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Who would think that water would leave burn marks.

I guess I have a standard electric stove...who knows. I'll do some checking around when it's time for our lease to be up....though I did mark down that the stove wasn't clean. Maybe I can pass that off as being there when I first moved in!

Well, the water's got some dissolved stuff from the food in it, and that burns.

My memory is that the metal thingies cost a couple of bucks apiece. It was worth it to avoid having the landlord claim we'd done $100 worth of damage to the stove.

What to do about really, really HARD water stains (major calcium deposit)????.. (in the back of the toilet where most likely at some point the water has run) ....
Note:it should be a European product or a simple solution that I can make...to use an American product wouldn't be cost effective
Okay, I've got my kitchen nice and tidy... shiny sinks and all...
... whoops.. (now what to do about the rest of the house...)

I can really understand Dave LF's thinking too. Developing something into a habit goes against my grain. But it is that, or suffer with the aggravation of a dirty house. My baby steps have to be taken one room at a time though. There are 12 rooms in this big old house- 2 of which are not even useable (due to clutter and lack of insulation), 6 living or utility spaces which are used on a (more or less) regular basis-
...ssssooooo, I have to prioritize with the 6 and habitual cleaning of them. The others will have to be 'major day clean like a maniac' jobs I'm afraid.

I´ve roamed around the FlyLadies page a bit.

Guess what?

I've done this "check the house before bedtime" thing for years.
Well, at least until my son was born.

Since then I'm neglecting this task because when he finally gets to sleep at around 9.30 pm I'm too tired to do that. That's why the heaps of chaos started.

At the moment I force myself to do it with the little one around, while my husband tugs our daughter in. It's tiresome, but I get things done. It's getting better.

And the piles aren't pulling down my mind anymore.

Frelga, what's the "Swish and swipe" technique for the loo?

Areanor, I hope I'm anwering the right question. I'm a bit too sleep deprived to be logical or comprehend subtle jokes. Anyway, copied from my post on the last page:

Quote:

I put a bit of Simple Green into the toilet brush stand, behind the toilet, and do a quick swipe when I first use the bathroom in the morning. I am not trying to be thorough because I will probably miss different spots each day.

Same thing for the sink - I keep a scrubbing sponge under the sink and after I brush my teeth I just swipe the sink. As an added bonus, I wipe it dry with a used towell, which gives me a wet end of the towell to wipe toothpaste splatters off the mirror and a dry end of the towell to dry and shine the mirror. A nice clean mirror does wonders for the bathroom appearance. The towell goes into the wash.

I should admit that while I've made the swish a habit, the swipe is not getting done every morning yet. I guess that's a habit for this month. May habit is wearing your shoes, and I'm already doing that.

Did that help? Or did I miss the point completely?

it helped, though I don't know what Simple Green is.

I tried to invent the swipe thing for the bathroom sink years ago.
I even hang up an extra small towel to wipe the toothpaste stains away.
The sad thing is... it only works when I'm the last person using the bathroom. I can't get my hubby to do this task.

(LOL, I just realised that I was FLYing for years already....
Boah, I'm SUCH a BO.... )

I may have been exaggerating a bit (;)), but I funamentally stand by what I said. There may also be some sort of gender divide here. I've heard lots of men complain that being interrupted to do a task is far worse than the task itself due to the mental work involved in switching modes and then back again, but I've never met a woman who even understands this, let alone seconds it. Anyone care to be the first?

I focus pretty hard on things, Dave, so I should be able to understand—but if someone I like or love <cough> comes along with a job they see as important, I tend to see it as important, too. So the interruption issue doesn't crop up; I just handle it.

I think the difference lies, not in some female inability to comprehend concentration, but in some male inability to adjust one's priorities because one's loved one wishes it. Hem.

