The Missing Gene

Cleaning fail - again

I have a genetic defect.

It's not life-threatening or anything, and it has not actually been officially diagnosed, but I know I have it. Didn't even need House, or Dr Google to figure it out. When I think about it, it's been staring me in the face all these years.

It's the cleaning gene - one that I presume is normally attached to the X chromosome. Well, mine is missing. Or defective.

This epiphany came to me last year as I finished washing the car. (I don't actually do that often, but after the duststorms we had in Australia, it was obvious, even to me, that the car had to be washed.)

As I waited for it to dry, I knew what to expect. There. Plain as day. All the bits I'd missed. Cleaning Fail. Again.

This happens to me whatever I clean. I'll finish up a vacuuming cleaning session, unplug, wind in the cord and pull it apart. Only then do I see the patches I've missed. The dust bunnies that got away. The cobwebs still hanging there, leering at me.

It's not just that I'm crap at cleaning. I just don't have the drive or urge to clean that seems to be typical of many women. And the last time I gave the refrigerator a good clean, I broke one of the glass shelves.

We all know the classic depiction of a woman's cleaning urges. It even has a name - nesting. Just before you have a baby, right?

Bzzzt. Not with me. Three babies. Never got it. Never understood it. At a time when you are feeling like a cross between a beached whale, and an overweight hippo, and when tying your shoelaces is verging on the impossible, why on earth would you be cleaning windows, or getting down on your hands and knees scrubbing skirting boards?

But I've always felt there was something wrong with me because I didn't have this urge - this drive - to ensure that my house was clean and sparkling, particularly for my precious new babies.

For me just keeping on top of the household cleaning is a struggle. I fall into some sort of time warp. I have an inability to time manage and monitor what needs doing. ‘Gee,' I'll think, ‘the shower needs a clean again already? I only did that a couple of days ago.. oh.. hmm, maybe it was last week. No.. longer. Oops.'

Sure, I can see what needs doing, but I have this fantastic ability to put it off till ‘tomorrow.' And tomorrow. And tomorrow.

So, oh what relief when I found this quote: ‘Don't you just hate housework? You make the beds, you do the dishes...and six months later you have to start all over again.' Ha ha, I thought. It's not just me! And I'm not even that bad!

But you have to start questioning yourself when you put off inviting people to dinner because of the state of the house. And when talking with other women about what they'll do when we get home after an exhausting day out, they say they are going to mop the kitchen floor, or do the ironing (which is not cleaning, but it's housework all the same) - and I know that all I'll be doing is collapsing in front of the computer to catch up with my favourite blogs and the latest posts on PRG.

One clue to there being a hereditary pattern to my... er... condition was my paternal grandmother. She had a little decorated tile hanging on her wall. ‘My house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy.' I wonder. Was there a little seed of an idea planted back then, or is it just a totally genetic thing?

I take some comfort in the fact that, despite the obsession with anti-bacterial everything, there are modern day versions of her tile available in abundance - such as fridge magnets that read ‘You can look at the dust, just don't write in it,' ‘Dull women have immaculate houses' and ‘Housework won't kill you, but why take the chance?'

And it cheers me to see that others are brave enough to confess in a public forum. Patently I'm not alone with this defect, but I could do with some solidarity. Is there a support group anywhere that I'm not aware of  - or should I start one?