Filth
I don't live in the cleanest house in the world. In fact Boo Manor has become a bit of a dump in the past few years.
Big part of the reason is the kids: When you have 3 kids and two adults in the house things will get messy. Walls get crayoned on. Wallpaper is ripped off. Messes abound. I can deal with that, one of the problems with Boo Manor is that we were going to do a major refresh after Dylan and Tara finally stopped writing on the walls and then Bri came along. So we figured "yep, another 7-8 years before we can do anything"
Bri is no almost 8, and it's time to start thinking about this again. The house needs to be pained, the floors need to be sanded and redone. We need all new rugs, the plaster needs to be pointed, etc. A lot of work, probably half a million dollars worth of paint and sanding or something.
But in the meantime I'm getting upset about the filth. Clutter is one things, filth is another. Filth includes leaving used pads all over the bathroom. Filth includes taking food upstairs and leaving crumbs all over. Filth includes splilling drinks on the floor and not cleaning it up so I find it a few weeks later as carmelized crap.
I try to explain to the kids that I don't like filth, but they don't seem to listen and no one other than me seems to care. I try to set rules like no food outside the kitchen but they ignore them and I find bags of potato chips behind the computers which happens to be in my bedroom.
Today though I hit the limit: I walked into the living room, bent down to turn on the Wii Fit board, and found ants all over the floor. Apparently they were feasting on a small cookie crisp cereal thing that the children just love to bring upstairs, dump out, and walk over. So I called the kids together, pointed out the ants, pointed to the cookie crisp, explained that ants are attracted to filth, and that they need to pick these things up to keep ants and roaches and beetles and flies from showing up. Asked them to pick them up, to gain the experience.
Five minutes later I come back and Dylan and Bri are upstairs playing on the computer, Tara is in her bedroom on her laptop. Ants in living room, not a cookie crisp picked up. Went upstairs, asked D&B to clean, they ignored me.
That was my limit. I pulled the plug on the computers, immediately trashing Dylan's very important game of "Don't Starve" and interrupting Bri's very important Roadblox experience. Finally I had their attention. I explained there would be no more computers till they picked up the ant-laden food and if I found them upstair with food I would disable the computers. They went downstairs in a huff, and picked up a few things.
Then after calming them down because I am the big bad daddy they went off to the Fairy festival and I get to be the house slave to clean everything up. This is "MY" day off, since yesterday I spent the day taking care of them while Alex went to the fairy festival alone. I spend my days off being the house slave, cleaning up after everyone.
So in cleaning up the living room, I find tons of crumbs, food, and crap. However the true ant nest was under the TV console, it was a whole bag of cookies that the kids found, brought upstairs, and shoved the trash under the TV. There's a trash can 5 feet away from this, but it much easier to leave your shit fall where it does.
Two hours with the vacuum later I am running all three Scoobas on the hard wood floor to clean it up. At least they are getting the filth up, it's astounding how much crap there is on this floor. But it should take care of the ants.
I hate filth. I hate living in places with ants and roaches. But they come because people live like slobs. Alex sometimes says that I look for moral reasons in things that just happen. Sometimes I do, but sometimes it's simple: If you live in filth, filth accumulates.
Simple as that. Excuse me I have to empty the dump tanks on the scoobas again.
C
Big part of the reason is the kids: When you have 3 kids and two adults in the house things will get messy. Walls get crayoned on. Wallpaper is ripped off. Messes abound. I can deal with that, one of the problems with Boo Manor is that we were going to do a major refresh after Dylan and Tara finally stopped writing on the walls and then Bri came along. So we figured "yep, another 7-8 years before we can do anything"
Bri is no almost 8, and it's time to start thinking about this again. The house needs to be pained, the floors need to be sanded and redone. We need all new rugs, the plaster needs to be pointed, etc. A lot of work, probably half a million dollars worth of paint and sanding or something.
But in the meantime I'm getting upset about the filth. Clutter is one things, filth is another. Filth includes leaving used pads all over the bathroom. Filth includes taking food upstairs and leaving crumbs all over. Filth includes splilling drinks on the floor and not cleaning it up so I find it a few weeks later as carmelized crap.
I try to explain to the kids that I don't like filth, but they don't seem to listen and no one other than me seems to care. I try to set rules like no food outside the kitchen but they ignore them and I find bags of potato chips behind the computers which happens to be in my bedroom.
Today though I hit the limit: I walked into the living room, bent down to turn on the Wii Fit board, and found ants all over the floor. Apparently they were feasting on a small cookie crisp cereal thing that the children just love to bring upstairs, dump out, and walk over. So I called the kids together, pointed out the ants, pointed to the cookie crisp, explained that ants are attracted to filth, and that they need to pick these things up to keep ants and roaches and beetles and flies from showing up. Asked them to pick them up, to gain the experience.
Five minutes later I come back and Dylan and Bri are upstairs playing on the computer, Tara is in her bedroom on her laptop. Ants in living room, not a cookie crisp picked up. Went upstairs, asked D&B to clean, they ignored me.
That was my limit. I pulled the plug on the computers, immediately trashing Dylan's very important game of "Don't Starve" and interrupting Bri's very important Roadblox experience. Finally I had their attention. I explained there would be no more computers till they picked up the ant-laden food and if I found them upstair with food I would disable the computers. They went downstairs in a huff, and picked up a few things.
Then after calming them down because I am the big bad daddy they went off to the Fairy festival and I get to be the house slave to clean everything up. This is "MY" day off, since yesterday I spent the day taking care of them while Alex went to the fairy festival alone. I spend my days off being the house slave, cleaning up after everyone.
So in cleaning up the living room, I find tons of crumbs, food, and crap. However the true ant nest was under the TV console, it was a whole bag of cookies that the kids found, brought upstairs, and shoved the trash under the TV. There's a trash can 5 feet away from this, but it much easier to leave your shit fall where it does.
Two hours with the vacuum later I am running all three Scoobas on the hard wood floor to clean it up. At least they are getting the filth up, it's astounding how much crap there is on this floor. But it should take care of the ants.
I hate filth. I hate living in places with ants and roaches. But they come because people live like slobs. Alex sometimes says that I look for moral reasons in things that just happen. Sometimes I do, but sometimes it's simple: If you live in filth, filth accumulates.
Simple as that. Excuse me I have to empty the dump tanks on the scoobas again.
C