Oh no! Is this the beginning of a gender war? I hope not, because I'm not in the fighting mood tonight and I'd hate for men everywhere to suffer because I wasn't up to the task of defending them. Anyway; it is well known that men's and women's brains are different. One of the ways in which they differ is that women are more capable of processing several things simultaneously. I humbly submit that men therefore have higher "psychic inertia", and that it's more difficult for us focus on multiple things at once or in quick succession. This is why he doesn't hear you when you ask him questions while he's reading the newspaper. It's not because he doesn't love you. Understand that it's very difficult for us to process the question "how was your day?" when we're in the middle of trying to decide whether we're actually willing to believe what Bush is saying this time, or whether the most recent African genocide is worse than the last one. In return, I will try to respect the fact that, for some strange reason, she actually cares whether there are spots on the mirror and wrinkles in the sheets, even though Bush is starting wars and there are genocides in Africa. Thank you.

crystal_seed wrote:

What to do about really, really HARD water stains (major calcium deposit)????.. (in the back of the toilet where most likely at some point the water has run) ....

Crys, I live in a very hard water area and always use toilet duck with anti-limescale when I clean the loo: http://www.scjohnson.co.uk/products/brand.asp?idb=9 There must be something similar in Switzerland? Sadly, Limelight and other things to disolve limescale are a regular weekly cleaning chore too.

I can't find the time to do this whole swishing and swiping malarky though. That has to be designed for people who don't dash off at 6:30am to commute 30 miles to work!


Anyway.. I feel most virtuous this morning. This weekend we finally finished the clean out of the cupboards. Every warderobe, drawer, chest, cupboard and under-the-bed has been thoroughly tidied!!!! Plus the flat is sparkling clean, tidy and all the ironing and laundry is done. :cheers

Quote:

Dave_LF wrote:-
Oh no! Is this the beginning of a gender war?

...gets a fleeting impression of Dave, dressed in a bathrobe, t-shirt and sweats* standing on a Isengard-like balcony, and with a booming voice- raises a bottle of beer shouting.. ‘To WAR!!!’… with the deafening roar coming up from thousands upon thousands of unkempt, unshaved men below….


Ah Dave… when will you fellas learn… the small things, the small things you can do something about- the worlds you can conquer that will lead to adoring appreciation of those around you .... are the things that truly count. Spots can be whished away- beds can be smoothed out and made to look presentable. These things are tangible. Are you in a position to debate the President into stopping the war or can you stop the genocide in Africa (at the moment you are only looking at a recycled tree with black print…).
Be BOLD MAN!!! Tread where every man FEARS to tread... take the bull by the horns and set that paper down.. look your S.O. in the eye and say - 'Fine dear!' - Or even tell her about the concerns of the world that are preoccupying you at the moment. If you don't care to go into that... Do something else, even MORE daring and unpredictable- ask 'And how was YOUR day?- and then LISTEN, intently, NOT to come to the rescue or answer, but to share in the world that concerns your SO. She will appreciate it, you might learn something from it.... make it a goal. It can't be as difficult as answering all the problems in the world now, can it??

(ah... but now we have gotten off the topic, haven't we..... )

Leoba- Thanks, yes we have WC ENTE (Toilet Duck )- which I use- and I have a lime-away type product- but I think I need industrial strength. This deposit almost looks as if someone threw calking or plastering material rest into the toilet (or rather like the calcium drippings from stalagmites )






*Dave.. sorry for the horribly obviously stereotypical depiction of masculinity... not knowing you , no offense was meant by it personally... it was just the ironic humour that hit me...

In real life, crystal, I do do all of those things at least once in a while and I probably wouldn't care about the spots on the mirror even if there were no more wars and everyone in the world agreed to cooperate for the common good. People very rarely change their personalities after their teenage years. I'll never be big on making beds no matter how much my wife bugs me about it in the years to come, and I'll probably never convince her that it doesn't matter. Such is life. But the two of us obviously see some value in hanging around together to have kept it up as long as we have, and I'm willing to accept that we each have good reasons for behaving the way we do. I suppose we probably average out to a happy medium, but in order to keep that average from slipping too far toward the neat-freak end of the spectrum, I have to continue behaving like a slob!

