s see if rain can clean those off. Come on, rain! (Oops, not monsoon season for another two months.)

I don’t care to dust, so please don’t look too closely at surfaces if you visit!