Desperate housecleaning
Guests on their way? House a mess? Follow these last-minute strategies
to get your place looking house-guest ready
By Alison apRoberts -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, October 8, 2005
Story appeared in Cal life section, Page CL16
You may not live on Wisteria Lane, and you may not have strange, dark
secrets to sweep under the rug. But you don't have to be a character
on "Desperate Housewives" to experience a domestic crisis.

One of the biggest panic makers: Company is on its way, and your home
is in the kind of mess that could show up on an afternoon TV talk-show
exposé, "The Slob Next Door."

That's when desperate measures and heroic efforts are needed.

We asked Home & Garden readers for their help, and they came clean
with enough quick-and-dirty strategies to fill a large trash bag.
There were several techniques common to many of the suggestions
(dimmer switches and candles, for instance).

All but one came from women.

First, tackle the big spot
A man can be like a big bad speed bump for a woman flying down the
speed-cleaning lane.

"Get your husband out of the house. He just gets in the way of a
fast-moving woman with one thing on her mind," Maureen Billhimer told
us.

She explains that her husband wants to help, but he doesn't believe in
taking cleaning shortcuts.

"I have great places to hide things, and if he's standing there I
can't get away with it," she says. "He wants to start from the
bottom."

She says he doesn't mind her shooing him out when she needs to tidy
quickly, as the couple lives on a golf course in Lake of the Pines,
and he can just hit the greens when he is evicted.

Strong-arm the dirt
Stephanie Baumgartner knows how to sock it to dust. She dons old tube
socks sprayed with furniture polish on her hands and runs around her
living room sweeping along all the surfaces for a speed cleaning.

"We live in El Dorado Hills and it's always dusty," she says.

The sock idea was something she read somewhere. It might have stuck
because it reminded her of her mother's trick of making the kids wear
socks and skate around on the wood floors to polish newly applied wax.

Baumgartner's other favorite trick, also mentioned by several readers,
is to pull out an empty laundry basket and toss accumulated clutter
into it and then stash it in a closet. (With 4-year-old twins there is
always stuff lying around.)

This technique does have its dangers, however.

"It was so embarrassing: I forgot about the laundry basket and the
bills," Baumgartner says.

Behind closed doors
Philene Derdowski of Sacramento relies on stashing stray stuff behind
closed appliance doors. She has put shoes and paperwork in the
dishwasher and dirty dishes in the oven. She hasn't actually baked any
shoes or washed any bills yet, although there have been some close
calls.

The worst thing that happened was when she put mail and other
paperwork in a grocery bag. A thoughtful guest thought it was trash
and tossed it in the garbage can.

Derdowski also uses a few quick-change techniques when she needs to
clean quickly, replacing dirty towels and throw rugs with clean ones
she has stashed away for such occasions. She dumps the old towels and
throw rugs in a bathtub and closes the bath curtain.

Picking up the pickup pace
Marcia Baxley, who lives in Auburn, became an expert quick-cleaner
after living in a house that was up for a sale for a full year. That
meant it had to be walk-through perfect all the time.

Although her daughter laughs when she watches her mom fly through the
air cleaning, Baxley says she doesn't want to return to her old
take-your-time ways.

"I just pretend I have people coming over to look at the house and I
only have a half hour," she says, laughing.

One shortcut she recommends: squirt some liquid laundry detergent in a
bathroom sink, add water and use the mixture to wipe everything down.
It doesn't require any rinsing to remove grittiness, which makes it
much faster than cleaning with a scouring powder.

Tricks Mom taught me
Connie Batts, who lives in Sacramento, likes the old hide-and-seek
game for clutter. She takes laundry tubs and other handy containers,
puts stray items into them and stashes them on top of the washer and
the dryer in the garage. It's a variation on the
throw-everything-down-into-the-basement routine she grew up with in
New York.

"If I didn't have a garage, I don't know what I'd do. I guess I'd put
everything in the backyard," she says.

From diapering to dusting
Michelle Brown of Sacramento has two words: baby wipes.

She figured out somewhere along the way since her children were born
(they are now 10 and 8) that wipes work as pre-moistened cleaning
wipes and are cheaper. She buys them at a 99 Cent store near her home.

"I tell everybody I talk to: You need to try the baby wipe thing," she
says.

Posies outdo the dust
Ruth Pauff, who lives in Acampo, likes to use the floral distraction
technique. Put out a big bouquet, and nobody will notice the dirty
house.

She also knows of a little trick a friend told her about that she
might try if she ever gets desperate enough. If overnight guests are
coming and you don't have time to wash the sheets, just iron the
bottom sheet on the bed and put a clean pillowcase on the pillow.

"I've never had to do this," she says. "But it's all about keeping
something in reserve for an emergency."

Most of all she tries to not give the dirt too much attention.

"We all worry about it when we're the housekeepers, but nobody else
sees what we see," she says.

Leave your worries (and dust) behind
That lone e-mail we received from a man came from Dave Tozier of
Rancho Cordova. And his idea of cleaning for company is putting the
papers he keeps on the living room couch and floor into grocery bags,
stashing them in his bedroom and closing the door, which is adorned
with several do-not-enter signs.

The prime guest that he cleans up for is his brother, who likes to
tidy up for others, which makes hiding the paperwork a purely
defensive tactic: "He puts things away, and I can't find them," he
says.

Tozier, who is single and lives with his adult son, isn't cleaning up
because he cares what others think. He has learned the ultimate
housecleaning solution: Not caring, with a dose of humor thrown in.

"Dust? Gee, I don't even know what that means," he says, laughing.
"I'm a casual person, and that's definitely a euphemism.

"I know how to clean," he says, "in theory."

Still women's work
54.3%: Percent of women who do housework in an average day.

19.2%: Percent of men who do housework in an average day.

Source: American time-use survey released in September, 2005, by U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifest...14517122c.html


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