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Dana K. White

A SLOB COMES CLEAN

Reality-Based Cleaning, Decluttering, & Organizing

 

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A Few of My Best Tricks

October 31, 2009 By Dana White | 6 Comments

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This title makes you think that you’re about to learn some great tips on keeping things clean around the house, right?

You’re not.

These are a few of my tricks. You know, the things that I do to keep from letting people see my deep, dark slob secrets.

My father in law spent the night last night so he and hubby could leave early this morning. No problem. Except that we weren’t going to be here when he got here. We had plans, so we just said for him to come on in and make himself comfortable.

Now, I’ve been doing better lately. I don’t panic when the doorbell rings. But I do run and shut the door to my master bedroom before I let someone in the house. And I guard that door with the eyes of a hawk. If anyone even walks in that general direction, I jump up and find a reason to walk with them. Our wedding picture hangs by the door to the master, and if they stop to say how much younger we looked (translate thinner) my heart beats a little faster.

So, to let someone in my house when I’m not here is a big risk for me. What if he looks in our closets?

My normal defense is to lock the master bedroom door. This was a great idea in our old house where the key for the master hung in the hall cabinets and the door could be easily opened if needed. The problem here? I can’t unlock the door without getting a screwdriver and taking off the entire doorknob. Since my husband would be getting home later than me last night, I didn’t think this was an option. My father-in-law would definitely have offered to help.

So I found a solution. No, not cleaning up the room, that would be crazy. Our light in there is part of a ceiling fan, and there is only one switch on the wall. So, if you pull the cord for the light, the wall switch will only turn on the fan, and the light will not come on. Since it would be dark by the time he got there, I just made it so that if he happened to try to peek in there (there’s a 99.9% chance that it would never occur to him to do that, but I can’t take that risk), if he tried to flip the light on, it wouldn’t work and he’d never see the room.

Other tricks I’ve used? When we lived in an apartment, our one bathroom had two doors, with one of the doors going into our master bathroom. It only locked from the bathroom side, since normal people probably only need to to lock people out of the bathroom, not out of the bedroom.

I would lock it anyway on that side, hoping that if they tried that door out of curiosity, that it being locked, even from their side, would deter them from looking. They would feel guilt about having tried to open a locked door, and would give up. Right? I tell myself that no one ever unlocked it and looked into the room, since no one ever ran out of the apartment immediately after leaving the bathroom.

I also hung curtains in our playroom because it’s an enclosed patio and there are windows from the gameroom/office into it. Fantastic for keeping an eye on my kids while I’m on the computer, but if we had people over, I didn’t want anyone to go to the playroom and be able to see into the crazy chaotic office/dumping ground.

How sad is it that this is how I use my creative problem-solving energy?

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Filed Under: My Survival Techniques | 6 Comments

Comments

  1. Teresa says

    August 20, 2012 at 8:40 pm

    Hey, been there, done that. Maybe not those exact things, but very similar. For instance, bagging up all of the dirty dishes and stashing them in the garage. And then picking up a bunch of paper plates and plastic cups and flatware. It worked for a little while until I needed to find the pots and pans.

    Reply
    • Elise says

      October 9, 2019 at 6:27 am

      I once hid my dirty dishes back in the cabinets 🙈

      Reply
  2. Kristy K. James says

    July 20, 2013 at 2:51 am

    We do what we have to do when the need arises. Personally, I cannot imagine opening a closed door in anyone’s house. Ever. If the door is closed, I recognize it as being off limits, and would never violate their trust in me by snooping where they don’t want me. It’s too bad everyone doesn’t live by that moral code. 🙁

    Reply
    • Anonymous says

      October 9, 2019 at 6:33 am

      One time I was visiting someone there was a second door in the bathroom which was slightly open. Then I looked… turned out what kept the door closed was something which was holding against the door from the back. And whatever that was fell over when I pushed the door! Yeah, I know, shame on me! Another good trick though.

      Reply
  3. Momofthree says

    October 25, 2013 at 1:46 pm

    Our bathroom has two doors too and one leads in to our office which happens to be the room where all of our junk is thrown to be hidden from guests. I tend to go the extra step of blocking the door from the office side in addition to locking the doorknob on the bathroom side. Our washer/dryer are in our main floor bathroom and I have learned that you can fit an awful lot of dirty laundry in that dryer if you need to hide it at the last minute…

    Reply
  4. Chris says

    March 20, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    Couldn’t you just buy a doorknob replacement that wouldn’t require you to remove it each time? You have given me more hope than the many other things I’ve tried. Our reasoning, among other things, is like I could write your blog almost word for word..Loved your book,got the kindle edition! Reading your blog backward now and loving this too.

    Reply

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