A Cleaner's Carol

Title reference: "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

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Christmas parties, and parties in general, have both a good and a bad side. Good side, of course, is that you get to drink a lot of free booze and get stoned, or, if you stay sober, to take pictures, while people embarrass themselves! (Tate has a lot of photos like that... Yeah, no surprise there, huh?) Bad side, on the other hand, is the extensive amount of cleaning that comes after the party. Especially for the unlucky hosts, if their guests choose to simply get up and leave, instead of helping put the mess back in order! I'd call it "anti-climatic", but that's not the right word for it...

Anyway, we had a similar experience after Christmas, when we hosted a big party to which most of our friends showed up... Only they didn't bother to stay and help with the cleaning, come morning! Yeah, to say that I was "really irritated", would be a misunderstanding! Still, I bit my tongue, prodded Tate until he woke up and curled out from under the table, and then did the unthinkable: I called Lulu and What-'s-Her-Name to come and help us with the cleaning! (Apparently, the two had managed to sneak out of the house, sometime last night... Sneaky!)

Luckily, they agreed to come and lend us a hand... And everything would have been just fine, if Lulu's friend hadn't decided to share more of her cleaning knowledge with us! Ah... I think I just came up with a Christmas wish!

Anyway, while picking up things off the ground, She-Who's-So-Boring, shared with us that for most end of tenancy cleaning professionals, like herself, it is not the house cleaning itself that can get bothersome, but what tenants leave behind for the house cleaning company to pick up after them.  Horror stories include live pets, collections of dirty condoms and years worth of old newspapers that had obviously doubled as intimate care products. She even went as far as to point some of her own personal favorites:

One time, while rummaging amongst the dozens of empty wine and champagne bottles that fueled the end of tenancy leaving party the night before, she actually found a living person! (Yeah, imagine that!) Who was he? O, you know... Just a party casualty leftover from the previous evening who was woken up, to his great surprise, only to find that all his mates had left and been replaced by a team of cleaners. The cleaners were kind enough to explain what had happened and send him off in the right direction.

A Florence and the Machine song, "You hit me once, I hit you back" comes to mind, when you hear the 2nd story, She-Who-Knows-All-About-Cleaning told us: a poor professional from an end of tenancy cleaning London company ound a bed that had seemingly been set on fire. Although the flat was otherwise very clean, the guest bed, one of the only remaining pieces of furniture in the flat, had had the sheets burnt off the bed. This particular scenario was complete with smoke stains rising up the headboard and wall. Luckily it had been put out and no one needed to call the fire department, though the next tenant would have been in the market for a new bed.

The last story, which I will share with you, just like it was shared with me is... creepy. But you'll find that one out for yourselves... Right now! You see, it turns out that one time, while deep cleaning the house of an elderly resident who had recently moved into a home, cleaners found a cat in the basement. Not a big deal particularly. Then they found several more cats, without a litter box in sight. Aside from the cleaning itself, they reported that the smell bordered on the unbearable. A bit of pet mess is one thing, but leaving all of your pets in the house when you move out is quite another. The cats had to be packed off to Battersea as the resident was, sadly, unwilling to claim them.

Yep, that one gave me the heebie-jeebies as well! Luckily, our after party cleaning brought nothing like that out into the daylight and in the end we all went for pizza and beer...

Am I wrong, or does that sound like double-dating to you too?!