Halfway Over the Hill #5 (Filler-How to clean)

I have stalled on the 'Earth & Air' sequel for lack of information so here is just a filler.

How to clean:
The best way to clean is to avoid doing it as much as possible i.e. you must develop a strategy that will bring about a situation of low cleaning necessity, primarily achieved by radically lowering your standards.
I have a different take on Quentin Crisp's famous saying: Dirt only gets dirty after five years*

Now of course that is a bit of an exaggeration. I expect you to clean at least once a year. But we can go one better and aim for a monthly clean.
You could get a cleaning person but as most cleaners will only clean an already clean house, that is not really an option for me.
Don't be alarmed, I have (almost) never achieved Life of Grime (tv doc) levels of insalubrity.
I have my daily shower every other day and I actually take pleasure in hearing the churn of the washing machine on its 15-minute cycle, and hanging out clean laundry on the line is every woman's dream. Plus, I regularly air my armpits and feet and I rarely sweat. And my backside loves a bidet jet.

It's not just sheer indolence, however, that prevents me from enjoying a good scrub and rakeout, I'm also allergic to even minimal dust (rhinitis and asthma), suffer from bending over sinks (scoliosis), have pernicious, burning Reynaud's on hand contact with water, and am generally overcome with rashes and dizziness with your standard cleaning products. Accompany all that by lack of stamina and a prudish aversion to looking at dirt and disorder, squarely in the face.

People that know me might not rate my housekeeping skills highly but I have a trick or two up my non-rolled-up sleeves.
I spent a couple of years as a proud housewife in the rural outskirts of a small Midlands town.
My then partner would be happy to come home in the evening to find everything just as he left it.
It takes two to do really good housework: one to outline objectives and encourage; the other to cheerfully and zealously perform.
However, now as a single woman, with only a cat and dog for company, I have to unite these two forces.
Of course, your average man has more excess vigour to dispel than a woman, and that is why I would obligingly leave food to harden and mould on kitchenware for my ex. He still fondly looks back on those halcyon days.

The following tips are for those who lack vigour i.e. those who are more slattern than scrubber: I was going to include the Scrubber/Slattern Cleaning Equation that I devised in a heat-frazzled hour (brains turning to yoghurt at 35C) but the proof is unintentionally bogus and it also involves an understanding of Lagrange binomials.
FYI, in layman's terms, if you reduce your slovenly ways by only 10%, cleaning necessity is reduced by upto 40%.

Here are only some of my top tips for a sane life/housework balance:

(N.B. There will be more practical details in a serious 'how to live' lifestyle blog and YouTube channel that I will create later.
Having always been kindly told what to do, I feel the middle-age need to kindly tell others what to do and where to go)

• Create an illusion of cleanliness by leaving a mop and bucket outside.

If people think you have cleaned, they will see cleanliness!

The French have sparkling white bathrooms but will go directly from flushing the toilet to preparing food. I've witnessed so many women walk right past the sinks in public toilets. They make me think of Eliza Dolittle, 'you expect me to get (me hands) in there and get ('em) wet all over?!'
I, myself, am a manic hand washer: this stems from upbringing and cross-contamination paranoia.

• Dirt doesn't jump up on you any more than the dogshit on a Paris pavement. Clean floor tiles only when there is visible dirt on every one.

As a rule of thumb, don't make a virtue of thankless tasks.

• Soak, soak, soak to make washing-up easier.

Wipe used plates with kitchen towel (and reuse to ignite that rare fire)
A jug of water on the table is helpful if you're too full to get to the sink.

Air dry washed dishes. It won't kill you to eat from a wet plate. Get rid off that manky tea towel forever.

• The 'little and often' mantra is just silly. Thick layers of dust are easier to move and you suffer less exposure. A mask is essential.

• Sweep once a week. Dust doesn't cling to your shoes and so what if it does.

• Give windows a wipe when it seems like there's a fog outside.

• Pretend cleaning is fun: Sing and dance and have 'the radio on' as Marilyn said*.

• Ignore cobwebs until there are more insects than thread.

• Air regularly. Make sure the clutter in front of the casement window is stuff that will fall to the floor easily on opening.

• Don't make your bed. Just throw a big bedspread over it. It gets a better airing that way.

• Don't use big bin liners (J and F take note). Just a fly and stink trap. Separate organic waste into free, small biodegradable bags that you chuck into your organic bin every few days. Don't wait until they leak slime.

• Let your dog crush plastic and card.

• As for organising, don't even try. Forget that interfering, aseptic Marie Kondo who wants you to live in a hospital; if it's in your house it 'sparks joy'. Leave stuff where you want and where you can see it.

• A French friend's 'one thing in, one thing out' policy is not a bad idea. Get a shed for that purpose.

That was tricky in my shoebox studio in Paris.
---
Anecdote warning:
In the early days of my Paris nightmare, a policeman burst into my bedsit one morning, accusing me of drug trafficking and prostitution.
Having established I was not a Romanian, or worse, a Kazakhstani, from Northern Ireland (my British passport often caused confusion), he proceeded to question me.
Do you receive gentlemen here? he asked with discomfiture, his eyes fixed on my then shapely foot.
'You are the first' I replied coyly, swinging that foot a little.
'Do you throw rubbish out of the window?' he persisted.
It then became clear that Mad Marin, the barking old witch from the floor below, had 'denounced' me, in the true spirit of French treachery.
I wasn’t responsible for the cigarette stubs and smashed wine bottles on the ground below.
He then looked round the room 'Ah, you obviously don't throw anything away', he concluded, visibly shaken.
I handed him some smelling salts...
----

And under no circumstances clean for more than an hour a day. It's detrimental to your health.

If you find yourself in a cleaning fit (in the long term, consider seeing a psychiatrist who specialises in dirt phobia) ... otherwise, take a deep breath, go outside, clinging on to the mop for moral support, if necessary, lie down (yes, on the ground), take in the view, and, slowly, let acceptance in and repeat: Nature has a right to dirt. Peace to the humble bacterium.
S

Sing: All things bright and beautiful
All bacteria great and small
All things wise and wonderful
Ev O lution made them all.

Footnotes:

*Quentin Crisp said, 'Dirt doesn't get any dirtier after five years'

*When Marilyn was stupidly asked if 'she had anything on?' for a rediscovered pre-fame nude calendar. She cooed, 'I had the radio on'.