I made a trip to Walmart this evening with list adding only a soap dispensing plastic brush, apples and bananas as impulse purchases to the list when shopping and totaling up to $56. I was quite low on cleaning supplies and between traveling, work and then COVID things really need a lot of cleaning. I was going to buy these things yesterday but by the time I got back from walking laps in the Plaza, dinner and doing some cleaning, I didn’t feel like shopping. Tonight I went because I know by morning it will be snowy.

Based on internet research I bought these items though so far I’ve found the most effective thing is just a cleaning sponge dipped in a bowl primarily of vinegar and baking soda with dish soap and warm water.

• Paper Towels
• Shower Curtain
• Ammonia
• Spunges
• Baking Soda
• Vinegar
• Gloves
• Magic eraser
• Dish Soap
• Scrubbing pads

You know things do look a lot brighter and nicer with some scrubbing. Things that have in some cases just needed a good scrub like the oil and grease stains back a few years when I had the waffle iron before it broke, are finally getting cleaned. I track in so much mud and muck from camping, my stove top percolator boils over a lot spilling coffee and beans, mixes splatter and messes are made.

My excuse is to make things look less disgusting and dirty when the landlord comes over next week to replace the fridge but I’m also tired of the dirt and grime. While the mold issues haven’t been nearly as bad since the landlord replaced the leaky sink drains some four years ago now, and much of that has been cleaned there is still some residual mildew to clean. Plus things remain way too humid in my apartment year round – bathroom vent is plugged by sparrows, the walls have separated from the slab foundation letting cold and moisture in.

Truth is that new landlord is well aware of the issues, I’m sure he toured my unit before buying it and probably has walked through it several times when renovating the unit next door which I’m sure had many of the same issues. The previous neighbor mentioned that there was quite a bit of problems including water and mold issues in his unit too. It looks like from the renovation next door they gutted the unit probably due to the seriously bowed and cracked walls just like mine has. Obviously that refrigerator was worn out enough the landlord replaced it with a shiny new one like modern buildings have. I’m sure I’ll probably end up with that old fridge from next door when the landlord swaps out my broken one next week.

Truth is that I also want to learn how to clean. It’s funny it’s not a skill I learned at home – my parents were too busy homesteading and then with children and two jobs to do much cleaning. I never learned what works and does not or the simple beauty of large bottles of white cleaning vinegar, club store sized boxes of baking soda, lots of dish soap and warm water. And then just sponging it on liberally, letting the foam soak, hitting the really caked on stuff with a plastic brush and then wiping it off with a second washed and ringed out sponge. Part of it was I mislead when I had the mold issues into using bleach which always wrecked clothes, made everything smell like a swimming pool, accelerated rust issues on everything and honestly wasn’t even that great of a cleaner.

One thing I’ve learned is that water leaks and moisture issues really are critical to address right away. Former Landlord always was complaining and wanting to check for leaky sinks due to high water bills but didn’t seem particularly interested in replacing the bad sink traps until I insisted. He asked about leaks and suggested using bleach on the mold but didn’t really care about the leaky trap. I didn’t either, I figured the bucket under it worked fine but the bucket often overflowed and other parts of the rotted out pipe frequently leaked. I still think there is a leaky pipe in the wall behind the shower, maybe he fixed it when he fixed the leaky shower head years ago but I am my doubts.

Definitely any kind of leak when I own a house on water line, a drain or the roof is going to be a rush to get fixed. It’s not just the wasted water leading to higher water bills. Water is so destructive, even just a little leak, especially multiplied over years and decades. The first sign of wetness in the kitchen, much less mold, I should have complained to the landlord and he should have fixed right away. But I didn’t want to be bothersome, avoiding conflict and work on his part which inevitably I figured be passed on to me by higher rents. I was a different person in my late 20s when the issue of the mold was worse, I’m soon to be in my mid 40s.

As I scrubbed down the walls and appliances this evening it’s apparent how much damage the leaky sink drain and other sources of excess humidity was to trashing the kitchen. Every thing metal in that kitchen is severely corroded except for the stainless steel sink. The boob lamp on the ceiling, the refrigerator, the stove, the handles on cabinets, even my microwave. The walls are all bowed, in part due to the moisture but also because the walls keep shifting relative to the foundation. The floor is cracked and the paint is peeling everywhere. I used to blame it on the bleach and my excessive scrubbing but it really was the humidity.

Truth is that I like my dumpy little apartment in the suburbs. And all the properties I’ve looked at an even marginally like are so called fixer uppers, complete dumps that can only start to be livable after a good cleaning. Truth is your not going to find any place with land, where you can have livestock and fires without it being pretty dumpy and need of a lot of work. Hillbilly, redneck places where you can have dirty smelly livestock like goats and pigs, burn trash and debris are by definition quite rundown and often abandoned for quite a while if it’s on the market. Plus I think it would be fun to have a place, rip out the rot and have big bonfire burning all that wood and debris, and then making it look better and more livable how I want by my own hands. But first I got to get better at cleaning.

Some ways, it’s kind of satisfying to clean. At one level I don’t like wasting paper towels and sponges though I find as I clean I’m actually using much less of the prior. It’s not like either of those things are going to the ever growing mounds of debris on the outskirts of town as I burn most of my burnable trash up in the woods for starting fires at camp. That said, burning most of your day to day garbage means you accumulate a lot of broken shit that doesn’t burn or is too noxious to burn without a lot of land and a big bonfire. Many years all I’d ever get rid of was cans and glass recycling at the transfer center. I’m sure that’s the reason for the clutter around here – even though I try to avoid buying a lot of junk – people gift it and you buy things occasionally you hope that will last and be useful but have a much shorter lifespan expected.

I should have moved out of this apartment a long time ago. I’ve been looking but every place I even marginally like would be an absurdly long drive to work. I love many deep rural places, especially outside of New York State, you know those hick towns that smell like cows and silage with big hills and hollows, where the folks are real with yards full of junk, four wheelers, pigs and goats and burn barrels out back. Places not perfect but real. Yet all those places that feel truly special in my mind are just too far to commute. And I like the ease of busing it or biking to work. Truth is living here ain’t all bad and it’s probably the cheapest option that is allowing me to save for the future. All places in New York just seem like compromise with the draconian gun laws and the burn ban. I’m quite fine with tossing plastic containers in the fire rather than fake recycling , just don’t tell a liberal that.

Some day it will happen. I like farms and rural areas because they are so dirty and real. My assets are growing so are my skills at work. I concede in a few short years I’ll probably end up purchasing the other half of my parents house and five acres out in the country when they either pass away or are too elderly to care for themselves. They don’t have many years left both in declining health in their late 70s, and my sister has children and a nice house in the suburbs. I know much too soon it will be the final Sunday dinner with them. At least they have a barn, land and decent hillbilly neighbors that I think I could live with. Even though it’s not everything I want it could be a place to move back to at least until I’m 55 and can hang my hat up from state government for a place in a freer state where I can live the true rural life in that off grid cabin I truly want. Ain’t going to recycle or haul off anything I can burn out back with a cold beer! But in the meantime, I should enjoy my dirty, diapolated apartment and travel and explore the wilderness and the small towns until that day comes when I settle down to make that cabin a reality.