I hate cleaning!

 

This photo was taken in my first apartment on my honeymoon!

 

I hate cleaning!

I wish I was like Monica, the character in 'Friends' who loves to clean and likes nothing better than spending a weekend cleaning and tidying everything in her place.  I have to admit I am the exact opposite of this. Faced with a house that needs cleaning, a dishwasher that needs emptying, laundry that needs washing, windows that need cleaning and clothes that need putting away, I do the only thing possible - I go out and spend the day shopping.

This cleaning and cleaning aversion is nothing new. It is slightly better than it was when I was first married. Then it was a full-scale phobia and even the prospect of spending a morning vacuuming and tidying would bring on a migraine or make me physically sick.  Where did this all begin? When and how did this start?

When I was a child I remember my mother on her hands and knees scrubbing - floors, walls, windows, rugs, bathrooms and anywhere else she could physically reach and if she couldn't reach, there was always a ladder around.  My mum worked and used to wake up early to clean the kitchen or wash the bathroom before her work day began.  It was my job to help her at weekends and after school.  At weekends I would crawl under my younger brother's bed and get any odd socks or clothes that he had thrown there during the week.  I would take all the clothes to the launderette and sit there and wash the laundry go round and round. Thrilling.  This weekend routine sometimes varied. Sometimes I would put the laundry in the machines and then go home and help wash a floor or vacuum. This was the routine even when I had a friend sleeping over!

I hated doing this. My mother was from a generation of women that believed it was the woman's role to clean, cook and do all the domestic chores - even if you went out to work.  My dad would have his breakfast in the morning and leave his cup  and plate in the sink. Once, when he actually washed his cup and plate she phoned him at work to find out if he was sick, since this was such abnormal behaviour. My brother (three years younger than me) was allowed to sleep in on the weekend while I would clean around him. Thankfully he now pulls his weight in his house.

This lasted until I was in my mid-teens. I was a sarcastic and certainly, difficult kid. One Saturday I had had enough and  I took all the clothes I found under my brother's bed and threw them down the incinerator chute in the block of flats we lived in, where they went straight to the furnace to be burned with the rest of the rubbish.  After a huge blow-up fight I never had to clean up my brother's clothes again.

In the early years of my marriage I found my reaction to cleaning became more and more extreme. Migraines were frequent and panic for sure.  I would clean up only when I had to, when people were coming over, or, and this created super-panic, when my mum was visiting from America.  This involved days of deep-cleaning and in the end it never was clean enough for her. She always found the bit of dust above the door frame, or under the dishwasher that I had missed. What was the point?

In the 1970's when I was doing a lot of work on my emotional self I finally opened up about how tough I found the whole cleaning thing and my friend, Veeresh, and a few other people came to my house and all pitched in and helped clean and clear my house.  That changed a lot. It was no longer a dirty secret and I could sort of clean up without getting sick.

Now I find I just don't want to do it. I do keep the house sort of reasonable. The bathrooms and the kitchen are ok, clean enough - no one gets sick or poisoned, though my husband thinks it's a matter of luck and time. I have all sorts  of dust allergies so I'm in this Catch-22 situation.  If I vacuum I sneeze. If I don't I sneeze. What to do???

I guess I can't put it off any longer. I'm going to clean one room today - or at least start.  Any fantastic tips from those of you who enjoy cleaning? Any short cuts, fun ways to scrub floors? I really would welcome some help.