Misadventures in Housecleaning

There is little I hate more than housecleaning.  I mean: racism, child abuse, Fran Drescher's voice, and housecleaning.  I'm a simple girl.

During my holidays in August, I decided it was high time I cleaned the house.  It has been awhile since we'd done more than tidy and do a light clean.  When you keep a house tidy clean all the time, the dirt sneaks up on you.  Especially if you haven't done a thorough clean since February or so.

I made myself a list -- 6 pages of list -- compiling all the things I needed to do in each room.  Washing walls, wiping baseboards, dusting, and... CARPET CLEANING.

We are lucky because my sister in law owns her own carpet cleaner; a fancy one complete with pet stain removers.  I borrowed it once from her and let it sit in the garage until she needed it back.  This time, however, I was determined.

I should have been more determined last time too.

I waited until The Guy was at work to start the cleaning.  I moved as much of the furniture out of the bedroom as I could, dusted, vacuumed, and prepared for the carpet cleaning.

Three swipes of the carpet cleaner, I assumed I was doing something wrong.  The cleaner kept leaving giant, wet, soggy, disgusting clumps of dust and hair on my carpet.  I assumed that it meant the cleaner itself wasn't working.  It had to be that.

I mean, it couldn't possibly mean that my carpets were that disgusting, right?

My carpets were that disgusting.

Two years of dust, dog hair, my hair and dirt had gathered to create the perfect storm of disgusting.  An hour, three changes of water, and two changes of cleaning fluid later the carpets looked like they were intended.  Clean.

It was then I looked out into the living room to see that the carpets were no longer the same colour.

I told The Guy he wasn't allowed to be home when I did the rest.  I figured if he saw what I had seen, he would either move or leave me.

And I wouldn't have blamed him one bit.