The only time I ever make my bed is when I need to move stuff from my desk onto it so I have some room.



That's in the dorm, though, because at home I still don't have a bed. But it will be as it was- a couch that rolls out. Making that is a bloody nuisance, so I defied the whole concept by leaving it open for weeks...sometimes I would close it just to change the environment, lol.

About accumulating things. I used to be a terrible pack rat, but I'm getting better. You know what cured me? Living in a dorm. Because every summer, one has to pack up all of their stuff and put it in storage until the next term starts, when one has to claim the boxes back and unpack into a new room.

Aiiii....

So once I opened up my boxes again when second year began, I found such a bunch of junk and papers and stuff that didn't fit in anywhere that I began throwing things out without regret. Well, almost. In general I try to keep my dorm stuff to the bare minimum.

Which still means I have ten times as much stuff as the boys do. I don't know what it is, but when you come into a girl's dorm room, it looks like a home. But when you visit the boys, it looks like a one-night-stand. Two cardboard boxes, half a computer, tidbits on the table, a toaster.

And me with all my books and posters and paints and...

Strange.

Back to pack rat habits, however- while I don't collect junk at the dorm anymore, I still have a fair load of it at home. But it's diminishing. I think there is just a period of time in which treasures devaluate.

Recently we had a furniture shuffle with my mother, and I had to empty a chest that was in my room. The stuff that was in there, mostly paper, I remember collecting, and feeling that I absolutely must keep every scrap of it. Now after not having looked into that chest for three or four years, I just dumped things out without thinking twice. It didn't hurt at all.


(too bad that I must have accidentally thrown out my Moot Book among the papers. THAT hurt. It seems like the impossible thing for me to have done, but I haven't been able to locate it for months now and I've given up... Oh, well. Life is cruel.)

Leoba wrote:

I can't find the time to do this whole swishing and swiping malarky though. That has to be designed for people who don't dash off at 6:30am to commute 30 miles to work!

I agree with you. I don't have that kind of time in the morning. I try to make the bed and clean up the bathroom sink (basically because it has chunks of Herbalism in it ) and that's really all I have time for. I would think giving the loo a clean every few days would be enough though. LOL about the word malarky! It gave me a good laugh as it's something you don't hear all the time.

Congrats on the spotless flat!

Areanor, Simple Green is just an all purpose cleaning solution I believe. I'd say use whatever you have in Germany.

Dave wrote:

I'll never be big on making beds no matter how much my wife bugs me about it in the years to come, and I'll probably never convince her that it doesn't matter.

Nope, you won't be able to convince her. She may nag you enough to convince you it's worth making the bed though! Seriously though, you may have to try to change your habits some if she's the type of woman who believes in sharing the household duties. If she feels she's doing all the work, she's going to be very unhappy which in turn will make you unhappy as well. Our habits do have to change when we live with another person.

Ro, that's awful about your Moot book.

I'll start a new one.

Eruname wrote:

Leoba wrote:

I can't find the time to do this whole swishing and swiping malarky though. That has to be designed for people who don't dash off at 6:30am to commute 30 miles to work!

I agree with you. I don't have that kind of time in the morning.

90 seconds, including loo, sink and mirror. I timed it. And I tend to move slowly.

But if mornings don't work, there's nothing wrong with doing it last thing before you go to bed or first time you use bathroom when you get home.

Quote:

I would think giving the loo a clean every few days would be enough though.

I found that I have to swish pretty much every day. If I do it every few day, I have to clean it and that takes longer. Of course, I have two males in the house, so your mileage may vary. The key is that the swish is really quick and careless, and I don't have to stop to get the cleaner because it's already in the brush stand and hopefully on the brush.

Dave, I'm sure your wife-to-be sees many fine qualities in you, and I'm sure you will find a happy balance in housekeeping and everything else. I suspect you will find it even faster if you bookmark the FlyLady page now.

