My apartment is on the ground floor, right next door to the laundry room and very near the dumpsters. This location is good and bad. It’s convenient living near them, I just walk out my door to take out the trash and do the laundry. But I have to deal with the noise of the dumpsters and the trash trucks. And the stink of other peoples’ laundry products (I use scent/dye free because I’m allergic to most scents and the other 2/3 of my family have sensitive skin prone to hives with scented/dyed laundry stuff), which is really really irritating.
Next to the dumpsters is our apartments’ version of freecycle. There’s frequently a small pile of stuff out there, usually, you know, junk. Broken chairs and chipped dishes. Occasionally there’s a gem when someone is moving, though. We were sad to see a family from upstairs moving because it included two kids that Rebecca played with frequently. I did benefit, though. I got a fan that looks new and works great. Not so useful NOW, when it’s raining, but next summer we’ll be glad of it since one of ours broke this year.
Oh, let me backtrack. Several weeks ago my Omop broke. I was really sad about it because I loved that mop. Well, I mean, I hate mopping, but that was a pretty good mop. I like their mopping fluid, too, smells good. Do any of you remember when I got it and Rebecca “helped” me by mopping the kitchen? She’d seen me clean with various combinations of vinegar, baking soda, Dr. Bronner’s soap. One day while I was in the shower, she dumped a nearly full box of baking soda and half the bottle of Method lemongrass mopping fluid on the floor and pushed it around with my new Omop. Omg the mess, and it sort of fucked up the finish on the cheap linoleum. Oops. Anyway. My Omop broke and I stood it up in the corner of the kitchen and finished the job on my hands and knees and then procrastinated on dealing with it. I figured I’d research new mops, I didn’t really have a plan. One day Ed asked me about it and I sort of shrugged and he first suggested I just use it with the broken handle, but he threw it out when I gave him A Look. A few days later I went online, actually looking for information about whether this was a problem with Omops, wondering if they’d improved the design or something. I was thinking I’d just buy a new one if they had. Which is how I found out yes, they had, and in fact would send me a new one if I had either the packaging, the receipt or a photo of the broken mop. Ugh. Oh well.
But today, thanks to my neighbor that moved, I have a Swiffer Wet-something-or-other that appears to have been used only a few times. There was also half a box of the disposable cleaning thingies with it, but the microfiber cloth from my Omop fits on it just fine (and works better, I did half the floor with the Swiffer thingy and half with the microfiber). I like the squirty bottle, I wonder if I can refill it with something else. Yay clean floor!
I also got a little vacuum cleaner that looks nearly new. It’s small and I suspect it might not do for us long-term. But my vacuum cleaner has been noticeably… not so healthy lately and I’ve been worried because I can’t afford a new one right now. I could probably get it repaired, but still, hello back-up. There was also a shiny new red bucket full of cleaning products. I took the bucket, left the stinky cleaning crap. I’m not sure why she was getting rid of these things. It honestly looks like she bought a bunch of stuff to clean her apartment after they moved their things, and then just dumped them when she left.
And I don’t know why she didn’t just leave a robot that would clean Rebecca’s room, too? Because gosh, I could really use one of those.
Edited to add: I found this Instructible on how to remove the cap of the swiffer wetjet bottle.
