12/7/2011
By Jesse McKinley
For
most of us, the holiday season is a time of lists. There are wish lists,
shopping lists, naughty and nice lists. But way down on the litany of to-do is
one particular item that many find as offputting as coal in a Christmas
stocking: clean the house.
After
all, this is the time of year when you open your home to all manner of friends
and family, who come to town to celebrate and, surely, to evaluate your
housekeeping.
It’s
not an uncommon concern. We all have visions of holiday perfection for the
house, but beyond the garlands and nutcrackers — and a reasonably upright tree
— most of us fail in our pursuit of perfection.
Yet
for a select breed of the hyper-tidy, this is a time to shine. Call them
extreme cleaners (nice) or neat freaks (naughty), but these super-sanitary few
are the keepers of the secrets to making a house as clean and welcoming as a
Charlie Brown special.
THE
PROFESSIONALS
Sabrina
Cusin, who runs a high-end cleaning service called (no kidding) New York’s
Little Elves, is currently dealing with the annual flood of holiday
deep-cleaning jobs. And with the neurotic customer demands that inevitably come
with it.
“We
have people who say, ‘I only want you to bring new mops, sponges, brooms and
unopened fluids,’ ” she said. “What can I say? Some people never wear
underpants twice. One woman insisted on new vacuums. I drew the line. So she
went out and bought two Mieles.”
That
doesn’t sound so unreasonable to Nancy Bock. Ms. Bock, a spokeswoman for the
American Cleaning Institute, said there was nothing outrageous about insisting
on virgin machines and supplies. Not if it offers “the certainty that the
product is the one that was originally poured into that bottle and that nobody
else’s sponge has touched the lip.”
After
all, she added, “What’s extreme?”
THE
AESTHETES
For
some, the need to keep things just so isn’t confined to the holidays. Having
invested in the services of a well-known interior decorator, they feel a
responsibility to maintain the look.
So
designers like Steven Gambrel furnish certain clients with what amounts to an
operating manual for the décor, something known in the trade as a maid’s book:
a collection of photographs documenting the precise arrangement of pillows,
tableware, curtains and even the contents of the hall closet (no puffy coats,
no trailing scarves).
No
detail is left out. One photo, for example, shows the exact amount of sheet
that should be folded back over the blanket — to the nearest inch — when making
a bed.
“There’s
a frustration when the decorator leaves that the place is never going to look
as good as when he styled it,” Mr. Gambrel said. “The book is a document that
allows for no misinterpretation.”
OTHER
SACRED TEXTS
When
it comes to housekeeping, there are a number of reliable manuals. Martha
Stewart’s “Homekeeping Handbook” is, of course, required reading for the
obsessive-compulsive domestic diva.
Another
standard text is Cheryl Mendelson’s “Home Comforts,” an 884-page tome with
chapters like “Peaceful Coexistence With Microbes” and a somewhat sexy-sounding
section, “The Cave of Nakedness,” having to do with bedrooms. (The title is
about as racy as the chapter gets.)
A
casual reader might also pick up “Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Home,” which offers
simple, practical advice. (“Got toothpaste dripping down the side of your sink?
Dab it up with a cloth and rub it on your sink and shower faucets,” Mrs. Meyer
advises, something she promises will actually brighten them up. Just like your
teeth.)
All
of these books, however, pale in comparison with the recently published
“National Trust Manual of Housekeeping” (National Trust; $75), which tops 900
pages and weighs seven pounds. It includes tips on everything from how to align
your doormat (10 feet of coconut matting is recommended to truly demuck one’s
galoshes, after a good night of caroling) to the proper method of moving a
dining room chair (lift from the seat rails, not the back, to avoid stressing
it; at least the chair will be relaxed, even if you’re not).
In
addition to offering historical context (who knew that the word housekeeping
dates to 1538?) and lavish photographs of the kind of places you’ll never live
in, the manual also gives detailed advice about the care and cleaning of things
like archaeological collections and armor, drawn from centuries of
oh-so-British care of historic homes. (There is some stuff for commoners as
well.)
THE
AVID AMATEURS
At
the end of the day, though, who can compete with the National Trust? Or with
Ms. Stewart or Ms. Mendelson, for that matter? Not that some don’t try.
Consider
Pam Schneider, a learning specialist with homes in New York and London. As if
holiday travel weren’t bad enough, Ms. Schneider said she was so obsessed with
keeping house that she travels with cleaning products she can’t find abroad,
like Swiffer dusters and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.
“People
call me the Felix Unger of the millennium,” Ms. Schneider said. “Everyone says
my house is like a hospital.”
