Yikes! You think you are keeping things clean and well cared for, but once you have moved everything out, you realize how many little pockets of dirt have to be taken care of. I am becoming more committed to an annual spring cleaning - and in fact had planned to do just that this year before I thought of moving. When I was in high school, I often was hired by local women, most of them older and either single or widowed, to assist with the spring cleaning rituals.
Well I remember washing windows with newspaper and vinegar, taking all the dishes from cupboards and scrubbing out the insides, examining for breaks and chips and tossing the bad ones while washing and reshelving the good ones. We moved all the furniture to the centers of the rooms and thoroughly scrubbed the exterior walls, removing pictures and cleaning them carefully, chasing away spiders and brushing down cobwebs, all the while the windows thrown wide open to let the fresh spring air chase the winter doldrums and germs from the premises.
The women tied kerchiefs around their heads to keep the dust and dirt from their hair, but didn't hesitate a moment to clamber up on chairs to reach the top shelves and send a shower of dust on my head from the top of kitchen cabinets. Stairs were particularly challenging. Their houses usually had a front and back set, and most of them had removable runners or step coverings that had to be carefully taken up and washed while the wood steps were massaged with oil soap to rejuvenate the dried out wood. While none of my employers had coal heat, their furnaces managed to sap the strength of all the woodwork, and I spent hours polishing and rubbing and feeding all kinds of wood in every imaginable place.
I have lived in my apartment for four years and not done a thorough spring cleaning even once. Shame on me. I blame it on my various health challenges, but I am sure I could have hired someone to come and help. Seeing the result of four years of neglect helps me understand the importance of this little task. Next spring I hope to do just that. Meanwhile, today, we scrub and clean and vacuum and mop until it is past noon. But I feel as if we have done what needed to be done and our efforts will pass muster. The only place I cheated was in replacing the drip pans under the stove burners. I don't believe any amount of scrubbing could have saved them. But we are done, the keys are turned in, and we can focus on settling in. Something tells me this is the last move I will undertake for some long time. I hope so. I would like to be still for a bit.
Well I remember washing windows with newspaper and vinegar, taking all the dishes from cupboards and scrubbing out the insides, examining for breaks and chips and tossing the bad ones while washing and reshelving the good ones. We moved all the furniture to the centers of the rooms and thoroughly scrubbed the exterior walls, removing pictures and cleaning them carefully, chasing away spiders and brushing down cobwebs, all the while the windows thrown wide open to let the fresh spring air chase the winter doldrums and germs from the premises.
The women tied kerchiefs around their heads to keep the dust and dirt from their hair, but didn't hesitate a moment to clamber up on chairs to reach the top shelves and send a shower of dust on my head from the top of kitchen cabinets. Stairs were particularly challenging. Their houses usually had a front and back set, and most of them had removable runners or step coverings that had to be carefully taken up and washed while the wood steps were massaged with oil soap to rejuvenate the dried out wood. While none of my employers had coal heat, their furnaces managed to sap the strength of all the woodwork, and I spent hours polishing and rubbing and feeding all kinds of wood in every imaginable place.
I have lived in my apartment for four years and not done a thorough spring cleaning even once. Shame on me. I blame it on my various health challenges, but I am sure I could have hired someone to come and help. Seeing the result of four years of neglect helps me understand the importance of this little task. Next spring I hope to do just that. Meanwhile, today, we scrub and clean and vacuum and mop until it is past noon. But I feel as if we have done what needed to be done and our efforts will pass muster. The only place I cheated was in replacing the drip pans under the stove burners. I don't believe any amount of scrubbing could have saved them. But we are done, the keys are turned in, and we can focus on settling in. Something tells me this is the last move I will undertake for some long time. I hope so. I would like to be still for a bit.
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