Top 10 Housekeeping Chores I Hate

I hate housekeeping. There is not one chore that I enjoy, not even cooking. Oh, I guess I do enjoy cooking for others, especially when there is a large crowd, but just cooking for two people is a real pain. I’m always grateful when my husband volunteers to cook.

Itemizing 10 housekeeping chores, I came up with a list of top 10 that I hate the most. The trouble with housekeeping is that it is never done. It is like the painting of the Golden Gate Bridge which requires constant touch-up.

No matter which one of us cooks, me or my husband, it seems like every pan in the house is dirty afterwards. When I cook, I wash dishes as I go, but it still seems like every dish is dirty after we eat. When my husband cooks, he usually makes a big mess, but it’s always worth it because he’s a good cook. He inherited that from his mother but I remind him often that his mother had 7 children to clean up after she cooked. He doesn’t.

When was the last time you dusted the top of your refrigerator or ceiling fan? We moved into our trailer about 6 years ago and I haven’t cleaned the top of our refrigerator since. I’ve cleaned everything else, but not that. I seem to have a fetish for leaving things I can’t see, undusted. After all, who looks on the top of your refrigerator? Perhaps the dust mites do.

My mother was of the old school that thought the only way to get a tile floor clean was to get on your hands and knees and scrub. When I was a kid, I dreaded Saturdays because that was the day we always cleaned house.

Today, you couldn’t pay me enough to get on my hands and knees to scrub a tile floor. That’s what mops are for. When I pointed this out to my mother one time, she said mops don’t get the corners well enough. True, but who cares?

This task is made even more daunting when you have pets. Sometimes I sweep up enough cat hair to make a coat out of. And isn’t it amazing how cat hair can get into places where the cats don’t even go? For instance, under the refrigerator, the washer and the dryer I feel sure there are hundreds of tufts of soft cat hair. But how many of us are willing to move these rather large, heavy appliances out to sweep under them?

This is a necessary part of housekeeping but more than any other chore, I love the result more than the task. Let’s face it. There is no better feeling on your skin than to take a shower and land in fresh, clean-smelling sheets.

When the weather gets cold enough to move our plants indoors, they wind up all over the place. We even put some in the bathrooms. If I just watered them where they sit, I’d have water all over the floors, so I have to sit each one in the sink, let it drain, then put it back in its place. Some of the plants have their own little “bucket” under them which makes it easier to water them because I don’t have to carry them to the sink.

I lost a couple of my husband’s cactus because I overwatered them. I’ve learned now not to water as frequently and use less water on cactus. I haven’t lost one in a long time now.

My favorite one to water is my lucky bamboo plant – all I do is fill it up with water because it’s in a little ceramic pot that has no drain hole in it. The plant itself lives in water, not soil. I think I could really get into hydro plants.

Polishing wood furniture is similar to painting or staining in my opinion. Remember the Karate Kid? Wax on, wax off. That’s what it feels like. And one week later, all wooden furniture gets dusty, and so the cycle starts all over again. I sometimes wonder if the polish manufacturers are not in cahoots with the companies that make dusting products. But then I also wonder if the tire manufacturers aren’t in cahoots with the state road departments.

The problem with windows is that you have to clean both sides. Just cleaning the inside won’t help because most of the dirt is on the outside. And the outside of the window is constantly bombarded with weather, dust, pollen, green stuff and any number of other substances that make it difficult to clean. Pressure washers are quite helpful, but then you’re left with streaks you have to wipe off.

The trouble with closets is that usually the homeowner is the only one that sees inside unless you’re showing off a huge walk-in closet. So it’s easy to let them go until you’ve piled so much stuff in them the door will no longer shut. The last time I cleaned out my bedroom closet, I got rid of a lot of clothes because I lost weight. That was the only good thing about cleaning the closet.

I’ve always admired people that keep one closet for summer and one for winter clothes. I’ve never been able to do that because I live in Texas. Sometimes it’s 80 degrees in January. The only way to wear a sweater in that kind of weather is to stay in a very cool air-conditioned home. And then, one day later, the temperature could drop 40 degrees, and then, you need a coat.

Need I say that cleaning toilets is a nasty job? Then there is all the hair (human) that seems to accumulate in the sink. And I hate bending over to clean the tub.

Unfortunately, it is the bathroom that needs to be kept the cleanest because that’s where a lot of the germs reside. Go figure – the task I hate the most is the most important.

After all that we do to “keep” our houses clean, there is still what is known as spring cleaning. This includes the afore mentioned chores but on an advanced level. Instead of just dusting the furniture, we clean out unwanted material from inside drawers and shelves. All of the catch-alls are cleaned off, dusted and polished. Even the treadmill may get a good cleaning and oiling.

The ceiling fans are washed. The top of the refrigerator is cleaned and the stuff that has piled on it throughout the year is discarded. Even the inside of the refrigerator is cleaned out. Stuff that has remained on the top shelf in the back is thrown out, even Aunt Martha’s homemade jam. It’s over a year old now.

All the cobwebs are swept off the corners of the walls. Bookshelves are emptied; the books are dusted off and put back on the shelves. Then there is my favorite thing (NOT!), the knick-knack shelves which are cleaned and all the little knick-knacks are washed off and put back.

And the cleaning goes on when at last your house is sparkling clean and the cycle starts all over again. It’s funny, since I’ve gotten older, none of these things are as important to me as they used to be. When people come over, if I know it in advance, I might clean the bathrooms and pick up things, but if they just show up, I always figure they come to see me, not my house.

I used to have a distant cousin whom I dearly loved. She was a special person. She loved children but could never have any of her own. So she adopted 4. She kept a huge garden because you can in Iowa. Everything grows there. She made the best potato soup in the world. It was funny, though, her house was always a disaster. She just had other priorities, like raising 4 kids and taking care of a husband who worked hard and came home tired. And of course, the garden took time. She loved working outside, not cleaning house. But she also loved spending time with the kids. Time is what children need, not necessarily a spotless house.

When my son was young, I used to tell him to clean his room and often, it was a battle which I won, but it didn’t make either one of us happy. When he became a teenager, I told him he could live in his room the way he wanted it; just keep the door shut so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Then, he went into the Marine Corp. When he came back on leave, the first thing he did was clean his room. It’s kind of funny how the Marine Corp changed his way of thinking.