Wednesday, November 13, 2019

The dirtiest jobs are mine

My sister can do a lot. She's quite handy (even produces furniture), she can cook, she can sew, she can cut hair, ... but she doesn't like to clean up dirty stuff. So that part falls to me!

Like today. I'd have to clean out a container. Here in Flanders, we have these green containers for waste of vegetables, fruit and greenery. They are provided to each household by the town council and for a small fee you can present them to be emptied on Tuesday mornings. As you can imagine, it takes quite a while before a container of 120 liters is full. Especially when your household is only two people and generally you don't have too much waste. So the container stays outside for months until it's time to get emptied. And it stinks.

When it gets emptied, the stench is heavier than ever. So I pick up the container from the pavement where it is left by the guys who empty it, bring it through the house (and it was raining) and put it outside where it belongs. Then I cleaned up the house, especially where I had passed with the dirty container. That done, I got to the task of cleaning up the container a bit. I use a lot of water, containing bleach. That takes away the stench of rot. I have a broom which I only use for this task, and scrub the walls of the container until there's nothing more clinging to them. At last it has to dry out some and after that it can be used once more. I don't want dirty clothes when putting something inside!

Luckily I don't mind doing this. I have special gear to wear for cleaning dirty objects (and old coat, old shoes, long plastic gloves, ...) and I try not to think of the stench.

What about you?

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