Squeaky Clean

There's recently been a slight change to our cleaning roster. Previously we had someone doing sweeping and someone on mopping, but it's become too difficult to coordinate those two jobs so they've been rolled into one. The job that has been added to compensate is that of the kitchen. Now, as usual, I don't know if this was discussed with anyone, but the note on the fridge has appeared in TLR's handwriting regarding this change. Under the description of "Kitchen" it says:

"Clean stove, microwave, wipe crumbs off benches, general tidying"

 Most of this I agree with, although I have a number of concerns.

1) Cleaning the stove properly does need to be done properly (with oven cleaner and a scourer) once a week. However, I'm worried that if someone makes a dish and splashes it all over the stove, it should be their responsibility to wipe it off, not the job of someone else.

2) We have a fairly substantial ant problem. To combat this we need to stop leaving out all food scraps etc. Wiping down the benches after making a sandwich and leaving crumbs everywhere should be automatically done, not left for someone else to do. Case in point: TLR made pizza dough last week and spread flour across the bench so it wouldn't stick. She left it there for at least 3 or 4 hours. It was frustrating. Nobody else could use the bench during this time. If she were to leave it for someone else to clean up (because it's their duty that week) it'd be ridiculously out of order

3) General tidying, yes. General tidying of other people's crap? No. TLR has a habit of coming home and just dumping her belongings on the kitchen counter. The kitchen is a public area. You can't just leave your personal belongings strewn across the counter. 5 of us need to use it to cook! Recently TLR's mum brought some gardening tools up for her to use. Today, 3 days later, they'd still be sitting on the bench if I hadn't moved them to another table. They haven't even been touched. In fact, I think I might go and get them and put them on her bed right now.

4) The dishes. It's not on the list (that would be ridiculous), but I get the feeling that because I'm on kitchen duty I'm expected to do more dishes than usual. Even things like putting the clean ones away. That's not my job. Spike came and talked to me today. 3 days ago, he washed all of the dishes; a huge amount of them from TLR cooking an extravagent dinner. 3 days later, the dry dishes are still sitting on the dish rack because nobody has bothered to put them away. Just about every morning I get up, put the dishes away from the night before and then start making my breakfast. It's the first thing I do in the morning. Spike knows this and told me to make sure that TLR puts away the dishes this time. It's been days, but I think she's still got the whole "if I leave them, someone else will have to do them" mentality. Well screw her. Spike and I have decided that we're not putting them away this time. I just hope Daniel doesn't do them, although I wouldn't put it past him.

Actually that reminds me. When we first moved in, TLR complained that Spike and I put cooking utensils in weird places after we'd done the dishes. Several months later, we've heard no such complaint again. Plain and simply, she never puts them away into the places she thinks would be normal because she never puts them away!


As usual, if I attempt to discuss my concerns with TLR my thoughts are entirely stomped over or dismissed with "well, that's not what we've decided". And just the other day, one of these issues came up. I'd just given the kitchen a clean the day before. The benches were spotless, I cleared all the dishes, scrubbed the sinks till they shone....it was perfectly clean and tidy. The next day she came into my room and asked me when I was going to clean the kitchen. I frowned, stepped into the kitchen and lo and behold! TLR's bag was on the bench, her food was strung across the counter, the dishes she'd just eaten off were next to the sink and a whole stack of clean ones were in the dishrack. Let's look at the list of duties:

1) Clean stove: it was clean.
2) Microwave: cleaned the day before.
3) Crumbs off benches: only the area she'd just made her lunch on was dirty. All other benches were clean.
4) General tidy: items she'd left out yesterday were returned to their homes or moved to the loungeroom. The only items present were those she'd just used.

What part of the kitchen duties had I not upheld? Apparently, the dishes. Well, I'm off to put gardening tools into someone's bed!

~C~