Bathroom Cleaning 101

Now that we have moved houses, we have had to give up our thrice weekly cleaning ladies. I know, you are probably feeling really bad for me right now!! They were part of the service that our old compound offered. We did negotiate into our new contract that the landlords would pay for a cleaning lady because we were unsure if our ayi could keep up with everything, especially since we cut back on her hours. I was prepared to start looking for another helper this week, when my ayi said that she could handle everything. I set up a schedule for her so she would know what I thought was most important to have clean! I also bought her cleaning supplies for each floor so she wouldn't have to constantly climb the stairs.

I finally realized two days ago that some lessons in cleaning might be helpful. Today we started with the bathroom and boy, am I glad we worked together. Although she spent most of the time giggling that I was scrubbing the toilet!! My sister T and I were laughing on the phone about what she probably told her family..."Oh yes, the tai tai today thinks I don't know how to clean the toilet, so I got her to do it!!". Anyway, I was amazed that I had to show her how to take everything off of the countertop and then clean. My rag was pretty dirty, so I am positive this was the first real clean that poor bathroom had had - gross!! When we got to the toilet, she told me that all she did was squirt the blue stuff in - I couldn't believe she hadn't been using the scrubbing brush! The shower was interesting, apparently she was just wiping down the doors - forget about the tile and soap scum!! I taught her which cleaning products would work best and then when I used them she claimed they were too smelly!! I proceeded to tell her that she needed to use a lot and that it was okay to use as many rags as necessary (she likes to use the same rag all day - more grossness!)!

I hope our session was a success, but I'm sure she will go back to using a tiny squirt here and a little drop here when I'm not looking!!