the smell

We have the keys to our house. It's ours.

But it doesn't feel like mine yet. Mostly because it doesn't smell like anywhere I'd live. Smokers. Grr. Did the tenants have, like, 25 people chain smoking 24/7 for the past four years? How can a place smell like that?

And grime. Grr. The young, male tenants who lived there before us did not clean anything, for a long long time before we came. There's dirt on the inside of the windows. The kitchen is a greasy grime fest- I'm actually going to have to throw away the kitchen blinds, they're so putrid. They didn't even vacuum before they left. What is wrong with them? I mean, I couldn't leave a house looking like that.

Being pregnant I'm not allowed to bleach or use caustic or bomb the house to clean it. Fighting the urge to White King the whole place is taking all my energy. I like a clean house and I like to clean my own house, you know? I am a passionate Enjo user, but I'm not using my beautiful cloths on that house until I have sugar soaped and bleached every surface. Then we can go chemical-free cleaning!

Also I know it's silly to spend too much time cleaning, as we are ripping out the carpet, painting the walls and doing something to the bathroom, within the next three weeks. But I just can't have it so grubby in the meantime. Because of the smell.