It Starts...

I'll be the first to admit that I am not always the most tidy of people. For proof, you can look in my bedroom. However, I spend so little time in my room, and most of that is spent sleeping, so having a cluttered room doesn't bug me as badly as it probably should. That being said, I do enjoy having a tidy apartment--especially the parts where I spend time: the front room, where I watch TV or play the occasional game of Mario Kart, the kitchen, where it's nice to have clean spaces for food preparation, the dining area, where, if I get crazy and decide to eat at the table, I can do that, free from crumbs and over-flowing trash cans sitting in the corner, and lastly, having a clean bathroom is always nice.
I have two roommates, and that in and of itself can prove difficult to keep a place clean. However, two of us do a decent job at maintaining the place. The other, not so much. I don't know how, but I gather that said roomie never learned how to do basic chores. When I moved in ten months ago, the place was pretty filthy. As dysfunctional as my previous living situation was, you could always say that the place was clean, but I needed to find a new place and went with this one even though it was dirty, and I have liked it a lot. However, when I moved into the current place, the two roommates had been sharing the bathroom that I now was going to be sharing with one of them for about six months (I don't know if it had been cleaned in that time, or how long it had been prior to that). I made a special trip to the store that day to buy cleaning supplies so that I could clean the shower before actually jumping in to take a shower (now, after observing the situation for ten months, I think that the one who likes things clean just decided to give up on the house and let it go).
Now, one of the roommates is gone on travel for work for about a month, leaving me and the not-so-tidy one in the house for the majority of the summer. On Tuesday, I decided that I would do an experiment to see just how dirty the house would have to get for him to clean up after himself. The impetus for this? About two weeks ago, said un-tidy roommate was in the front of the apartment with a lady friend, while the other two of us were in the back just chilling out in our rooms. I heard the girl say something like "should I put this in the dishwasher?" To which this response was given: "It's a guys apartment, don't worry, somehow it'll get clean." I thought "Um, no. Maybe that's how you think it works, but in the reality, somebody's got to take care of it." Up until then, I hadn't gotten too angry about cleaning after him, thinking that letting it irritate me would only get to me and make me unhappy. Now, I'm thinking where it's just the two of us, I'm gonna let it go, and only clean up after myself, and see how long I can take it. So Tuesday, I decided to clean the house to start from zero and see what happens. I got it fairly clean and will probably finish things this weekend, making sure to not clean the places where he will have dirtied between Wednesday and then. I shall photograph the progress and post it here.

Note the two garbage cans. I purchased the larger as it was becoming irritating to empty the smaller one, which used to sit under the sink until traveling roomie cleaned the whole place and found remnants of critters under there (they are gone now, and the small can is no longer under the sink). I think I will actually sort out my trash and take it out, however I need to devise a scheme that is neither obvious, nor disgusting.

Shiny, clean kitchen. The floor needs mopping, and I will organize the dishes in the cupboards when I unload the dishwasher from the last load of dishes I ran this morning.

Front room. I will vacuum it on Saturday. Note the letters and flashlight are not mine. The book is, but it's supposed to be there as a coffee table book.

The hallway. When I moved in, there was a pile of dust and hair along the walls, the length of the hallway. I pulled part of it up in a solid, three foot strip.

Ultimately, I figure I'll probably cave and get sick of seeing junk on the coffee table, or will be revolted by the mass of dishes that will inevitably pile up in the sink. But at least I'll try to have fun with it in the meantime.