dirt vs. damage

I want to share a series on the basics of cleaning for people who never really got taught how. We'll get to that - but first, I realised I can't start yappin' on about how to clean until I talk about what you can't clean.

No matter what your landlord wants you to believe, you can't clean damage.

I've been in and out of a lot of crappy houses in this job. Housing insecurity means I've been in and out of a lot of crappy houses in my life! And I can tell you, low-quality housing is difficult to clean. Sometimes impossible.

These days, I clean for rich software engineers in the most expensive city in the world. Some days, I feel like a spy. I've never even been in homes like this before, now I spend hours getting intimately equated with every surface.

The first time I went to a house with marble floors, I had to discretely google how to clean them. Turns out there's very little I can actually do to fuck them up. The marble floors are going to outlast us all, and they're going to look great the whole time.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking of the shitty, sticky, 30-year-old laminate in my old house back in Australia. Hell, I lived in one rental for years that didn't even have a kitchen floor. We lived with bare, unfinished chipboard that always looked and felt grimy.

Now I've seen how rich people live - in beautiful, clean, warm houses full of lovely things - I understand how much of a losing game most renters have been playing.

If you live in low quality housing, through no fault of your own, your house will never feel clean.

Cold, uninsulated houses get mouldy.

Houses that aren't sealed properly attract pests, which leave droppings and stains.

The cheapest carpet will shed and stain, the cheapest laminate will feel sticky, the cheapest cupboards will show fingerprints, the cheapest oven will collect gunk under the elements.

The thing landlords know is true but don't like to admit is that parts of the house like carpets, flooring, appliances, paint, sealant, and grout are consumables.

They are depreciating assets. Landlords know this, because they write it off on their fucking tax.

If your carpet is older than you, it's going to look a bit worse for wear, even if the real estate agent says it needs to be professionally cleaned. If the walls are a bit grubby, it's 'cause they needed to be repainted in 2006. The reason you can't clean the mould off the sealant in your shower, is that the homeowner is meant to replace it every 5-10 years, and he probably never installed a proper ventilation fan in the first place.

There's so much shame wrapped up in the idea of keeping a clean home. Especially for renters who are subjected to inspections, and penalised for things outside of their control.

Don't let 'em convince you it's your fault. They're gonna ignore you, of course, but at least you can let go of this idea that you can buff that 30-year-old laminate back to looking fresh.

You can't clean damage. But never fear, I am gonna tell you what you can clean! Keep refreshing your inbox during the week for my next post, how to clean everything: the basics.