Cleaning House

Yesterday was a good day for cleaning house. Scoob, being the dear that he is, grabbed the vacuum cleaner and went at it. I know I've mentioned this before, but I hate to vacuum. So when Scoob started it (without being asked I might add, and he did the whole house. He's almost never done that before) I jumped up and started doing a bunch of other little cleaning chores—picking things up off the floor to make it easier for Scoob to vacuum, shaking out rugs, polishing the stainless (flashback to my days at McDonald's, yo), cleaning behind the refrigerator, rotating the cushions on the sofa, and cleaning the mirrors in Scoob's bathroom because he didn't quite get to it last weekend.

This makes the second weekend in a row where we've tackled house cleaning chores together. Not together as in we're trying to clean the same space at the same time, but we're both contributing to a clean house in different areas. I think I've finally found the secret to wanting to clean house—when we're doing it together, I don't feel like it's such a daunting and unpleasant task, and I feel like it's important to both of us.

Which isn't to say the tandem cleaning efforts haven't been without bumps. Last weekend Scoob asked me where we keep the bleach (bet you can guess who does the laundry) and later when Scoob set out to clean his bathroom I didn't make the connection, but when I smelled the fumes I started to worry. I walked into Scoob's small, windowless bathroom where I found him on his knees scrubbing the bottom of the shower (sexy, not traditional sexy, but still sexy).

Thankfully he had the exhaust fan running, but it wasn't enough to control the fumes. Scoob had been using straight, undiluted chlorine bleach, some sort of imitation Tilex-type cleaner, one of those Mr. Clean Eraser sponges (god, I love these things), and who knows what else. I dug out the LCR for the hard water deposits on his shower door because he was trying to clean them with sheer willpower and it wasn't working. I warned him about using undiluted bleach and I warned him not to use anything containing ammonia since he was using bleach.

Apparently my sweet, sweet Scoob thought I meant not to mix anything containing ammonia with the bleach and almost the moment he sprayed something containing ammonia the fumes became unbearable. Lesson learned: ammonia does not need to make direct contact with bleach to become toxic, the mixing of fumes is enough. So we vacated the bathroom and left the exhaust fan running for a good long while, but it wasn't enough to avoid stinking up the whole house and giving us both killer headaches. And that's why I cleaned the mirrors in his bathroom yesterday.

Anyhow, two weekends in a row with cleaning parties has made a huge difference in the house. I'm hoping we keep it up, maybe once we're keeping the house cleaner it'll be easier to get rid of some of this clutter.