Last night at 2am, which totally counts, I started helping the friend I'm staying with clear the junk out of their garage. #it is all other people's junk #there was rat poop #and a glove we actually thought was a dead rat for a few minutes #it was dark in there ok? #also I scored a free lamp
So much gardening. So much gardening to go. Oh, my glorious gardening. <3 Also, they gave me phlox and a jack-in-the-pulpit at volunteering. :D
Grandmother hoards newspapers. She is free to do so in her house, but I don't want it in mine. These are just the first pages of the 60-70 something newspapers she had thrown all over my living room - I kept them because of the stamps you can collect and exchange for stuff every two months and frankly I want this cycle's pizza kit. I'm trying to get at least my room and the common areas clean; my mom can deal with her enabling my grandma's hoarding in her/their bedroom. Eta: picture!
@witchknights Ugh, Mom's a hoarder too; it's such a pain. Fistbump on the cleaning! It is so nice to assert control over space. XP
It is!! During most of my life we lived in a hoarders-tv-situation, and my bedroom had the worst of it because it was used to dump stuff from the lion room when we would get visits so mom didn't look bad. I think for... Three, four years I had to sleep either on my moms bedroom or in the living room, because my bedroom had ceiling high stacks of boxes and no one would help me clean, despite saying it was my fault my room got like this because I didn't help around the house?
... jeez, that sucks. Mom was always too possessive of her stuff to put things in my room; we just got yelled at for touching anything, and then yelled at if company was coming because the Piles Of Shit that we weren't allowed to touch were obviously somehow our fault. Five hours of getting yelled at while she vacuums frantically and we pile junk into boxes and laundry baskets. So I feel you on that front, ughhh. XP I think about two-thirds of the house is unusable at this point, but Dad's kept things from getting quite to the hoarders-tv level.
We never had infestations or anything, thankfully, but it was just crap everywhere and tons of dust. My/my moms old bedroom in grandmas apartment has a narrow path where you can walk, but forget about actually reaching anything beyond that.
Yeah. And when I finally got out... welp, no idea how to keep things clean, how much work cleaning is supposed to be, what houses are supposed to look like. Ugh.
Saaaame. I'm slowly figuring out everything, and we have help now so it's easier, but having grandma around again fucks up everything because she's weird controlling.
Ughhh. Fistbump, that sucks. I'm avoiding my mom for Other Reasons, which is... helping. Other than the fact that my house is half-full of junk I'm not allowed to touch. XP But at least it's not breeding.
If don't know where to start with cleaning and such, I find that Unfuck Your Habitat is quite helpful :) She does swear a lot though, and I know that other people with brainweird have said that the way she does things does not work for them. So check it out, and it might be useful :) Also, productive thing I did today: cancelled my gym membership :D
@Emma I do actually find it pretty helpful! My main problem is that I have a hard time knowing how much cleaning/household maintenance is "normal" - like, half an hour a day? An hour? Three hours? Is it "normal" to have a spotless house most of the time or is that just how people clean up for company? How long is it "normal" for dishes to be in the sink? It feels like the to-do list is never finished no matter how much tidying I do, so I marathon-clean and then crash and burn, which is not a fun cycle. And that's awesome, congrats. :)
@albedo : Yeah, I'm moving so I kind of had to :P The thing about normal amounts of cleaning is this: there is no normal amount of cleaning. There is your comfort level with the way things are, and there's other people's comfort level with the way things are and these things are really allowed to differ a lot. If you don't mind your dishes being in the sink for two days, then that's totally allowed. (I'd recommend washing them before stuff starts growing though, even if it's just because they're easier to clean then :P) The problem arises when you live with people who prefer different levels of cleaning to yours, or who have different priorities. For instance: my housemate would prefer things a lot cleaner than they generally are in this house, and he also prefers it when the bathroom is cleaned more than once a week. He in the meanwhile, has no problem leaving messes in the kitchen when he's can't deal with stuff any more, and doesn't mind leaving his stuff all over the communal areas of the house. I on the other hand don't mind the level of clean in the house and couldn't care less about the bathroom. I am currently really annoyed with the amount of mess that resulted from my housemate cooking dinner and would really like him to clean it up. Not in the least because the expectations are that he really should have already. Different people, different needs :)
I just... I don't know what the standard deviations are, y'know? XP I know that there's variance, but... mm. It's hard.
@albedo spotless houses are REALLY just for when you are expecting company for most people, and even so it's really not tv-super-spotless. Once your place reaches a place where you're comfortable, the normal amount of work is... What's needed to keep it like that? Like when the house was the way I wanted, it'd take half an hour or so to straighten it up doing the day, and then like, an hour and a half on Saturday for mopping and dusting as well as my dailies.
Okay, I've gotta know: is that just an (awesome) typo for "living room," or was there some room in your house that had reason to be called the "lion room"?
LOL sadly its just a typo, but now i am thinking of what could possibly justify naming a room 'the lion room' because that is awesome and i need it.
