Forget fire and brimstone. I’m convinced hell is a place filled with bottles of foaming bubble bathroom cleaner, bleach, mops and sponges. The place must be stacked wall to wall with Mr. Clean and Pinesol.
There’s nothing I hate more than house work. My apartment isn’t that big – 800 square feet according to the lease – and there was a time when I could wake up on a Saturday morning, suck it up, and go on a cleaning blitz. I could get pretty much everything finished in a few hours, and then feel free to do whatever I pleased the rest of the weekend.
Nowadays, however, it seems to take forever to clean and my house is seldom spotless all at once. It’s like having an exam one needs to study for hanging over your head, all the time. In the last year the smell of cleaning products and kicked up dust has started to irritate my breathing. Within a half hour I’m huffing and puffing as though I’ve just been to the gym doing a serious workout.
The fact that I can get so easily distracted doesn’t help either. A short break becomes a longer one because I find a book on a shelf I haven’t looked at in a year, or a CD I haven’t played in a long time, or maybe something interesting on the History channel.
And yes, I have tried masks. I don’t understand how they’re supposed to help. I can still smell, and they make me feel a bit closterphobic. So far the best cleaning option I’ve found is vinegar – the liquid of the Gods. When I was growing up in Germany, vinegar was used for everything from cleaning floors to cooking. If you’re sick, take a teaspoon of vinegar to straighten anything out. If there’s a spot on the rug, try three parts water and one part vinegar. It works, by the way, even on blood. (I stubbed my toe again a few days ago and had the opportunity to test just how well vinegar removes blood – and it took it right out.)
I’ve spent most of my weekend cleaning, and I’m not even close to having everything finished. My mom suggested today that I hire someone to come in and clean. With money so tight, it seems like an extravagance and I feel guilty for not being able to get it together enough to get my apartment clean.
I know a number of other people with Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome who have trouble with cleaning products and getting winded cleaning too – but everyone that comes to mind has lower lung function numbers than I do. Is it in my head? Is it an excuse to get out of housework? Who knows.
There’s nothing I hate more than house work. My apartment isn’t that big – 800 square feet according to the lease – and there was a time when I could wake up on a Saturday morning, suck it up, and go on a cleaning blitz. I could get pretty much everything finished in a few hours, and then feel free to do whatever I pleased the rest of the weekend.
Nowadays, however, it seems to take forever to clean and my house is seldom spotless all at once. It’s like having an exam one needs to study for hanging over your head, all the time. In the last year the smell of cleaning products and kicked up dust has started to irritate my breathing. Within a half hour I’m huffing and puffing as though I’ve just been to the gym doing a serious workout.
The fact that I can get so easily distracted doesn’t help either. A short break becomes a longer one because I find a book on a shelf I haven’t looked at in a year, or a CD I haven’t played in a long time, or maybe something interesting on the History channel.
And yes, I have tried masks. I don’t understand how they’re supposed to help. I can still smell, and they make me feel a bit closterphobic. So far the best cleaning option I’ve found is vinegar – the liquid of the Gods. When I was growing up in Germany, vinegar was used for everything from cleaning floors to cooking. If you’re sick, take a teaspoon of vinegar to straighten anything out. If there’s a spot on the rug, try three parts water and one part vinegar. It works, by the way, even on blood. (I stubbed my toe again a few days ago and had the opportunity to test just how well vinegar removes blood – and it took it right out.)
I’ve spent most of my weekend cleaning, and I’m not even close to having everything finished. My mom suggested today that I hire someone to come in and clean. With money so tight, it seems like an extravagance and I feel guilty for not being able to get it together enough to get my apartment clean.
I know a number of other people with Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome who have trouble with cleaning products and getting winded cleaning too – but everyone that comes to mind has lower lung function numbers than I do. Is it in my head? Is it an excuse to get out of housework? Who knows.
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