Matt Heath: Why cleaning is a slippery slope

Be warned, young people of New Zealand, cleaning is a slippery slope. Photo / 123RF

OPINION:

Are you doing too much housework? Are you a cleaning pest? If so, what, if anything, should you do about it?

I work with a lot of people in their early 20s. Most of them live in disgusting pigsty flats. One of them has had enough and has decided to turn his life around. He said to me last week, "I am so gross, I have to start cleaning up after myself".

Overall, I think this is a good thing. I know his landlord will appreciate it. We have all heard horror stories of messy tenants and their beer-soaked carpets, mouldy curtains, broken toilet seats, piles of rubbish and smeared walls.

While studying at Otago University, I enjoyed living in filth. Nowadays, I have gone completely the other way. I am too clean. I got a taste for tidying and I can't stop.

If you are looking you can always find something that needs cleaning. Over time the goalposts of messy move towards the minutiae.

When the relationship with the mother of my children ended a few years ago, I bought a townhouse. This place is a trap. Modern apartment-style living enables over-cleaners to indulge themselves. It's so sterile, any little spot of dirt screams at you.

I have the kids half the time, leaving a whole week to indulge in an orgy of housework. A man who once pushed 200 beer bottles to one end of a room and put a rug over when guests were coming over is now running a hand Dyson as well as a normal vacuum and sucking my entire place dry twice a day.

Where I used to let the dishes pile up till they fell over, I now stress if there's a single bowl sitting in the sink for more than 5 minutes.

When friends come over, I spend the whole time hovering around them waiting to recycle their bottles. I spend more time wiping the bench, sweeping up and collecting glasses than I do talking to people.

Are you doing too much housework? Photo / 123RF

Be warned, young people of New Zealand, cleaning is a slippery slope.

Yesterday I spotted a single needle leaf on the 12th step of a flight of stairs in my house. Instead of picking it up or ignoring it as a sane person would, I immediately ran to the cupboard and feverishly fitted the small attachment to the V15 Detect Complete. I shoved that bad boy into its powerful, battery-draining boost function, got down on my knees and carefully cleaned all 28 steps.

While working at ground level, it become clear that the tiny wooden edging along the stairwell was slightly dusty. So I got a cloth and some Spray N Wipe and went hard on both sides.

Then, I decided the sparklingly clean bannister could use some attention, then the walls, then the roof, and then I remembered I had another flight of stairs.

On the way through the lounge, I wondered if it was clean under the couch pillows. It was. So I gave it a good blast anyway. I was about to remove the perfectly fine couch covers and put them through the wash when I realised I had lost my freaking mind.

We evolved from nomadic tribes. Until a few thousand years ago, we carried everything we owned on our backs. We were born to sleep rough.

There is plant life everywhere in our natural environment. Our ancestors bedded down under the stars on piles of rocky, insect-infected mud - and loved it. Now one tiny leaf in my horribly sanitised life leads to an hour-long cleaning witch hunt.

Worse still, I love doing it. I blast music and go into a zombie-like housework frenzy. It's a drug. It's an addiction. It's revolting, and it has to stop.

My cleaning is more disgusting than my workmates' filthy flats. My reverse pigsty is a crime against humanity. It's a disinfected insult to our predecessors.

To my 22-year-old friend embarking on a life of cleaning, I am the ghost of Christmas future. A cautionary tale of a messy man who let tidying go to his head. So clean up, my young friends, but only enough to get your bond back.