Making a clean sweep — by myself

Take it from me: Mr. Clean (purple) works better than Swiffer

Recently, our cleaner fired us.

I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but I can’t think of another way of putting it. We weren’t temporarily “laid off” because she’s not coming back, and I’m pretty sure we weren’t “restructured” unless that happened while I was sleeping. She may have been “rightsizing” her client load, but either way the family room needs vacuuming and she’s not doing it.

I wish I could claim that I am utterly blameless in this scenario but that would be stretching the truth, and by stretching I mean imagine Doug Ford’s Sansabelt slacks.

Though I was ceaselessly charming to our cleaner, often whipping her up a steaming cappuccino or regaling her with ear-piercing ballads from the shower, I may have misstepped once or twice.

It is true that, forgetting precisely what day she was coming, I may have inadvertently locked her out of the house a couple of times, the last incident being on a day when it was snowing and about minus-five out. Despite a grovelling apology (I’m actually pretty good at that having taken a night course on grovelling), we were given our marching orders.

This eventuality led me to reconsider the entire situation, including how we came to have a cleaner in the first place.

I took what’s left of my mind back to when we had three young children at home, were both working full time and commuting. You ask yourselves the following existential questions:

How much of Saturday do you want to spend with your head in a toilet? Answer: Preferably none.

2. Would you rather go for a hike, visit a friend or Swiffer? Answer: What is Swiffer?

I cannot recall precisely when we got our first cleaner, but I know it was during the busiest time in our household. Even now those years raising three children is a blur and I can only really remember the general stages of child development as described by psychologist Jean Piaget or perhaps made up by me.

Babies: Adorable Toddlers: Still Very Cute

Kids: Asking for a ride Teenagers: Asking for a ride and money. Much less adorable.

Young Adults: Asking for more money. Just taking your ride.

Semi-Adults: Gone. But, still asking for money.

It was at this juncture that we “took stock” as they say. Once we had taken the stock — in this case two cans of chicken — to the neighbours, we discussed the housecleaning problem. I thought that with only two people living in the house for the majority of the year (our youngest was away at school — and so now only asking for money by text) it seemed unreasonable to not clean the house ourselves.

To which my wife replied: “You mean unreasonable to not clean the house yourself.”

Suddenly, she’s a stickler for grammar. I got the point.

Fine, I said. We can save a lot of money, get much-needed exercise and have a clean house.

“OK,” she said. “Just remember that in this case, two out of three won’t cut it.”

So, that is how I now find myself wearing yellow Playtex gloves. (Why do they have the word “play” in the name when it’s the last thing you would ever do while wearing a pair — unless you’re Dexter.)

After several weeks of this experiment, there are a few observations I would like to make:

For a room filled with soap and running water, bathrooms get pretty dirty.

Vacuuming is boring. Dyson could build a vacuum that sings, dances and blow-dries my hair and it would still be boring.

Dust is everywhere. And even if you consider it star dust, part of our infinite cosmos, it’s still annoying.

If you are really in a hurry, just sprinkle a bit of Mr. Clean (purple) around. It makes your house smell clean even if you haven’t done any work.

I now know how to Swiffer. (Believe me, it’s not that exciting.)

So far, things have gone pretty well. I have kept the house “spin and span” as my mother used to say, even though I have no idea what that means. Only one small issue has come up.

I think I’d like a raise, but I don’t know who to ask.

Paul Benedetti is the author of You Can Have A Dog When I’m Dead.