Clean Dirt & Spider Detente

I was never really a fastidious housekeeper.  In our old (new) house, I would keep up as best I could and get truly compulsed a few times a year.  And, if those few times happened to coincide with holidays and/or large-group entertaining, I often called in reinforcements to help tame the beast.  The thing is, that house was new and the surfaces could actually get clean.  On really "clean" days (and when the house was on the market) I could actually wake up in the morning to a level of shine and order that approached hotel quality.  Sigh.

Here at TOPH, the whole clean thing is... relative.  First of all, when we moved in, the house was "broom clean" which meant, literally, that some had walked around with a shop broom and a piece of cardboard and cleared up the loose debris.  Second of all, the first month we lived in TOPH (actually camped with mattresses and patio furniture), there was this constant stream of contractors.  Clem the Plumber (and his awesome fireman/sidekick/assistant Brenda) and Kenny the Electrician (and his dry-witted pinch-hitter Lyle) and the cable guy and the internet guy...  And then the movers came.  Twice.  It was a parade ground in here.  Third, it was "musty" in here and hot out there, so we have basically had the windows and doors wide open for two months.  And the outside tends to come in on the breeze.

It's not that I haven't cleaned at all.  In the rooms where we are actually living with furniture, I've swept and mopped and wiped the woodwork down, etc.  And we have scrubbed the "vintage" kitchen into comparative submission.  But, it's hard to tell what's actually clean, when the baseline is old, stained, dull, dusty and chipped.

Here's a great example. Once Clem and company were finished with "the boiler," I decided to tackle the front hall.  I Shop-Vac-ed up all of the bits from the constant rain of ceiling and the boot grit from in between gaps in the wood floor and the cob webs from every perpendicular joint. Then I got out the Simple Green and a scrub brush and a sponge.  What I found under the film of dirt, dust and a decades-old film of mop water was a Birdseye maple floor.  What I also found was that whatever finish had previously protected that beautiful grain was coming right off with my gentle, but thorough cleaning.  Hunh.  So the dirt was actually protecting the floor.  Not in the market/mood to refinish those particular floors right now.  Maybe next time I should leave well-enough alone.

The TOPH "theory of relativity" also applies to spiders.  When we first moved in, it was a massacre.  They were everywhere (involuntary shudder).  So, whenever  I saw a spider, I killed it (and it's little babies too!)  After a while, though, we figured out that the window screens were no match for the no-see-ems that seem to manifest whenever low-tide and sunset coincide.  And that no window or door is impervious to a particularly determined mosquito.  And the spiders had that all figured out.  Their favorite spaces for webs, were our most vulnerable borders, therefore we have reached detente.  They stay out of my shower, bed and any area where I regularly have to put my hand (light switches, window cranks, etc.), and they are welcome to any spot where delicacies abound.

In fact, they are helping with an important, silent offensive. TOPH has a few resident boring beetles and carpenter ants.  We have identified and treated some problem areas, but nothing structurally tragic so far.  Several of these old-house menaces lay dormant and hatch at irregular intervals.  They cannot, as it turns out, spread or thrive into future generations if they can't swarm after they hatch.  They are programed to "go forth and prosper" until they find a new (not previously marked with pheromone trails) food source.  If they they are trapped at mamas house, they become sterile and die.  (Evil laugh and hand wringing.)

So, when I see our "allies" spinning intricate webs around the structural hardwood underpinnings of TOPH, I give them a little cheer of encouragement.  "Feast on the flesh of those 4-day-old virgins!"

But if they spin one more strand in the tool handles of the DIY collection (involuntary shiver) I will bring Armageddon down on their eight-legged asses.