My routine, back when I still cleaned the house myself, felt like a cross between the Olympics and a medieval punishment. To get myself in the right mindset, I'd put on Vangelis' Chariots of Fire, which turned the drive to the property into some kind of triumphant entrance into a stadium. The only difference was that instead of glory, a shower full of limescale and mystery stains was waiting for me.
Still, despite all that athlete-level organization, I never let a checklist become more important than my actual life.
If a date with a cute guy got in the way of a perfectly clean oven, I wouldn't think twice: I'd choose to curl up somewhere with him instead. Back when life was still sex, Airbnb, and rock 'n' roll.
I approached cleaning day the same way people approach a prison sentence. I'd pull up outside the property with about as much peace of mind as someone opening a letter from the tax office. Cortisol pumping through my veins, I'd pray to every saint available that the guests hadn't left the place looking like Leningrad after the siege and that I wouldn't need a hazmat suit just to walk through the front door.
Once they finally checked out - off to their lives while I returned to mine - the first thing I'd do was throw open every window in the house.
Had I just hosted a family from Kerala and were the lingering aromas of onions, coriander, and curry now permanently embedded in the walls, lowering the property's market value? Out came the water-and-vinegar spray bottle, and I'd use it like there was no tomorrow.
I didn't discover ozone generators until much later, during the pandemic. One of those inventions that somehow arrives in your life five years after you desperately needed it.
For me, only three things really mattered: a pleasant smell, good order, and a skillful management of appearances. Because order is the oldest trick in the book: the tidier a room is, the cleaner it looks. And then there was the principle that guided my entire housekeeping career: dirt is perfectly acceptable, as long as it escapes the distracted eye of Homo sapiens on vacation.
I cleaned each room in exactly fifteen minutes, with a one-minute break between rooms. Stopwatch in hand. The moment the timer went off, I moved on. Didn't matter what I was doing. If the freezer had evolved into an Arctic ice formation worthy of a polar expedition, I'd deal with it next time—preferably arriving with a sled and ten huskies.
I don't know what kind of opinion you've formed of me by now, but I don't believe everything needs a deep clean every single time. A little dirt is fine. Ideally somewhere nobody can see it. By now you've probably realized that I was never exactly a black belt in housekeeping. Maybe that's why I kept Marie Kondo tied up in the basement.
My obsessions were - and still are - a spotless, tidy entrance hall (first impressions matter more than we'd like to admit), light switches, which reveal more about human beings than we're comfortable acknowledging, and finally windowsills and door frames: those surfaces that seem to exist for the sole purpose of collecting dust and attacking our self-esteem.
My favorite trick was simple and, frankly, a little dishonest. Just before guests arrived, I'd spray a few drops of my favorite fragrance on the front door handle. Then I'd lead them straight into the living room, which was always the room I'd cleaned best. Those first thirty seconds were everything. And most of the time, I won.
That's how I achieved my own version of inner peace: knowing the house wasn't actually spotless, but looked spotless. Which, come to think of it, is a principle that governs a surprising number of things in adult life.
At the end of the day, I'd drive home drenched in sweat, looking like a Vietnam War veteran returning from the front line, behind the wheel of my third-hand Mini Cooper. I drove it as if I were personally pushing it toward the edge of a cliff. Success or failure? Hard to say.
Back home, I'd reward myself with a hydro-massage shower aimed directly at my poor L1, L2, and L3 vertebrae. Then I'd collapse onto the mattress and drift off to sleep dreaming that Brad Pitt had booked a week's stay at my place.
Provided he brought a housekeeper with him.
