Clean House, Boring Woman, or How to Survive the Material Plane

Because my mother’s minutes were sucked into the roar of the vacuum cleaner, Because she waltzed with the washer-dryer, and tore her hair waiting for repairmen, I send out my laundry and live in a dusty house, Though really I like clean houses as well as anyone.

Woman Enough – Erica Jong

'Feng Shui - It's not you, it's your furniture!' - Unknown Person on Pinterest

In ‘Love at First Bite’ George Hamilton (as Dracula) winds up in New York, where he has sex with Susan Saint James in her disgusting apartment.  ‘Can I get you anything?’ she says.  ‘A broom, perhaps?’ he replies.  I have no idea where, or with whom, I saw this movie, but I do remember shouting with laughter at this one line. 

It was 1979, and I was happier than I’d been in nearly two years.  I’d just moved into a beautiful bedsit, clean, tidy and well-appointed, a mile down from Golders Green on the Finchley Road.  I took pride in showing it off; stylishly furnished, with a modern kitchenette and new carpets, convenient for shopping, and within striking distance of Hampstead Heath.  I was saving for my own place at the time, but anywhere I could afford paled in comparison.  Not to mention being outbid everywhere I went.  Nevertheless, it was a turning point for me, in that I made the connection between my mood, and the standard of my housekeeping.

15 years ago, I read ‘How to Run Your Home Without Help’ - one of Persephone Books 'oddities' that I picked up second hand for a few dollars on line.  Initially published in 1949, it is both entertaining and sad.  Sad because I was raised by a mother who might've owned an original copy of this book; who washed on Monday, ironed on Tuesday, scrubbed the steps, swept the grates, darned and mended in front of the television at night, and who even kept up with her paintwork, routinely wiping off fingerprints and dusting skirting boards.

Unfortunately, I inherited her attention to detail.  As a younger woman I also struggled with wringer washing machines, ironed everything I wore, polished my shoes, and in my first Swinging London flat, carried coal and swept a fire grate during the colder months. 

But I had a life, and somewhere in the mid-70s decided, along with Erica Jong, to stop wasting it on housework.  By 1977, I was living with the end results of that, in a real version of Susan Saint James’ disgusting apartment, with an equally slatternly flat mate, who was once asked if her room had been ransacked by burglars.  I was also being treated for chronic depression and, as an off-shoot of that, quit a boring job and upgraded to the bedsit.  Of course, my issues went well beyond my physical environment, but I swear my spirits lifted immediately. 

Inevitably, I was priced out of London and, because I was still renting, had to make do with the terrible furniture included with that.  But I’d started collecting my own bits and pieces by then, unpacking my books and posters as a priority, and buying nice bedding and decent tableware.  Plus, I forced myself to do housework, the only choice I allowed being whether to clean Friday night or Saturday morning. 

From there I went to university, supplementing my income (ironically) as a chambermaid.  I worked in 5-Star hotels, servicing rooms from a checklist: everything from removing hair in the sink drain to stationery placed just-so on the desk.   My favorite part was vacuuming my way out, then standing in the doorway admiring my efforts.  My least favorite part were the guests who came after I left, and ruined it.  And, to this day I have a huge thing about matching hangers, facing in the same direction.

If that wasn’t bad enough, my new husband and I moved to Germany with his job.  In the beginning, I was completely overwhelmed by the country’s unique combination of rudeness and conformity.  They push ahead, jumping queues unapologetically, and my first words of German were ‘Excuse me, but I was here first!’  And yet they are sticklers for order and efficiency, as evidenced by all the blogs devoted to German women and their perfect homes.

Credit where credit’s due however, their homes are lovely.  They have different crockery for breakfast and dinner, they weed the cracks in their sidewalks, and the blinds are all pulled to the same length.  They have ’quiet hours’ between 10 pm and 7 am and, if you live in an apartment, you can't vacuum or use the washing machine at night.  Sunday is also off limits: no shopping, and no outside chores, including washing your car or mowing your lawn. There are even laws on pets.  If you own a dog you have to spend a minimum of two hours walking and socializing with it each day.  Good!  However, the dog is not allowed to bark during quiet time.  Bad! 

But I got used to it and, if I’m honest, largely approved.  Along with the hangers, I have a huge thing about noise.  I can be woken by people clinking wine glasses, and then lie there fretting till dawn.  And, any law that protects dogs is fine with me.

