Dirty Drawers

This year I’ve taken to cleaning rentals for a living. (Does this girl know how to have fun or what?) Sadly, I’ve been doing more scrubbing than writing—a trend which must not continue. At least all that alone time affords an opportunity to ponder issues more intriguing than dust bunnies and soiled toilets.

On my first walk-through of a vacated rental, many units appear decent enough. Before I arrive, a maintenance crew has usually mucked out and repaired the place. They may have installed new flooring, replaced broken lighting fixtures, changed out burner pans on the stove. In some cases they’ve replaced a ruined appliance. (I love finding an already-clean oven or a pristine fridge!) And they’ve often applied a fresh coat of white paint.

Ready for a new renter, right?

Not so much. Closer inspection reveals cobwebs on the ceiling, fried bugs in light fixtures, crumbs in drawers, grimy cupboards, dusty window blinds, splattered refrigerators, encrusted ovens, sticky floors—and I needn’t describe what I find in most bathrooms.

Time to glove up and dive in. Before long the place looks worse than when I arrived. Cleaning supplies are scattered about; debris from drawers, cupboards, and window tracks has been brushed to the floor; the refrigerator and stovetop are dismantled; dust-laden light globes wait to be washed.

Then I look down at the stove and feel a tiny twinge of dread. Slowly, trepidatiously, I pull out the cavernous, dusty, hairy, unwieldy metal box suspended below the oven door. Those drawers give me the creeps (okay, not quite as bad as spidery, unfinished basements, but close).

What is it about those dirty drawers? For starters, I never know what I’ll discover when I open it. Petrified orts and dust are a given. Oven cleaner drips—probable. Will I see a grungy broiler pan in dire need of steel wool and elbow grease? Will there be rusty baking pans to discard? And when I wrestle that drawer free from the stove, what will I find underneath? Rodent droppings—or even, heaven forbid, a dead mouse? (Better than a live one, I’ll give you that.) Piles of cat hair embedded in layers of bacon drippings? Moldy chunks of bygone suppers amidst lost toys, papers, and tea bags? Whatever I uncover, I will be forced to address it. 

I brush crumbs from the drawer and set it in a corner to wait its turn. I go about my business, cleaning the fridge inside and out, wiping toxic goo from the oven, scouring cupboard doors free of greasy fingerprints. I scrub the outside of the stove, even lifting the stovetop to scrape away cooked-on spills under the burners. I pull appliances out of their nesting sites, sweep and mop the area around and under, then push them back in place. 

Still, that drawer waits, taunting me from the corner. I cannot declare the kitchen clean until I have dealt with that monster. I will not allow myself to change out of my soggy rubber gloves until I have made my peace with the drawer and set it back in place.

No more stalling. I cheer myself on (“You can do this . . . just get it over with”) and dip a used rag into my bucket of not-so-fresh soapy water. No point tainting clean rags or water on the first go-round. I spray degreaser on the stuck-on filth. The drawer has sharp corners and is awkward to handle, making it difficult to maneuver without scratching the floor, ripping a glove, or scraping myself. I rinse my rag, dip in suds again, and tackle the outside. Dust and cat hair cling to my rag and me. Rust crumbles to the floor and stains my rag. In time, every surface of this clumsy drawer has tasted soap and water. I finish it off with a clean wipe ’n’ dry, and slide it back into place beneath the oven door. One more stove drawer conquered. My shoulders relax a bit.

I realize my dirty drawer dread is somewhat irrational—procrastination often is. Many chores are more disgusting, exhausting, and time-consuming. But that drawer is the thing that elicits a visceral reaction.

It gets me thinking about the dirty drawers in my real life. Conflicts I avoid (if I put off that conversation long enough it might become irrelevant, right?), piles of paperwork that needed sorting months ago, a garage in desperate need of an overhaul. They may not be the biggest hurdles, but I tend to set them aside in the corner while I occupy myself with more comfortable tasks. 

Thankfully, tactics that work on the job also work at home. Facing down one dirty drawer after another, week after week, strengthens my get-it-done muscle. Three things that help . . . 

First, in most cases, the doing does not live up to the dread. (With one notable exception—plumbing repairs always go worse than they should. Dread is appropriate.) Once I complete a task, I often look back and think, That wasn’t so bad.  

Second, deadlines push us toward success. It’s good that I can’t move on from a kitchen until I’ve cleaned that drawer. At home, it’s amazing how the threat of company inspires me to clean bathrooms and mop floors. This blog post exists because I got tired of putting it off and set this weekend as my deadline.

Third, whether a job goes smoothly or not, the payoff is worth it. Of course, at work I’m motivated by a paycheck. No way would I clean one of those rentals for free. But money’s not the only reward. At the risk of sounding boring (I know, that train already left the station), I like to stand back and admire a kitchen that’s been transformed from slimy to shiny. I like knowing the room is clean, even in places nobody might look—such as the bottom of a stove drawer. I can take pride in having done my best. Isn’t that satisfaction one of the pure pleasures of life? 

Of course, the rewards are more meaningful and longer lasting when we complete a personal to-do. For example, keeping up a regular exercise routine (another of my dirty drawers) has begun to show results in the waistline as well as blood work numbers. And once I finish cleaning that garage, instead of trying not to look whenever I go out there, I will revel in the view. Won’t that be a thrill! (I told you I know how to have fun!) 

Next topic to ponder as I clean: How does cat hair end up in so many freezers? Hmmm. On second thought . . . I don’t want to know the answer to that one.