Superficial clean up??

Grandfather of a COH Joined: Mar 28, 2008 Posts: 13

How many of you as kids remember a quick clean up? This might be due to an impending visit from a social worker or other authority. It might even have been a church member or someone your parent(s) did not want to see the mess.

In the really bad cases, a superficial clean up might have required a bull dozer, but I'm wondering if anyone lived in an apartment or other small place for only a short time.

What did such a "clean up" consist of? Where did the "stuff" go?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:47 am Post subject: Re: Superficial clean up??

papa131 wrote:

What did such a "clean up" consist of? Where did the "stuff" go?

Behind doors- Any place with a door separating it from the rest of the room.
Dishwasher- You can pack a lot of newspapers in a dishwasher!
The oven- If you've got the kind with a large window in the door, no problem, just hang a towel over it.
Under the table cloth- If you layer the papers flat and evenly, you'd never know they're there (says the 10-year old as she eye balls the clock waiting for her father to come home)
Behind the easy chair, under the couch, behind the kitty kornered furniture, slid down the wall behind the piano, stacked along one side of the stairs all the way up to the second floor.

COH Under 18 yrs. Joined: Oct 28, 2007 Posts: 25

Ahhh yes this old trick! I had a piano teacher who used to come weekly and of course my mother could never keep the hall tidy from week to week and so with an hour to go and his impending arrival my mum would stash the stuff in the hall anywhere it would go - ordering me to take stuff places. Of course now a few years on my house is in the state that even a superficical clean up isn't viable...its simply too messy.
I'm kinda glad though because those clean ups were stressful week in, week out.
I also had a french and australian exchange student come to stay with us. Rather than getting rid of anything my mother simple jam packed certain rooms even more and just kept the doors shut. I'm sure my visitors must have been aware that there was something weird about them only being allowed in around 3 of the many rooms in my house (we have a very large house but unfortunatly it has been reduced to the size of a small kitchenette flat worth of livable space). Off topic,..but i almost think its worse having a bigger house,..just more storage room for my mum and more stuff to deal with! Of course even though our house is large,..its not enough room for my mum, she also has umpteen storage units filled with useless garbage also.