Original title: When 4 Hours Feels Like 14
OK. I realize there are many situations where 4 hours can feel like 14: a really bad first date, a half day meeting at work, shopping. But today I’m talking about cleaning the basement. I hauled heavy shit into the “dump pile”, I cleaning off shelves that haven’t been cleaned in probably 20 years, I vacuumed cobwebs off the ceiling, and I cut up more than 100 boxes for recycling. O. M. G.
Now I’m sitting in the living room trying to recover. I took a long, hot shower [which helped immensely], threw out the shoes I was wearing because they were covered in nasty basement water and moldy cardboard feculence†, then swallowed 4 Motrin with a large glass of wine. And yes, Mom, I know that if I hurt my back I’ll pay for it for the rest of my life… 😛 I believe it’s just muscle strain. Very painful muscle strain, but nothing I haven’t felt before. Getting old sucks.
Here’s what the basement looks like now. Clean, organized, freshly vacuumed:
There have always been a set of shelves loaded with trash & junk in the center of the basement. They’re adjacent to the area I cleaned 3 years ago to store our excess stuff. But we have a relatively new tenant in the 3rd condo and she’s had to store all her stuff on the floor. I wanted to create at least a small area she could call her own! Hopefully Sarah will be able to make good use of the clean shelves:
I also organized the 2 common area shelving units in the far room of the basement:
And I completely clogged the little area where we access our electrical boxes with stuff for the dump. I’ve only ever made one dump run but I’ll definitely be making a 2nd trip this spring!!! I might have to rent a truck…:
I spent about 20 minutes just vacuuming spider webs off the ceiling SHUDDER. At one point the webs were so thick that the vacuum hose actually got stuck in mid-air. How gross is that???:
Here’s a closeup of the 100+ boxes I cut up:
I filled 2½ yard/leaf bags with packing that came from the boxes! At some point I’ll have to pull the boxes from the pile into manageable piles and tie them with string to leave on the curb. But that’s a job for another day!
† I had never heard of “feculence” before, but it’s my new favorite word. I ♥ Thesaurus.com 🙂
Our basement ended up flooding so badly in March that we had to hire a junk removal company to come and remove a ton of stuff!
Well done! That could not have been a fun job, but now its done and you can enjoy the clean and organized basement. I bet the other people in your building love you!
After living in apartments houses for 20 years, with very messy common basements full of crap from god knows how many tenants, I vowed that when I owned a house I’d have the cleanest basement ever. So even though there’s 2 other condos in our house, I have taken it upon myself to make sure we have the cleanest basement ever. I’m sure they appreciate it 🙂
Sounds like you have your energy back! Basements are gross to clean. You deserved that wine! Good job!
Yes, it’s definitely coming back! Not all the way, but close – it’s awesome 🙂 Yes, basements are very gross to clean, but I like to do it every couple of years to try and stay on top of it. Otherwise it just gets away from you and you never have the energy to even start.
I think you should have organized a work crew – i.e. everybody who lives in your building. Then your hours probably could have been cut in half. At our condo in Marblhehead, we all worked together and it was fun (almost).
Dude. Good idea in theory, but I’d never ask anyone except the other condo owners to help, and I doubt they care about the junk they don’t have to see and live with all the time. The condo fees will cover the dump run, like last time. That’s their contribution.
Plus it’s not Kathy’s and Sarah’s junk, it’s just common crap that’s sat down there for way longer than I’ve lived here. If I didn’t do it, no one ever would. Since my wood shop is down there, I stare at it the most and it annoys me the most, so every couple of years I clean it. And every time I clean it, it gets better and better 🙂 And it’s a project, and I do love a good project.
Plus it’s not healthy to breath that air when you’re pulling junk from shelves that has sat there for so long. I wore my respirator for all 4 hours, which sucked, but it was worth it!
You did an awesome, in the true sense of the word, job down there. I guess it was an early birthday present from you to everyone who lives there!