Mr. Clean

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

I mean, Mr. A. It seems as though he is going through his own little nesting phase.

On Sunday after lunch, he went to use the downstairs bathroom and came right back out again, visibly distraught that the toilet seat had some specks of discoloration on it.

It was so "disgusting" that he picked up his keys immediately and went straight to the store to get rubber gloves and a bottle of clorox. And then spent 2 hours cleaning only the toilet area of the half bathroom, including behind and under the toilet and IN THE TOILET TANK, including another trip to the home improvement store to get a new toilet seat because he declared the existing one unsalvageable.

Now let's back up a little.

First of all, I promise there was no epidemic of black mold infesting the toilet seat. Which you may have thought there was, based on his reaction to it.

I do my absolute best to keep up with the household cleaning, although I admit I would rather bake you brownies or make pasta from scratch or do ANY cooking before I would like to dust the baseboards. AND I use natural cleaning products that I do think are effective, but let's face it, they're not bleach. (Although I do use clorox's disposable head toilet bowl cleaners...)

But of course the time between bathroom cleanings is probably a tad longer than exactly desirable, even though I definitely clean them before it gets dangerous or completely gross. I promise. But even when I do clean the bathrooms, I don't normally scrub behind the toilet. Do you? I am I a worse housekeeper than I thought??

So I do my best to clean up here and there, including swiffering before all the dog hair on the wood floors makes it look like we have carpet, and wiping down the sinks and toilets and showers on a fairly regular basis. And I keep the kitchen pretty sparkly, although the microwave is another story, and I don't always shake out the toaster crumbs.

But when Mr. A gets a bee in his bonnet about cleaning, you better watch out. The last time he cleaned the kitchen, he took the knobs off the stovetop and cleaned them and behind them. And then with the recent cleaning of the toilet that involved a whole new seat.....

So he has come to the conclusion that we need to hire someone to come clean our house once a week.

*I hang my head in shame*

I can't tell you how ineffective this makes me feel. He says I shouldn't take it personally, but I am feeling this suggestion of his very personally.

I work from home, for pete's sake! Why can't I handle this in an acceptable manner? I mean, why can't I just keep this place spic-and-span with a few minutes of cleaning per day?

He says that that is the point. I do work, full time, from home, and while maybe I keep "up" with the cleaning by doing a little here and there, the house isn't regularly fully and thoroughly cleaned. He says not to worry about it- my time is more valuable working than cleaning anyway, and I shouldn't feel bad about it. His mom had a cleaning service, after all.

But I guess that doesn't make me feel any better. His mom is not a domestic example in any sort of manner- no wonder she didn't want to clean her house! She didn't want to make things from scratch, either!

My mom never had to hire anyone. (Huge caveat, she was a stay at home mom. And she had four kids "who needed to learn how to clean". Haha.)

Mr. A says that if I didn't have a job, and my responsibilities were solely HOME related, maybe it would be different. So I said, well, whenever the baby comes, I will be off for several months, so I will be sort of a stay at home mom then. His response was that I will be caring for a newborn and two dogs, and that he thinks that that will be plenty without having me feel like I need to deep clean the house once a week. He said it is amazing that I do all the cooking that I do and all the laundry, too.

So tomorrow, we are getting an estimate on how much someone would charge to come in once a week. It's a huge blow to my domestic diva ego. But maybe it will be nice to not have to worry about it.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. A also declared that our kitchen trash can was also too dirty for existence. Yes, the trashcan! So now we have a spotless new white one. This baby is going to make our house the cleanest place on the planet!!

9 comments:

Jos said...

LOL - okay, it sounds like you and I clean to the same level with the same frequency, and our husbands have both come to the same conclusion. I say just GO WITH IT. If your hubby wants to hire someone to clean baseboards and fan blades and microwave insides, who are you to say no?! :)

Coco said...

Bwahahaha. That is SO my husband! He's like a whirlwind when he gets to cleaning. It's CRAZY!!! I am a SAHM, but my house is still not exactly sparkling... though it IS clean.... just not always AS clean as he thinks it should be... especially since I've been on bed rest. Oye. Don't feel bad, and yes cleaning with a newborn is a little overwhelming... at least it was for me after a c-section. So I say, TAKE HIM UP ON IT!!! No guilt.

Anonymous said...

I seriously thought I was the only person with this problem. I work from home also but my job is very demanding (daycare provider for 6 littles under the age of 3...) so I don't always get done what I want to get done...
I think the majority of the fights DH and I have are about this... I feel like I'm not doing my job when he comes home from his job and spends an hour cleaning something I didn't even think needed cleaning! He thinks he's being helpful...I find it annoying! :)

the misfit said...

This is really funny. No, I never clean behind the toilet, and I have always figured that somewhere out there are virtuous (probably fully employed) housewives who do. Daily. But I just don't. I thought my DH and I had worked out an understanding that there were some things worth fretting over and some things that we could let slide, and that having an immaculate, sterile house was in the second category. I keep our present rental cleaner than I have ever kept anything (and ten million times cleaner than his bachelor apartment, which was UNSANITARY). Concededly, I'm not the most diligent housekeeper. But our home has never - EVER - had a floor you can't see for the stuff dropped there, or sheets unwashed for months, or dirty dishes spilling out of the sink, or trash spilling onto the floor. And I know for a lot of single folk (including me, in college), that was normal - and none of us died even from that. So in my view, I'm keeping up as well as necessary. But my DH is a little like yours - when he gets on a cleaning kick (annually, maybe?), he takes things apart to clean them. And he regularly suggests that we have someone in to clean the house, too! But I am not as flexible as you - I won't even consider it. I'm not trying to attack anyone else who does, but for me it is not negitiable. Not while my DH schedules our weekend and non-work time overwhelmingly for leisure activities even when I regularly tell him we should spend Saturday morning in and clean. I don't know whether this would change if I were expecting a baby, but I imagine I would become even more difficult :).

Rebecca said...

Lol, that is too funny! I understand how you would take it personally, but it does sound like his way of nesting and preparing for the baby. I think he just wants everything to be perfect, and for neither of you to have to worry about it once she arrives. Try to see it as a blessing in disguise=)

Anonymous said...

I'm going to agree that it would be nice not to worry about . . . don't beat yourself up too much! If my husband wasnt cheap he would do the same thing . . . although HE LOVES cleaning and I let him have it!

grammie09 said...

I say by all means let him hire someone and you can sit back and enjoy any time you have not working. My daughter hired someone and she just loves it.

Anonymous said...

Blue is just like that when it comes to cleaning. I'm the one who keeps up the house on a regular basis but when he gets to something, it's cleaned like it's never been cleaned before. But he's too cheap to ever suggest a cleaning service. LOL. Consider yourself lucky! Seriously though you can't do it all and a cleaning service will go a long way to helping you keep some sanity when the baby is born, not to mention relieving the stress and worrying. And with the meals you cook up, no one will be taking the title of domestic diva from you anytime soon.

Anonymous said...

Trust me, it will be worth it AND you'll love it. Your time is more valuable than cleaning and that will be even more true once your little one is here. I loved cleaning and was sad to admit I finally was ready for help but I'm so glad I did it! They won't ever clean exactly like you would but it's still 1000% worth it.