Cleaning when you are retired

Retirement is a time to relax, to enjoy life and have fun. But houses still get dirty and now you are home full time it is a little pointless paying for a cleaner when you can do the work yourself.

How often do you need to clean? When you were working you probably got your home cleaned once every two weeks, but being at home everyday makes you very aware of the dust and the dirt.

There are two schools of thought as to how often you need to clean. You can put a day aside once a fortnight and go through the property, dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, or you can clean when you feel like it.

I am not a fanatical cleaner but if I get fed up of seeing a dirty sink, I will have to grab the cream cleanser and give the sink a scrub. Before I know it I find I have started on the shower, bath and toilet as well. Dusting a specific area makes me clean more.

Cleaning this way, means one room gets cleaned one day and nothing else is done until I get fed up with the dirt in another area. Cleaning haphazardly lends itself to frustration and annoyance. Setting aside a special day each fortnight does get the whole property cleaned but then as the dust and dirt starts to show the frustration mounts and you find you are cleaning in between the set day.

There is another option. It is breaking down the cleaning, so one morning before you have your shower and get dressed you go around your home and dust everything. Another day you vacuum throughout, if the bathroom looks dirty you spend the morning cleaning just that, and another day you might clean the kitchen.

By breaking down the cleaning jobs you get through the property on a regular basis and don’t have to allocate a specific day to the work. The cleaning might be spread out over two or three weeks, but each area will be cleaned, and because you have done the work early in the morning you always have the rest of the day to complete those other tasks you have on your agenda.

Unfortunately cleaning your home has to be done, but spreading it out can take away the frustration and make the job easier to handle.

Mobile Toilets

In these days of long haul travel, the requirements of unisex toilets with multiple uses are a necessity. Planes, coaches, trains, all have to provide facilities that are suitable for each gender and in most cases change tables for babies.

Because these facilities are part of the larger moving object, the space allocated is generally cramped and causes difficulties when being used. And this would be the main problem when the facility is used by male and female.

Gentlemen aiming at the toilet to urinate quite often find it difficult, even at home to keep their flow within the bounds of the toilet, without the added problem of being in a moving vehicle. Some ladies who are scared of getting germs take to squatting on the toilet to urinate, causing splashes over the seat. In a moving object this can be even worse.

As one can imagine after several hours of use a unisex toilet can be a little unsavoury to walk-in to. I’ve seen air hostesses try and keep toilets reasonably clean, by picking up bits of paper that have been left on the floor and giving the sink surrounds a clean, but until the space is cleaned professionally, these facilities, as one progresses along the journey, are always a little on the nose.

I was reminded of this problem the other week while taking a three hour coach trip. The driver requested everyone to sit when using the toilet. I have always found it hard to even stand in those small spaces as the vehicle lurches and sways, so to request everyone to sit when using the facility seems more than logical. But I wonder how many people take notice of the request.

I am aware that as there are more and more unisex toilets being built around the world in transport interchanges and some have signs in place asking gentlemen to sit. With every large outdoor event, toilets are no longer segregated. The rows and rows of mobile toilets moved in for a special event are for everyone to use, so once again they are unisex. Maybe these cabins should have similar signs.

I am sure like me, you have been into a public toilet that has broken down because of a blockage, or some prior person has made a disgusting mess. Not so bad where there are rows of toilets, but if you are on a traveling vehicle it becomes somewhat more than a nuisance as it limits the number of facilities available.

What is the answer? Trying to teach people they should leave the toilet and surrounding area in the condition it was found. That means picking up the little bit of toilet paper that tore off the roll and landed on the floor. It also means checking that when the toilet was flushed it worked properly. But most of all it means consideration of other people. Trying to keep the unisex toilets in a reasonable condition means when you have to go back to reuse the facility several hours later, you will feel just as comfortable as you did on your first visit.

Dark lines inside shirt pocket

Every now and again when hanging out hubby’s shirts I notice dark lines along the inside of the pocket seams. On further investigation it turns out to be fluff that has compacted along the seams and is showing through the material of the pocket.

Although not noticeable once the shirt is dry, it is very obvious when the garment is wet. So this week as I was hanging out the shirts I decided to do something about it. It did require a little bit of patience, but to remove the fluff itself was easy.

The pockets had to be turned inside out; well at least the seams had to be brought up out through the pocket openings. I was amazed to see how much fluff was squashed flat on either side of the seam; no wonder the line was so visible.

Thankfully I have longish nails so was able to scrape my thumb nail up from the bottom of the seam to loosen and remove the fluff. As there are three sides to a pocket I had to scrape the fluff along all three seams on both side of the join. This procedure only worked because the material was damp. The fluff came out in strings. If I had tried to clean away the fluff when the shirt was dry it would have been much more difficult.

I was naughty and dropped the fluff on the floor, but probably that was a good thing because I was able to see how much had been caught in each pocket, and it was a fair amount. Yes, I swept it up with a dust pan and brush.

In one shirt I did discover a bit more than fluff. It looked like paper and on further investigation I think it might have been a receipt or a bus ticket. The washing had pulverized the paper and very small pieces had been compressed into the seams. The small fragments I was able to remove the same way as the fluff.

Once I had finally removed all the debris and turned the pockets back into place the results were excellent. No longer was there a dark line following the outline of the pocket, but instead a fresh, cleanly washed shirt, hanging on the line.

If someone does leave paper or a tissue in a shirt pocket you will find this method is probably the easiest way to remove it. If you don’t have longish nails, rub the material between your thumb and forefinger to loosen and remove the debris, but remember to do this while the garment is damp.