Nevertheless, it did occur to me that Germans were not naturally tidy. That it was – rather - a part of their social contract, rigidly enforced by the sort of public shaming that motivated women of previous generations.  A leftover of the whole kinder, kirche, küche ethos, so popular with the Nazis.  Come to find out that most of the stay-at-home women in our village were not following tradition, but were on a combination of maternity and parental leave allowances under Germany’s liberal family laws.  The theory is that if you pour money into babies, you save on detox and prison later. 

Under the EU and NATO, I also qualified for these benefits and for our last two years in country threw myself into nest-building.  I was making a home for our child; light and beautiful, warm and welcoming.  It was the happiest time of my life, and I figured the least I could do was keep the apartment spic and span.

Or perhaps it was genetic?  In one of the last photos I have of my Mum, she is perfectly groomed, and spot checking her tiled floor with a dust pan and brush.  In the evening, while Dad and us kids sat in front of the TV, she pottered in the kitchen, ‘fussing’, as he called it.  And yet she was generally very resourceful.  Despite my father being a skilled artisan, she did the lion’s share of the DIY: painting, papering, resoling boots and shoes, laying wall to wall carpets, and reupholstering the lounge furniture.  In a back and forth with my friend Kathy, we compared our Monty Python ‘shoebox-in-gutter’ childhoods, right down to the reupholstering of the furniture.  ‘Ah,’ Kathy said, ‘but did she make you an outfit out of the discarded upholstery?’

If it is genetic, it skipped my son.  As proof, I would ask you to scroll up to the top of this blog to the photo I posted.  That was his bedroom.  He lived in there for most of his teenage years, repelling all boarders, and telling me I was a nutcase for worrying about it.  I learned to just close the door and forget it was there. 

On the opposite side of the house my husband had turned his ‘working garage’ into a knee-deep mess, which funnily enough was my fault, because I wouldn’t let him have a shed for the overflow. He picks up stuff from the side of the road, which he plans to fix and re-sell, but never gets around to: lawnmowers, bikes, snow blowers, piles of timber from a neighbor’s renovation, a 6-foot skeleton from Halloween, chicken wire to build a coop, barrels to brew beer.  15 years ago, we drove 300 miles, in a borrowed truck, to buy a used Mustang hood for a car he was restoring.  The car is long gone, but we still have the hood. There was even a car engine that sat on a tarp in our spare bedroom in Germany for 18 months.  Adding to my misery, our attic was, until recently, filled with boxes of Rolling Stone magazines, Beanie Babies, and Happy Meal toys, all of which he insisted would be valuable one day. 

In the end, I was bullied into the shed – a lovely thing with a pagoda roof, put together by an equally lovely biker guy, who rejected my offers of tea and cookies and left without a backwards glance.  Anyway, I don’t need to tell you that the shed was an expensive mistake, and now looks exactly like the garage. I’ve also learned to live with that.  Once a year we do a massive clear-out of both spaces, but it always reappears in different form. 

The rest of the house remains light and pleasant.  My son says it has ‘old lady’ stamped all over it and, when challenged, waves at a couple of girly cushions and a fake Turkish rug in the lounge.  The furniture is 90's IKEA, has zero frills and straight legs, and is quite masculine; the sofas are old, but very comfortable.  But I take his point, because we used to laugh behind our mother’s back about her awful taste.  She tried to teach my sister and I to French polish her dining table, which she thought we’d be fighting over when she died.  Of course no one wanted any of it, and I fully expect my treasures to wind up on the curb as well.  I mean, who wants ‘antique’ IKEA?

To that end, I’ve been Swedish Death Cleaning.  I started during Covid, spackling and painting, then emptying every closet and drawer for inspection.  The filing cabinet alone took 4 days, and the whole process over a year, but I pared ruthlessly and what’s left has been reduced by two-thirds.  I got our legal paperwork in order, and all photos onto a USB stick. Last summer we had a handyman in to bring the place up to code.  He came and went between other jobs, rewiring and replumbing and, inspired by the updates, we also got the attic cleared.

It's still an old person’s house, but at least it’s now a minimalist old person’s house: grey walls, white trim, wood floors, with some crappy IKEA furniture, and a few floral cushions.  But, like my parents’ home, clean and tidy and easy to empty when the time comes.