by Christine G.

Created on: January 07, 2009

THE BLITZKRIEG METHOD OF CLEANING HOUSE

Sooner or later, it happens. The boss is coming for dinner, a social worker is coming to inspect your home after some nosy neighbour has reported that your children never have matching socks, a reporter wants to do a photo shoot of your dried flower collection, or things have become so messy that you can't find anything. It's time to clean house.

Brace yourself. This is total war. There's no time for half-measures.

To create a clean and tidy space to impress visitors, just follow these ten easy steps.

1. Collect all books about cleaning house, and donate them to the library. This is not a time to fool around with reading instructions and getting bogged down with details.

2. Invite your most neatnik friend over for coffee - even if it's your mother-in-law. Chances are she'll have re-organized your kitchen before your coffee maker has completed its cycle. You can expand her influence by asking her for advice in a specific area. She will probably end up showing rather than telling. If you act really desperate, she may end up doing the whole house. In that case, you can skip to Step 8.

3. Take your dirty clothes to a professional laundry service. Don't pick them up until your state of emergency has ended. This will go a long way towards de-cluttering the house, and create closet & drawer space.

3. Put everything that has not been put away out on the lawn. (It might be a good idea to warn your family 24 hours ahead of time.) Make family members pay you a dollar for each item they bring into the house again, and threaten them with permanent confiscation if it is left lying around again. Then put a FREE STUFF sign on the pile of goodies and let nature take its course. Anything that is still there 24 hours later can go into the dumpster.

4. Now that you have de-cluttered, cleaning is relatively simple. Turn off the TV and the computer. Inform your family that you are having a cleaning bee, and no one is going anywhere until the job is done. If you can sucker some friends into joining the team, so much the better. Distribute cleaning implements, microfiber cloths and appropriate chemicals, and assign specific tasks. If you have trouble enforcing this, hire a professional security guard with a taser, or use the money you have been saving for the trip to Disneyworld to hire a cleaning team. Remember, this is an emergency! Desperate situations require desperate measures.

5. Pay special attention to areas at eye-level. Things above and below eye-level are rarely seen by visitors.

6. Air out the house, and spray with some sort of clean-smelling disinfectant to give the impression that you really care about sanitation.

7. Cover nasty sections of the floor with scatter mats from the dollar store. Hide marks on the wall with pictures or posters. Put out a few flashy flower arragements or knick-knacks. These will draw prying eyes away from the details. If you serve some good food and booze, that will mellow potential critics.

8. Play soothing music to help you and your guests relax, and repeat to yourself, "Everything is beautiful. Perfection dwells all around me. No one will notice the warped window frames."

9. Buy yourself a new outfit to replace the one at the laundry, put on some lipstick, and smile. You've done it! Your house is beautiful, and your reputation is secure.

10. Schedule your next cleaning blitz in two weeks, so you never have to go through this again.

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