Today’s adventure involved a lot of elbow grease as I decided to turn my attention to my untidy environment. Not only had I not cleaned since the quake, I am having guests over on Monday to celebrate the Spring Equinox (Want to come? You’re invited!).
First, I pulled the plug on the emergency reservoir. The threat of huge aftershocks has passed now, and I have been watching the mildew creep across the grout in my bathroom for days. So drained the tub, bleached the walls, scrubbed everything, and felt a lot better.
The sun streaming through my windows showed off the dust to good effect, so I gave all the surfaces a swish with a towel. I also called on the sun to dry three loads of laundry I’d been letting pile up to conserve energy.
It’s easy enough to wipe and wash things without consuming power but what about the carpets? They were in bad need of vacuuming, but my vacuum consumes 1400 watts. I know how hard every TEPCO customer is trying to conserve power and I didn’t want to be the greedy one today. I’d already done three loads of wash and made both coffee and toast this morning. I felt like I’d had my share and maybe more.
I recalled my grandmother’s “carpet sweeper” with sweet longing. It was a sort of rotary brush and dustpan combination that lifted the crumbs from the floor when you rolled it across the carpet. I needed one of those – but wait…why not just use a broom?
I tried my little 100 yen kitchen broom and it helped but the bristles kept falling out. So I opted to go get a proper broom at the local housewares shop. I also bought a terrycloth toilet seat cover because it is shockingly cold now that I’ve unplugged the seat warmer in the otherwise unheated toilet room.
The new broom did the trick on the carpet, though it was a lot more effort than vacuuming The secret is short, quick strokes with more muscle power than sweeping a tile or wood floor, plus frequent use of the dust pan to keep the crumbs from getting matted into carpet. I swept the entire house in about 45 minutes. It’s imperfect but a big improvement!
I managed to get just about everything done before the sun set and I lost my light. I feel more comfortable in my clean house and virtuous that I didn’t have to use much electricity to get it done.
