Filth from other lives

It begins tonight.

The massive clean-up effort I have been dreading and somehow hoping, irrationally, would just kind of take care of itself is on the horizon. I imagined, for a brief and equally irrational moment, the clean house fairies would come in the night whisk away all the filth and grime, leaving behind nice shiny floors, sparkly tubs, pristine walls and a faint aroma of something sweet and wild.

I cannot, absolutely cannot, believe how filthy the former owners of our new home were. It's beyond disgusting and I'm anticipating the donning of elbow-length rubber gloves and using of many gallons of bleach to transform the place into semi-liveability, which should take, oh, the better part of a decade. Or maybe a few days.

There is dust and grime in places there shouldn't be dust and grime. How do the walls of a closet gather the dirt from hands? How? The bottom of the bathtub is black, thick with the oil and dirt from other people's bodies. *shudder* There is dust, at least 1/4-inch thick, coating the mirror bulbs in the bathroom. How does this happen? Oh, the agony of unsanitary disgustingness! My skin is crawling with imagined little germs and bugs just thinking of it.

I don't even want to talk about the kitchen. Oh. My. God.

All the walls will need new paint. I had hoped only a few would, but they are all absolutely filthy. A good bleach scrubbing followed by a fresh coat of paint will make all the difference.

The carpets, while in good condition overall, possess a considerable amount of ground-in dirt and a few stains. It's a very, very light gray, almost white, but will need at least three rounds of heavy-duty steam cleaning before I will walk across the sock-footed. More than that to walk across them barefooted.

Not only will the entire place need a physical cleaning and deep sanitation (I'm going to have to burn massive amounts of scented candles to get the overwhelming smell of dirt and dog out of the air), but it's also long overdue for a spiritual cleansing. I will probably do that tonight, and then again after the physical filth is gone. Lots of sage, lots of lavendar should to do the trick.

If cleanliness is close to godliness, those people are just a few steps from hell. (If I believed in such a place, of course!)