Day Sixty Three: Monthly Housekeeping (Yikes!)

Back on Day Eight, I performed Martha's list of Weekly Homekeeping items.  Well, some of those things...mainly the ones that were not otherwise completed by my housekeeper.

Martha also has a Monthly Homekeeping list, which I will include for those of you who do not own Martha's Homekeeping Handbook, p. 26:

Monthly Homekeeping: 

In the Kitchen

• Wash ventilation hood filters
• Discard food in the freezer that's past its prime

Living Room:

• Vacuum Fireplace Screens

Bedrooms:

• Launder duvet covers, pillow protectors, mattress pads and shams

Bathrooms:

• Wipe tub and shower surrounds
• Scrub grout
• Wipe insides of medicine cabinets

Closets:

• Dust shelves and storage bins
• Vacuum floors and baseboards

Utility Spaces:

• Vacuum floors
• Wipe insides and outsides of trash and recycling bins

Throughout the House:

• Vacuum window treatments, moldings, and window sills
• Dust portable and ceiling fans
• Wipe interior and exterior doors and trim
• Wipe switch plates
• Wipe telephones
• Flush drains with vinegar, boiling water and baking soda
• Buff waxed stone, masonry, concrete and wood floors

A few comments about my execution of the above list:

1) Washing your ventilation hood filters is one of the most satisfying things you can do.  When you start, the filters look like this:  (Yes, that is an actual piece of food in the filter)

When you finish, it looks like this: 

:insert Alleluia Chorus: 

Admission: We have lived in this house for almost seven years.  The house (and vent hood) were new when we moved in.  I have never cleaned the vent hood filters. There was so much grease in my filters that, if the filters would have been a person, they would have died from a clogged artery long ago.   

2)  Unless you are a freezing fiend, everything in your freezer is probably out of date.  Period.  (Martha's list is on p. 131 of her Housekeeping Handbook.)  There were things in my freezer I did not recall buying.  I'm not sure how a package of (what appears to be) frozen peas made its way into my freezer.  I say it "appears to be" frozen peas because the package is written in Chinese.  Or Japanese.  :shrug: 

3) If cleaning the vent hood filter is the one of the most satisfying things you can do, vacuuming the fireplace screen is the least.  It's still black and burnt-smelling after you finish.

4)  I don't have pillow protectors on my pillows.  That's one less thing I have to clean.  Yay!

5) The insides of your closets are probably one of the dirtiest places in your house.  Dust bunnies breed there.  After they are weened from their dust-bunny mothers, they migrate to seldom-used corners and under your bed.  It's a scientific fact. 

6)  According to Martha, your trash and recycling bins cannot be clean enough.  You must scrub the inside and outsides so they are spotless when they come into contact with your trash.  

7)  I don't know what sort of drainage systems other people have, but my drains seem to run just fine without all the flushing with vinegar, boiling water and baking soda.  What is Martha putting down her drains??

8) Admission:  I didn't buff anything.  I'm not sure what all that entails, but it sounds like something you should hire someone to do.  

And I have to do this again next month?!?