obsessive compulsive cleaners
I'm watching a TV show titled obsessive compulsive cleaners and have to tell you, I'm gobsmacked!
i spen half the time staring at the screen with my mouth hanging open.
This week the show opened with a scene of a woman vacuuming her dog, another scene of a man vacuuming the blankets on his made bed. Not so bad, I suppose.
But it gets worse. Some of these people clean 7-8 hours a day, one man cleans 50 hours a week as well as running his body builder business.
Last week one of the cleaners showed how she uses at least half a bottle of bleach plus other chemical cleaners in a bucket of hot water to scrub things because they absolutely must be germ free. To meet her standards. The fumes from this didn't affect her one bit.
The purpose of the show is to show these obsessive cleaners another side of life. The obsessives go out to other people's homes to help them clean up. These "other" homes are hoarders, or simply people who don't clean for one reason or another. Hopefully the non-obsessives learn to keep cleaner, tidier. They ask for the help to clean, so this is how they get the help, from an obsessive cleaner.
I'm not gobsmacked by people letting their houses get grubby or over stocked, no, no, I'm gobsmacked by the extent of obsessiveness which has one of the men arranging his curtains so each ring is equal distance from the next. Another quite young man cleans his sink, then folds the dish cloth 'just so' and places it in the exact spot it needs to be, then the sink plug is placed on the cloth, dead centre and the little triangle handle on the plug must be folded down so the point of the triangle is facing the plug hole. "That's how a sink should be arranged", he says.
I know obsessive compulsiveness of any sort is a psychological problem and I don't mean to make fun of anyone here, I'm just a little stunned by the woman who is so afraid of germs she puts an article of clothing in the wash even if she just tried it on, changed her mind and took it straight off again. With the amount of washing on the line from herself and her children, one neighbour asked if she was running a laundry service.
Last week, several obsessive cleaners banded together to help clean a soup kitchen facility, this time they're cleaning a swimming pool and the change rooms etc. The clashes between the cleaners are more pronounced this week, with each having her preferred method and trying to have the helpers do things one way while another comes along and says no, no do it this way-with these products and so on.
I look around at my cat-fluffy floor and think, Meh, I'll vacuum on the weekend. Nothing obsessive about me! Is it possible to be obsessive about procrastinating?
i spen half the time staring at the screen with my mouth hanging open.
This week the show opened with a scene of a woman vacuuming her dog, another scene of a man vacuuming the blankets on his made bed. Not so bad, I suppose.
But it gets worse. Some of these people clean 7-8 hours a day, one man cleans 50 hours a week as well as running his body builder business.
Last week one of the cleaners showed how she uses at least half a bottle of bleach plus other chemical cleaners in a bucket of hot water to scrub things because they absolutely must be germ free. To meet her standards. The fumes from this didn't affect her one bit.
The purpose of the show is to show these obsessive cleaners another side of life. The obsessives go out to other people's homes to help them clean up. These "other" homes are hoarders, or simply people who don't clean for one reason or another. Hopefully the non-obsessives learn to keep cleaner, tidier. They ask for the help to clean, so this is how they get the help, from an obsessive cleaner.
I'm not gobsmacked by people letting their houses get grubby or over stocked, no, no, I'm gobsmacked by the extent of obsessiveness which has one of the men arranging his curtains so each ring is equal distance from the next. Another quite young man cleans his sink, then folds the dish cloth 'just so' and places it in the exact spot it needs to be, then the sink plug is placed on the cloth, dead centre and the little triangle handle on the plug must be folded down so the point of the triangle is facing the plug hole. "That's how a sink should be arranged", he says.
I know obsessive compulsiveness of any sort is a psychological problem and I don't mean to make fun of anyone here, I'm just a little stunned by the woman who is so afraid of germs she puts an article of clothing in the wash even if she just tried it on, changed her mind and took it straight off again. With the amount of washing on the line from herself and her children, one neighbour asked if she was running a laundry service.
Last week, several obsessive cleaners banded together to help clean a soup kitchen facility, this time they're cleaning a swimming pool and the change rooms etc. The clashes between the cleaners are more pronounced this week, with each having her preferred method and trying to have the helpers do things one way while another comes along and says no, no do it this way-with these products and so on.
I look around at my cat-fluffy floor and think, Meh, I'll vacuum on the weekend. Nothing obsessive about me! Is it possible to be obsessive about procrastinating?
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You have to feel sorry for those folks whose lives are so ruled by their obsessions. I will admit to vacuuming our old cat though...he shed like crazy and strangely, loved the attention of being vacuumed (and brushed, and massaged...okay so he was a LITTLE spoiled)..
ReplyDeleteI have seen a similar show - and my eyes started to water thinking about the fumes the cleaner was inhaling.
ReplyDeleteI read about a man who was complaining that he was single because all the women he had met were filthy. None of them did as he did and replaced their mattress every six months and their pillows each month. Add me to his filthy list.
I won't mention that my grandmother used a cloth wrapped around a table knife to clean crevices, like the filigree on her dining room chairs.
ReplyDeleteI think my house at the moment would send them all into a complete breakdown. I've just caught up with 6 weeks washing and I'm right with the carpet, you can't see it for cat fur.
ReplyDeleteDelores; I'm not sorry about the obsessiveness, more sorry that they're missing out on so much more of life when they spend so many hours just cleaning their homes top to bottom inside and out, only to start the whole process again the next day. But...they enjoy it, so perhaps I shouldn't feel sorry.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could vacuum Angel without losing strips of skin from both arms! I'll settle for vacuuming the floors, just not daily.
Elephant's Child; add me too. New mattress every six months??
I get new pillows every few years when they start to smell funny, that's about it.
Joanne; cloth around a knife? too much trouble. I'd use an old toothbrush, like I do on other things that need fiddly cleaning.
JahTeh; after some of the houses I've seen on these types of shows, yours would probably pass inspection without any trouble at all. You clean up regularly, some of these people haven't cleaned in 15 years.
Talking about cat hair, the couch blanket here is looking a bit umm, grey.