Areanor, I envy you for being a BO.

EDIT: LOL at Rodia's donut sig.

Frelga wrote:

Areanor, I envy you for being a BO.

Being a BO living with three CHAOTs and a shedding dog isn't a thing worth being envied for.
*sigh*

Can't use the swish and swipe technique, because I have to hide the toilet brush. My son likes to take it and examine it very closely. And yes, he's still in that age when he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. *sigh*
And that includes all cleaning devices that can be in his reach - resulting that I had to put all things away - for he would climb everything to get a cleaning sponge or anything else.

I just hope that he'll grow out of that soon enough. And that he can be left alone for more than two minutes in his play-pen-jail without making such a noise the whole street will hear.

OH, and I must second Eru and Leoba here. The FLYing advice seems to be made for women who spend a lot more time at home than I do. Come on, morning routine between 8 and 9 AM???? That's the time when I already got rid of the kids and should be at my desk at work....... I did 15 minutes cleaning the front porch on monday. Couldn't spare 15 minutes neither yesterday nor today.......

I guess if you've got messy little boys running around then cleaning the loo daily would be an ideal, but when there's just two of you and you're both out for 12 hours of the day it's excessive IMO! Although I will give the bathroom a once-over swish tonight (despite having only cleaned on Monday) - because we have guests coming for the weekend and because I won't have any more time this side of Monday 16th. :P

Frelga, that 90 seconds (out of the 30 minutes from getting up to running out of the flat) is the difference between my grabbing a hot chocolate before I dash out of the door or not. :D

Don't get me wrong, on a morning when I'm going into work late, it's really relaxing to pootle round with the hoover, wash any mugs or glasses that accumulated from post-dishes the night before and open the windows to air the place through.

Eruname wrote:

LOL about the word malarky! It gave me a good laugh as it's something.

One tries. I have many other linguistic oddments up my sleeve. I think it's a worthy duty to keep them in active service.

Areanor wrote:

OH, and I must second Eru and Leoba here. The FLYing advice seems to be made for women who spend a lot more time at home than I do. Come on, morning routine between 8 and 9 AM???? That's the time when I already got rid of the kids and should be at my desk at work.......

It's precisely that time here and I've been at my desk for three-quarters of an hour already... working... yes... working.

90 seconds per day..

makes 10,5 minutes a week.


I've got two toilets and one pissoir (urinal? - whatever) to clean.
I do it in 15 minutes - mind you, just the toilets, not the whole room - including going up the stairs.
doing it twice a week makes 30 minutes per week.

Doing it Frelga's way makes 31,5 minutes per week.


Besides, every third day, when I did it, I've got a great feeling of having something achieved.


Oh and the boy is not messy yet - wearing Pampers

And since I'm the only one in the house who knows how to use a toilet brush.... I tried to teach it to my hubby, but he's not a good learner....

Areanor wrote:

Doing it Frelga's way makes 31,5 minutes per week.

[...]

Besides, every third day, when I did it, I've got a great feeling of having something achieved.

90 seconds is toilet, sink and mirror, including getting DH's shaving things off the sink and onto the shelf where they belong.

Toilet alone is under 10 seconds, making it 80 seconds per week: 10 * 5 weekdays (I skip Saturdays) + 30 (1 minute every other Sunday to give it a spray and scrub)

Edit: or 4 minutes/week if I had three toilets. Then again, if I did have three of them, maybe each of them would stay cleaner longer.

The satisfaction of never having a dirty toilet to scrub - priceless.

Seriously, I got so used to it looking nice and shiny, that if I do skip a day (like today ) I don't feel right until I do it. Same thing with the kitchen sink.

Quote:

And since I'm the only one in the house who knows how to use a toilet brush.... I tried to teach it to my hubby, but he's not a good learner....

Same here. DH gets to scrub the outside every month or so, which does get... not shiny. But that's the sort of a job men seem to like - dangerous, dirty, with a clear sense of purpose and accomplishment.