How to Clean your house

How to clean your house.

Step 1 Find matches

Step 2 Light Match

Step 3 throw match onto refuse pile.

No that's not really how you clean house. As much as I'd like to throw every item I own into a pile on the front lawn, get a match and light it on fire. That's just not how it's done. The problem is, I don't know how it is done. My house is a disaster. A really big disaster. And I have no idea how to make it better.

I used to try and try and try. I even quit my job, sure in the fact that once I just had more time, I could get the house clean. A year later I have been thoroughly disabused of that notion. I cannot keep a house. I am not a suitable homekeeper.

It hardly helps that I have a new housequest living in my former office. The office is now in between the dining room & the living room. The filing cabinet is in my bedroom and the desk is in the garage. Hardly a usable system.

Having a child that opens and pours out everything makes matters even worse. While cleaning his room I can be assured that the living room will be wrecked by the time I am done cleaning his room. He is too young to be able to clean up on his own and old enough to make a huge mess. I'm ready to pack all his belongings in boxes and send them to the shed.

Lots of people I know have made this choice. Minimalists who own nothing find it every easy to clean. They just throw everything they can't figure out where to put, in the garbage. I really would like to be like this but I find problems with it: 1. I'd be filling up the landfills with perfectly good stuff. 2. I'd want the stuff back later anyway. 3. I couldn't afford to replace it later when I needed it again. I know lots of people who operate on this principle and they have very high credit card bills from purchasing, throwing away and repurchasing items again later.

So I'm back again to, How the Hell do I clean my house? Some online pals recommended flylady.com. Well it looks and sounds great, but I'll bet the fly lady doesnt get an unexpected call at 1pm in the afternoon from their mother in law requesting a ride, or her grandmother calling for a ride or some other calamity requiring her rescue. Also, I'm betting she's not made sick every month by her child and down for 1 to 2 weeks at a time with each illness. So far, I cannot make her suggestions consistently work. I am not a consistent person to begin with so the unexpected encumberances severely complicate matters.

I used to have my spouse take the child and leave for the day while I cleaned up. No matter how I clean or for how long now, these days, I can't get it done. I spent 3 days last time, and it wasn't clean and looked like hell 3 hours after the child & spouse returned home.

I just don't know. Maybe I'll get the garage converted some day. Would it help? Who knows.