The Man On The Galloping Horse

No, not the Lone Ranger, but the galloping ghost of housework.

I was trained in housework by my mother who ran a pretty tight Germanic ship dirt-wise in spite of the size and rowdiness of our family. No floor considered clean unless it was scrubbed on hands and knees.  No toilet spared the disinfecting bleach rinse. Dusting to include the part of the side table that was under the doily. Clean towels every day, and I assure you our house was no luxury hotel. Achtung, Baby!

Do I follow in her footsteps, mop in hand, scrub brush at the ready? No, I do not. I follow in the footsteps of my paternal grandmother, Nanny, an altogether more lackadaisical housekeeper.  Her standard was that if something (dirt, scum, crack in the plaster, baked-on grease, dust bunny) was "not so's a man on a galloping horse would notice," that meant it was clean enough for anyone, or at least anyone as Irish as we were.  

I am a lucky woman.  I have the good-enough cleaning service every other week, and while they are not up to my mother's standard, they are not of the galloping horse variety either. 

But even a tidy, relatively clean house inhabited by two adults can harbor things that will knock the Man right off his Galloping Horse.

A couple of weeks ago we returned home after a few days away to be met by the dreaded mold smell. The dehumidifier was turned on immediately even if it was 40 degrees outside.  But the mold smell lingered. It took me a few days (told you I took after Nanny) but eventually I realized that the dehumidifier didn't do a darned thing for the source of the stench:  the garbage disposal.

Being the lazy-ass sloven that I am, I tossed a used-up lemon in it and called it a day.  For the next few days I focused on the lemony aroma instead of the lingering moldiness.

It was only when something (turned out to be date pits) was rattling around in the disposal and I had to stick my hand in it to pull it out (yeah, yeah, I know that is worse than running with scissors) and I inadvertently yanked the rubber gasket out that I saw it:  the layer of sludge all over it, and, as it turned out, all over the other non-removable gasket, including the invisible, but reachable, underside.

Okay, it wasn't this bad.
I didn't have to put on a bunny suit to clean it.

Skeeve! Gag! Retch! I almost grabbed for the bleach, but then I thought that it would probably do something dire to the plastic gasket, and then I'd be off to the races trying to track down a replacement which would cost $7.13 plus $6.00 postage.

Turns out that white vinegar works.  Makes your house smell like a pickle factory, but it works. Eventually. After a lot of scrubbing.  A lot of soaking. A lot of scraping with a toothpick. A lot of sticking your hand into the garbage disposal with a vinegar soaked paper towel wrapped around your fingers. 

Later I found this charming article from Fluff-Po that recommends using vinegar ice cubes. Tempting, but after once hearing a story about how my husband's grandmother ate a tub of sherbet that turned out to be brine shrimp fish food I have never liked to put oddments like vinegar ice cubes in my freezer.

I know that I told you the other day that my mantra was Honey Badger Don't Care, but I'm here to tell you that if Mold can knock the Man off the Horse, it can kick Mantra's wimpy butt any day.