You see, we
are those “lower than whale poop” types of folks known to the surrounding
homeowners as “renters.”
I don’t know
why renters are regarded this way. Stij
and I are kind, considerate people and have not received so much as a polite “your
front yard sucks, it is a weed-ridden mess, clean it up or else” note from the
HOA.
Perhaps it is
the former renters of this house who we are paying the social price for. From what I understand, before us, there were
a group of Harley guys who would laugh out loud upon hearing the word, ‘muffler.’ They shouted when they spoke because they had
no hearing left. They worked the graveyard shift, presumably at a home for the
deaf, and would pull out of the driveway just as the entire neighborhood was drifting
off to sleep.
Or maybe it
was the renters before them. People
still talk about the family who never went outside wearing anything but
head-to-toe Ewok costumes…at least
everyone thought they were
costumes. Some people assumed that it
was in protest of the ‘no dogs’ rule, but there is far from majority agreement
on this.
We’ve been
living here for nine years now. Never
missed a rent payment. Quiet, keep to
ourselves. Maybe they think we’re serial
killers. And we did rebuild the house at
our expense after the giant bread mishap and actually added improvements
previously absent, so no harm, no foul there.
At any rate, I
was discussing housecleaning, wasn’t I?
When one
rents, you see, one is subject to a demeaning little visit every so often from the
Property Manager (we have one of those, too, making us overseen by the owner,
the HOA, and the PM. San Quentin is less
surveilled.). They send someone out to do
a walk-through to be sure you have the required safety features, and aren’t
hiding any dogs on the premises.
So I figured I’d
better start cleaning. We are not slobs,
but there is a bit of clutter around, and I really could rake the living room a
bit more often than I do.
Stij entrusted
the cleaning to me, since he had to spend time making a living. He walked into the living room just as I was
finishing up.
“You’ve been
doing this for over an hour and it doesn’t look like you’ve picked up a single
thing,” he remarked.
“I haven’t. I drove to the store and bought this,” I
said, indicating the brand new easel, canvas, tubes of paint and jar of
brushes.
“I see. You’re going to do a painting called ‘Still Life
Among the Ruins’ are you?”
I smiled and
shook my head sadly because he had completely missed the brilliance of my cunning
plan. “I can avoid cleaning this room
entirely! If people think you’re an
artist, they forgive a mess!”
“And exactly
how much did today’s scheming set us back, Lucy. You have some ‘splainin’ to do.”
“$167.00. But look how much time it saved! I can do other things, now.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I bought
some cactus plants to put in the den. It
will make the layer of dust look like part of the décor.”
“You’re going
to have to do some cleaning, you
know.”
“Oh, what
for? I like the house to have a ‘lived-in’
look, don’t you?”
“This one has
a ‘no survivors’ look.”
“You’re very
funny for someone with no teeth.”
“I have teeth.”
“Not for long.”
“I’m going
back to my shop. The inspector is due at 4:00 today. You have six hours. Will
you be ready with a house that will pass?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, and by
the way, I think the refrigerator needs to be defrosted.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t
think there’s supposed to be frost on the outside.”
“Okay.”
“And there is
a bunch of stuff—I say ‘stuff’ because I can’t identify it—that needs to be
thrown out in there.”
“Is it
ripening green or rotting green?”
“Let’s put it
this way: When I say I am going to raid
the refrigerator, I mean that that’s what I intend to spray it with.”
“Fine.”
Stij glances
around the living room, shudders, then goes back to making cabinets.
I went back to
work. I pulled out every souvenir from every
place we’d ever traveled and festooned the bedroom with them. This tells the viewer that we are world
travelers and have little time to clean.
The kitchen
was next. I blowtorched the outside of the refrigerator to
melt the frost, then blowtorched the floor to evaporate all the water. It gave the linoleum a really interesting
look, too.
While sorting
through my pots and pans, I discovered a really filthy roasting pan that I
absolutely couldn’t get clean, so I filled it up with fresh apples that I
bought earlier in the day, and brought it over to my neighbors’ house. Neighbors always return pots and pans sparkling
clean, so that problem was now taken care of, since I wanted to make a roast
later in the week.
I thought
about cleaning all the light fixtures, but then decided to just opt for stronger
bulbs. Much to my delight, I discovered
that it’s possible to buy 5000 watt light bulbs! The fixtures looked great after all the dirt
burned off.
As far as the
bathrooms went, I just bought a huge piece of limburger cheese for each and
closed the doors. One sniff and no
inspector in the world would want to venture in there—especially after I tell
him that Stij has Irritable Bowel Syndrome and has been having bouts of
explosive diarrhea.
So that was
that, and it only took me a couple of hours.
I sat down and watched a movie.
At 4:00, the bell
rang. I dashed to the door and admitted
the inspector, who seemed reticent to enter, but I chalked that up to shyness.
The tour was
completed in record time, and the inspector left, giving us a passing grade.
Stij walked
into a house that didn’t look much different from when he left it. “I hesitate to ask, but did we pass?”
“Certainly.”
“How?”
“Well, he didn’t
buy a lot of my explanations, so I finally told him that he had to keep it a secret, but that this
house had been chosen for next month’s ‘Better Homes & Gardens’ layout on quick
and effective cleaning methods, and they had to take the ‘Before’ pictures
before I could do anything to the house.”
“He bought
that?”
“After I told
him he could be part of the photo shoot, he did. Evidently, his mom is a big fan of that
magazine.
“So what
happens in a month?”
“Oh, I think
we’ll have moved out by then.”