She
isn’t the only one who commutes with cleaning supplies. Kathryn Ireland, a Los
Angeles-based decorator, said she brings stacks of brown paper bags from her
local Trader Joe’s to her house in France.
Why?
To remove wax from tablecloths, of course. (Running a hot iron over a bag laid
on top of the tablecloth draws the wax out.) For while the French believe in
long, candlelight dinners, they “don’t believe in brown paper bags,” Ms.
Ireland said, and she’d just as soon avoid long hours spent hunting for them in
France.
For
people like Ms. Ireland and Ms. Schneider, cleaning isn’t a chore; they
actually enjoy it. Carolyn Forte, a director of the Good Housekeeping Research
Institute, feels the same way. In fact, Ms. Forte chooses to spend her vacation
days washing the windows of her split-level house in Livingston, N.J., something
that has apparently made an impression on the neighbors.
“I
have a neighbor who won’t buy an appliance or cleaning product without asking
me,” she said.
When
it comes to cleaning, attention to detail is all-important, Ms. Forte noted.
Most people miss a number of spots, she said, including “telephone buttons,
vacuum brushes, remote controls, undersides of rugs, toothbrush holders.”
Especially when they are rushing to get ready for the holidays.
For
last-minute cleaning, there are a few tools she recommends, including
Scotch-Brite toilet scrubbers. “The cleaner is already in the sponge, which is
shaped to get under the rim,” she said. “When you’re done, you eject it from
the wand directly into the trash.”
But
Sally Carle, who once worked as a designer for Pierre Cardin in Paris and now
lives in Maryland, does Ms. Forte one better. Ms. Carle, in her mid-50s,
removes her toilet seats to clean behind the screws. She also uses Clorox as a
verb, as in “I just Cloroxed the kitchen sink.”
And
her preferred tool for detailing, she said, is a toothbrush.
Of
course, she diligently sterilizes and labels it carefully, she added, for
obvious reasons. “It’s marked ‘loo,’ ” she said.
Good
to know.
Getting
Ready for the Inspection
LIKE
visions of sugar plums dancing in children’s heads, the picture-perfect holiday
home is probably also a dream. Still, there are a number of tips — from experts
both foreign and domestic — to help one prepare the manger for company, and
care for furnishings after they go. It all begins at the front door.
“Focus
on what they’ll see first” is the advice of Thelma A. Meyer, a k a Mrs. Meyer
of Clean Day fame, who says that a first impression can overcome whatever dirt
might rear its head after dessert. In “Mrs. Meyer’s Clean House,” she recommends
a solid scrub of your entry, a good shake of the doormat and a full-scale
assault on the floors, sofa and chair legs, where “dust tends to gather.”
People
tend to congregate in the kitchen, where the food and alcohol is, so cleaning
gurus also suggest concentrating efforts there. On her Web site, Martha Stewart
offers a seven-point plan, including dusting light fixtures, flushing the drain
with boiling water and wiping, wiping and more wiping.
Then,
of course, there is the commode, the longtime cleaning foe of bachelors. Cheryl
Mendelson, the author of “Home Comfort,” depicts the bathroom as a war zone,
complete with “high populations of pathogens,” stained tile and the dreaded
soap scum. To conquer the latter, she suggests using undiluted liquid detergent,
then water, scouring powder and a stiff brush, and finally polishing with a
towel. “The results,” she writes, “will amaze you.”
Nothing
can ruin a good time like a terrible smell. Elimination of nasty odors is the
objective of all manner of folk remedy — orange peels, lemon juice, incense,
open windows — but many swear by a good old blast of vinegar. The
Laundress, a maker of specialty detergents, sells scented vinegar that can be used to create a “vinegar bomb,” which may not only vanquish
bad smells but create a subconscious desire for a nice salad.
Which
brings us to another time-honored holiday tradition: deception. (See Claus,
Santa.) Mrs. Meyer suggests brewing coffee to camouflage smells, not to mention
waking up sleepy relatives. She also suggests low light to minimize whatever
blemishes might remain when guests arrive.
Finally,
there is the task of cleanup. “The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping” has
miles of how-to advice on caring for the important serving dishes and tableware
in your manor, including your silver, which should always be stored in an
antitarnish bag; delicate ceramics, which should never be held by the handle, a
weak spot; and china, which should be washed with only mild detergent. The
manual has plenty of other tips, all of which can be enjoyed — fireside, with a
small brandy — during the period that many holiday makers enjoy most: after
everyone’s gone home.
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Originally posted here.
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