Spring cleaning
I was in a panic recently when the realtors came to visit.
After all, you never really know who will find your house all
that attractive, especially after you’ve been living in it for 25
years.
I’m not getting ready to sell my house just yet, but I will be
putting it on the market later this year. So a real estate broker
of my acquaintance asked if he and his associate could have a look
at the house to give me a ballpark figure of what it might go
for.
That sounded fine to me, until two days before they were to
arrive, when I realized that the house was a mess, contained mounds
of clutter, and spiders had taken up residence in just about every
corner.
Spring cleaning
I was in a panic recently when the realtors came to visit.
After all, you never really know who will find your house all that attractive, especially after you’ve been living in it for 25 years.
I’m not getting ready to sell my house just yet, but I will be putting it on the market later this year. So a real estate broker of my acquaintance asked if he and his associate could have a look at the house to give me a ballpark figure of what it might go for.
That sounded fine to me, until two days before they were to arrive, when I realized that the house was a mess, contained mounds of clutter, and spiders had taken up residence in just about every corner.
So I did what I had to do, much as I dislike doing it. I cleaned.
Cleaning has never come naturally to me. I can always think of something better to be doing than polishing, scrubbing, mopping or scouring. Some people like to do it, and even find it soothing or meditative. Not me. It’s just a chore.
Plus, I tend to overlook important things, like how dirty the house really is. I will be caught up in deadlines and the flotsam and jetsam of the house won’t even register with me. Unless I really step back and concentrate on the house, I don’t see the mess.
Clutter could pile up around my ankles and I wouldn’t pay any attention, especially if I’m in the midst of writing.
Even when I was a kid, my mother was forever making me go back and clean things a second time because I didn’t do it right the first time. I still have a hard time getting it right.
So there I was, trying to figure out what was most important to get done before the realtors arrived. Dust? Well, in the most obvious places. Vacuum? Certainly.Mop the floor? Of course.
But then there were the mountains of laundry (clean but not folded), various and sundry papers, books and stuff that figured in to future articles I needed to work on, weeds in the yard (naturally) and some sadly neglected windows.
And because it’s an extraordinarily busy month (tons of freelance work, son graduating from high school, etc.), cleaning is not exactly at the top of my priority list.
And yet I had to, and so I did.
I knew I had to present the house in a relatively good light. I’d already warned them that my carpets were not in good shape, but I felt obligated to scrub down everything else. There was also the little matter of hiding the unfolded laundry – and that’s what closets are for.
My 17-year-old even cleaned his room for the occasion, mostly because I told him he had to. Of course, his version of cleaning is even sketchier than mine, and involves shoving things under the bed. But no matter. It did look better when he was done.
I did the last few things just before the realtors got there … the vacuuming (always best left to the last moment, seeing as the cats are shedding buckets of hair), washing the dishes, and wiping down the refrigerator.
They came into the house with smiles.
“You have a beautiful home,” said the woman realtor, and she seemed sincere. She also noted that the carpet wasn’t as bad as I’d described it.
They strolled around, asked some questions, and tried to look in the closets. I told them it wasn’t a good idea.
Even so, they liked the house. And that made me feel a bit better.
Cleanliness may be next to godliness, and if that’s the case, then my home had a holy glow at that point. At least for a brief period in time … before the dust settled.
