You know one of the best bits about moving, which is all so much fun anyway? Cleaning the old house. Because not only do you get to reflect upon what filthy people you are, and turns out you are way filthier than even you imagined, but you also get to spend days and days cleaning a house to perfection for someone else. All that cleaning and it is not even for your own enjoyment.
Here are photos of Bill and Cormac cleaning together. I know, fascinating. I thought it very important to capture these moments and then record them forever here on a blog.
This post explains why I am not blogging much, because when I do go on-line Bill makes snide remarks about how he guesses someone just has to check the Internet is still there while everyone else cleans the old house. Fair point.
Lauca actually voluntarily gave up two days of her school holidays to help her father clean and worked her little heart out, too, what a kid.
And the truly special bit is when the property manager from the real estate agency tells you you haven’t cleaned well enough, and will have to scrub the stovetop again if you want your bond back. Seriously.
Or that you made dents in the wall that were listed on the Condition Report when you moved in! Seriously.
(And black marks on the curtains that were sadly not listed despite being present. Ugh)
We paid end of lease cleaners. Best $410 we ever spent (especially as it included steam cleaning the carpets). Once I’m out I never want to step foot back in the place that made me pack.
Our last RE agent complained because there was a small dusty corner in the toilet (Gem was 3wks old so I wasn’t up to much cleaning wise post caesar). I didn’t go to the inspection, if I had I would have pointed out that the unit hadn’t been cleaned post construction before we moved in and that we had cleaned up a lot of the builders left over rubbish, plus the backyard which was entirely weeds when we moved in. But hubby was too polite.
We were recently asked to go back and quote “wipe the dishwasher”. I asked for clarification – inside, outside, huh?? “oh, just the front of the dishwasher”. Hmm. Okay, went back and checked – there was, yes, there was a streak down the front. OF CLEANER RESIDUE. FFS.
So glad we’ve just bought and there are NO MORE INSPECTIONS EVAH!
Erm, that’s from “MsLaurie”… silly wordpress!
Was charged $100 once to remove a bar of soap left in a laundry – as I had already moved 3,000 km away >.<
Best bit of cleaning for me is finding small odds and ends I thought were lost forever: Buttons! Small mechanic bits that look important but have no home! Things I can put in my pocket! Very old Skittles!
I actually kind of have a happy* cleaning story. During my last year of college, I hunkered down in a decrepit old studio without a working stove or heating system. (Seriously, the stove caught fire twice, and I stopped using after that.) I brought these issues up to the management several times during the year that I stayed there, but apparently my concerns fell on illegally deaf ears.
Thankfully, they were booted and new management took over during my last month. I told the new manager my same concerns, and she said, “My god, don’t even bother cleaning; these are going to be gutted and brought up to code anyway. Moving next month, you say? Have double your security deposit. Please don’t sue us.”
Cheapest housing I ever lived in, and man oh man, did I get what I paid for!
*For a strange definition of “happy.”
Oh yeah. And whenever we’ve moved into a new place (three times in the past seven years), I always think, “Oh THIS is how clean we’re going to keep it! Forever! It will ALWAYS be this clean! And clutter-free!”
Then three months later…
(And during our last move, I too spend loads of time on The Internet. I maintained that it was what saved me from melting into a puddle of move-anxiety goo. Or at least that’s what I told everyone else.)
The problem with buying (I found) was that not only did you have to clean the place you left, you have to clean before you can move in as well. At least with rentals (the ones with property managers, at least) you find them in the condition they expect you to leave them in.
Really? Where do you find these rentals? Everywhere I’ve ever moved to needed cleaning.
[...] judge anything too harshly though, we’re only half-way unpacked because we’re still cleaning the previous (fucking) house and also we have a lot of shit here to [...]
Mmm cleaning. I had to clean everything in my new rental – a million dead bugs out of the light fittings, spider city off clothesline, etc. The plus side is that the agent loves me because it’s way cleaner on a normal day than it was then.