The Morning After

After my sponge bath last night, made possible by boiling one kettle full of water and mixing it in a plastic tub with two parts of cold water, I went to bed and woke up glorious. I’m in my new apartment!

Oh, Lordy, did I have my work cut out for me! While my furniture was tucked away inside the concrete bunker that never got any direct sunlight, I never noticed how dirty it was. I did go through it and clean all of the mold but it seems years of grime and cigarette smoke sheathed the exterior of what could be fine pieces of cabinetry and accent pieces. I never knew exactly how dirty it was until I saw the furniture in direct sunlight during the move. Also, all of the fixtures and all of the horizontal surfaces in the apartment needed to be cleaned. The windows were all dirt streaked. The floors were dusty.

The Chinese have a strange understanding of the ‘move in clean’ concept. Actually, they have a strange understanding of the concept of clean to begin with. Their ‘clean’ and my ‘clean’ are clearly not on the same page.

I know this by experience, first in Della’s kitchen when she felt that running meat under cold water and then preparing it for cooking on an age old, never-been-washed cutting board was acceptable (see Oxymorons sans Paradoxes entry, published in October of last year). My second experience came from Carrie Ann, who has a woman to come in and clean each week. Although Carrie Ann has a cabinet full of cleaning supplies, they are never touched. I actually watched the Ayi (Chinese for ‘Auntie’, as such women are known) clean everything from windows to floors with nothing but disinfectant and water. My latest experience with Chinese cleaning standards came when the school hired a cleaning team to tackle my rat-infested apartment. They too only hosed everything down with water and wiped things up, leaving mud streaks all over everything even though I offered them a full range of cleaning supplies.

Why should I be surprised to find that there is no such thing as a move-in clean in China?

I moved into my first apartment ‘as is’, with all of the grease left over from the previous tenants. I’m sure you remember my horror at discovering that, as recorded in the ‘Welcome Home’ entry published last year in September. This moving in was equally frightful, minus the grease.

The drapes and floor are new, so not much needed to be done there. However, there was a substantial amount of dust and dirt on the floor, and again, the furniture needed to be completely cleaned. On this, my first official day as tenant in my new apartment, I endeavored to tackle the cleaning before unpacking anything except for my cleaning supplies.

Famous last words. Because of that vow, I ended up living out of suitcases for another three weeks. But that is another story.

With no internet to distract me and no television to watch, I had nothing to do but clean. I started in the living room. It took no less than three rags and nearly half my can of Pledge to get the two bookshelves, the television stand and the end table clean.

By the way: have I told you I have found Pledge, Windex and Clorox? Those, coupled with the pinesol-smelling disinfectant Walch and the ever-popular Mr. Muscle, which is in fact an S.E. Johnson product, comprise my cleaning arsenal. And, in honor of my new laminate flooring, I added a nice floor care product. I am so ready to clean!

Too bad my rubber gloves have a hole in the index finger.

While my hands went to work on the cleaning my head went to work on where to put everything. My new kitchen is substantially smaller than my old one. It will not accommodate the washer, the dryer, the refrigerator I will get at some future date and everything else I had in my old kitchen. Where to put everything?

According to the movers and the maintenance crew, my washer belongs on the balcony just off the dining room while the dryer should go on the balcony off the living room. I had no choice where the washer is concerned; outside on the balcony is where the tap is. The dryer became a bone of contention between us. Not that I use my dryer that much, but I couldn’t see wasting the heat it generates during the winter months. Furthermore, who wants to go outside in the dead of winter with their arms full of cold, wet laundry?

They finally relented and allowed that the dryer could go in the kitchen. Upon later speculation, during my first cleaning day, I saw that leaving it there was impractical because I would have no room for a refrigerator if the dryer stayed. Maybe I could move it into the spare bedroom/office? That would be a great idea, except for the fact that I moved the monster wardrobe out of the dining room and into the hall.

It is OK, really. The wardrobe only takes up half of the hallway; I can walk down the other half. Matter of fact, I can even open up the doors to the wardrobe with no problems. What I can’t do is move the dryer down the hallway. So, on the balcony it goes, where there is no outlet. Looks like I won’t be using my dryer anytime soon.

On with the cleaning, cleaning and cleaning.

That first day I got the living room and dining room completely cleaned and unpacked. In case you’re wondering what I had to unpack for my living room and dining room: my books and gifts out of the footlockers, my television and DVD player set up, my shoes went into the shoe cabinet in the dining room just around the corner from the front door. I also unpacked my lamps rather than spend my first official evening in my new apartment under the glare of overhead fluorescent lights.

Now, at day’s end, I sit on the world’s ugliest couch and look around. The entertainment center, comprising of two matching bookshelves and one TV stand, gleam in the mellow lamp light. The glass doors cast their opposing furniture’s likeness in muted glow. The floor glistens, reflecting the darker wood of the furniture. Across the room in the dining area, the table, perfectly centered under the overhead light fixture is set to host a meal. The shoe cabinet stands a quiet sentinel to all that would venture in or out of my abode. It too received a thorough cleaning and glows proudly. There is no hope for the world’s ugliest couch.

So: that was the living room and dining room cleaning, all done up in one day. Now I just have the bathroom, the office, the kitchen and my bedroom to clean and unpack. I should be done in about 3 weeks.