Bad housekeeping:

A friend asked me if I had a housekeeper.
I said no.
So she asked, “You clean your own house?“
I said no.
She asked, “Wait… Who cleans your house?”
I laughed and said no one.

I also told her I was three winters behind in my spring cleaning.

Joking aside

Actually I’m not that bad. I keep my kitchen counters, stovetop and sink clean, but they’re used on a daily basis, so you have to keep up. That and I simply cannot abide a dirty sink. Ask the husband. I scold him all the time: “Did you pour this coffee in the sink and not rinse it?” (Who else would have done it?) or “What the hell are all these crumbs doing here? I just bleached this!”

Dusting and vacuuming get done whenever either of us feel inclined, and I do not feel any guilt. My husband does the dishes. We split cooking. I hire someone for window washing.

Sticky fingers

I once had a housekeeper recommended to me by a neighbor. Let’s call her Katy. Katy’s Cleaning. Katy and her helper (apparently neighbors) did a decent job, although I didn’t appreciate Katy’s occasional comments on my décor (“Why do you have a rug in this room anyway?”), or the fact that she mentioned she preferred visiting with my corgi Clementine over me. Okay.

Then my late mother’s gold bracelet went missing from my bathroom. A few months later, my mother’s diamond necklace, my favorite piece of hers, also vanished.

I had my suspicions, but couldn’t prove that I’d simply misplaced them either. Then Katy had a different helper, another neighbor. A few weeks later, I overheard them talking about the trial and sentencing of the old helper. What? I jumped all over that.

Katy told me her previous helper had been stealing to support a drug habit. One of her clients said she had no choice but to contact the police for several missing jewelry pieces; Katy, unsuspecting, encouraged her client to do so. Katy was shocked to learn the helper had immediately confessed when confronted by a detective. Of course, the jewelry she’d lifted was long gone.

People are clever about hiding addictions, so I empathized with Katy. She’d really had no idea. But after the truth came out, shouldn’t she have informed her clients that she’d unwittingly hired a thief? How many of them had had their jewelry pilfered? Didn’t they deserve to know?

I told Katy I no longer needed her services.

Speaking of my mother, she was big on spring cleaning. She washed walls, the entire wall from top to bottom, and even ceilings. Her favorite chore to assign me when I was getting on her nerves was to wash the walls in the garage. I’m not kidding.

When she was in her 80s, she tripped on a Swiffer and broke her femur. Don’t let anyone tell you housework isn’t dangerous. Yet, when I wanted to hire someone to help her dust and wash floors, she was quite firm about not letting anyone else clean her house. Never. I understand now.

So, no…

I don’t have a housekeeper. I wouldn’t mind one, really, but, yeah. Not doing it. I’d rather be a little dusty. I have other priorities.

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Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
Learn more about her multi-award winning novel, In the Context of Love.
Learn more about her picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.
Learn more about her latest poetry chapbook, Sleepwalker

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