Confessions of a Recovering Neatnik, con't

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but Shame is the ugly step-sister that kicked my ass to get the house clean. Er. CleanER.

Because I was finally able to admit that I am not able to keep up with the mess any longer, I called a couple of cleaning services to get an estimate. They gave me an estimate over the phone, and one of them wanted to come to the house to get a look-see before giving me a firm price.

When we lived in Virginia, I used to clean the house before the housekeeping service arrived. Every time, Thomas would forbid me to do it and every time I would ignore him. Of course, it always started out as just moving the clutter so they could get to the surfaces. Then I'd see that the cat had spit up on the floor or that there was a small spot on the counter. Which was inevitably followed by the dust making itself visible and the stairs needing a little touch up.

But with two kids, it's a little more difficult to get any of that done. So when Jim arrived for the inspection, the breakfast dishes were still in the sink. The dishwasher was open and only half-emptied. The dog-sofa cushions were still pushed up from where Argus burrows under at night. And Hannah can take a perfectly spotless house and in only 20 minutes make it look as if there were 10 toddlers having a smack down that spilled over from the playroom.

After a quick tour of the house and a pop-quiz on the cleaning products I use for certain areas (I got a C!), I thought I heard the faint cha-ching! of a cash register and I looked deep into Jim's eyes and saw dollar signs. After giving me a price for the first two visits, he asked--again--if I only wanted twice a month. I said "I know it's pretty bad, but really, it's not usually THIS bad!" His eyes slid away as he assured me that he had seen worse.

A sane person's response might have been to hire him on the spot. After all, he was going to send a team of four to tackle the first two cleanings and then two people every time after that. And it would only take 2-3 hours. Well, actually, maybe it would be safer to say 3-4 hours. My response? I've spent the last three nights going room to room, dusting, vacuuming, sweeping and mopping, rearranging furniture and decluttering. Because if someone is going to be coming to my house twice a month for the foreseeable future, it's going to be clean, dammit!