I have this friend Bob. You might remember that his wife died of a massive stroke a few years ago at the age of 47 leaving him with a girl and 2 boys.
His daughter made it through nursing school and is living with her boyfriend and getting married this weekend.
Bob and the 2 should be adult boys still live in the house. Can you imagine?
A couple of weeks ago, Bob had his upper teeth pulled to prepare for dentures. His daughter asked if I could go over and keep an eye on him until the boys got home. While he was resting, I started washing the furniture. It was so bad, pledge wasn’t going to cut it. I removed years of cobwebs and dust and gunk from the ceiling fans and vents. I got the family room, living room and kitchen fairly clean.
I know that environment affects behavior, but I wasn’t sure it was going to work in this case. The house was disgusting even when their mom was alive. Their behavior is pretty entrenched. Or so I thought. We’ll have to see what happens in time.
So what happened?
The rooms that I did were still pretty decent. There were no parties at the house last weekend. Hmmm. Could it be true that the environment really does affect behavior?
Bob’s daughter is getting married this weekend. There will be family in town. While they won’t be staying at his house, they may stop by. Something drastic needed to be done.
Its been 2 weeks since I did the first clean up. I did the family room, living room, and kitchen then. I did not wash floors, and I avoided the bathroom like the plague.
I spent over 2 hours on his bathroom. Had to do it. Seriously, the toilet was the easiest thing in the room. Maybe I should have just used toilet cleaner on the whole room! The whole room really needs to be gutted.
There was mold on the ceiling. I kid you not. I treated it with Clorox Clean up and just let it work, and it did most of the job. It looks a lot better than it did. But the tub…The caulk around the tub is totally molded. I’ve treated it, but so far it has barely put a dent in it. The caulk needs to be replaced, but we also need to make sure we get all the mold before he re-caulks, and that isn’t going to happen this week.
As hard as I tried, the tub went from black to gray. The bottom of the tub is totally rusted from the mat being left down all the time over many, many years. They will just have to pull the curtain. The surround looks decent.
At least you can go to the bathroom without feeling like you’ll contract a disease.
They are thrilled. So I guess it depends on your standards.
So the next day, I did the floors and baseboards. That took a while. Then I did a once over on the rooms I did a couple of weeks ago. They went a lot faster. Like I always tell you, when you get your housecleaning under control – it is so much easier.
Then I ventured into his room. You have never seen so much dust in your life! I washed down all of his furniture and vacuumed. I don’t know how he could breath in there! i was so mad I said, “I don’t want to hear how the boys don’t keep their rooms clean when yours is disgusting!”
For them, the house looks pretty good. Its not up to my standards yet, but I’ve done the best I could in the time I had.
Now I know there is no way on this earth that they would get the initial clean done. Just wasn’t going to happen. But I can show them how to maintain it and get them on the Clean Freak Schedule.
Bob and one of the boys were interested in what I was doing, so there is hope. The first step in reaching any goal is having the desire, right? making the decision that you’re not going to live that way anymore.
Now I can’t come to your house and do it for you, but I can show you how to do it>>>
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